1. How do you approach the balance between psychological terror and visceral horror in
your films?

Another way to put this might be to consider “dread” versus “scares.” “Dread” is the creation of the sense that there is danger; that something is wrong. Dread puts the audience on edge,and makes them concerned for the characters (and by extension themselves). Dread preparesthe audience for the scare, so the scare has maximum effect when it does arrive. The scare iswhere we pay off the dread – the AHHH! THERE IT IS! aspect of horror.
By way of example, think of the scene in THE EXORCIST in which Chris MacNeil comes
home to find all of the lights in the house randomly flickering. The lights in and of
themselves aren’t scary, but they suggest that something is wrong, “broken,” not working
properly; intermittently hiding her surroundings in the darkness. The house has been infected
by something that affects her reality.
Then she hears a sound in the attic. The sounds aren’t terrible scary; it’s rustling that she at
first assumes to just be rats. But she bravely goes up to the attic to see for herself, increasing
the dread and tension by degrees. Until finally we get the scare when her candle flares up in
her face – the AHHH! that both gives the audience the fun jump of being scared, and also
pays off and releases the tension.
In DEATH METAL I tried to apply this thinking with a combination of dread and scares.
The first act is mostly about setting up the characters and their situation, but we still get a
sense that something is watching them, lurking at the edges of their perception. Shadia has
noticed there is something wrong with Ivan, and through her we’re left to wonder what is
going on with this guy. Then when they first hear the Devil’s Concerto, note that we don’t
hear an actual song; the film uses sound and visuals to create the feeling of listening to this
cursed song.
From that point forward, we’re building a sense of lurking dread. For example, Shadia seeing
the Composer outside the barn. That by itself isn’t scary, but between that ghostly sighting,
and the odd situation of seeing Anya walk into the barn only to vanish tells the audience that
something is wrong, there is danger. So when we do go to the big, gory scare beats the hope
is the dread has prepared the audience’s mood to react.

2. Can you discuss the role of suspense and anticipation in creating a truly chilling
cinematic experience?

Somewhat continuing the thought from above re: dread and scare... The one services the
other. We can have a scare without dread, but that’s basically just shouting “Boo!” at the
audience; this is where you get beats like a cat randomly jumping out of a closet. A scare
without dread is okay to a degree; at least the horror movie is trying to scare the audience.
But dread is what builds the suspense that really takes the scare to the next level.
Looking again at the EXORCIST franchise, there is that famous jump scare in the hospital
hallway scene in EXORCIST III. That scare is as effective as it is because we spend so much
time with the nurse, watching her go about her duties. In this case, nothing even particularly
dreadful is happening to tell us something is “wrong.” All the audience knows is they came
to see a horror movie, and they’re sure the movie is showing them this long scene with the
nurse for a reason, so it’s the anticipation of waiting to see what will happen, what kind of
scare will pay it off.
On the flipside, you might have too much dread and not enough scares. This is a criticism
that’s sometimes given to “slow burn” arthouse-horror type films. The building of the dread
is so subtle, over such a long time, that some audience members might grow bored. And if
the film doesn’t pay off this long, slow build of dread with a truly massive EXORCIST III-
level scare they’re left to think, “That’s it?”
Both dread and scares have value, in the same way that the verse and chorus have
complementary value of songwriting. The trick in cinematic horror storytelling is to find that
balance that best frightens the audience.

3. In the realm of horror, how do you navigate the fine line between pushing boundaries and
potentially alienating your audience?

It comes down to understanding your audience, and the best way to do so is to start as a part
of the audience. Be a fan of horror, and watch as many horror movies as you can. But all the
while, have the ability to step back and examine your own thinking and ask... okay, you like
X, but why? You don’t like Y, but why? Why does Z work but Y doesn’t? And on top of that
see horror movies with a live audience and listen to the reaction; pay attention to the scenes
that really grab people.
For example, I recall when I saw the American remake of THE GRUDGE there is a scene in
which a character buzzes someone into her building. Almost instantly, there is a knock at her
apartment door, which is impossible because it would have taken a long time for her visitor
to get from the ground floor of her building all the way up to her apartment. That weird
moment of strangeness and dread made several people in the audience giggle. But it wasn’t
the laughter of people making fun of the movie; it was a nervous reaction to the fact that this
sudden knock is strange, and wrong, and the character is now likely in danger though she
doesn’t yet know it.
The audience knows they came to see a horror movie, which by nature is going to be horrible
and horrifying. If they didn’t want the boundary-pushing aspects of the horrible and the
horrifying they wouldn’t see a horror movie; they would go watch any other kind of movie.
So to a certain degree the film has to give the audience what they bought a ticket to see.
At the same time, seeing a horror movie is at core something people do because it seems like
fun. Like a rollercoaster. There are some films that work because they are very bleak, for
instance MARTYRS. MARTYRS isn’t fun, and isn’t meant to be fun. But it’s very scary.
AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON is also very scary, but it’s also a fun movie.
So again we’re talking about a) understanding the audience and their expectations; b)
understanding the artistic and commercial intention of the piece. Are we working to give the
audienece a popcorn-scare fun night at the movies? Or are we working to really drag them
into the darkness? There is a value to both, but the filmmaker has to understand the intention,
and see the film through the audience’s eyes.

4. What draws you to explore the darker aspects of human nature through the medium of
horror films?

I think it’s possible to argue that horror films are the ultimate expression of the power of
cinema as an artistic and narrative form.
A movie is at core the use of technology to create a shareable dream. Each dream is primarily
crafted to affect a specific emotional experience from the audience. The different types of
emotional experiences are defined by genre. So a comedy is funny, a thriller is thrilling, an
action movie is exciting, and so on.
If all of these genres are expressions of different kinds of sharable dreams, then the horror
movie is the nightmare. Now we have to ask, why would anyone want to create a nightmare
that can be shared with others? Even more strangely, why would anyone pay to experience
that shareable nightmare?
Because: It’s powerful. Cinema as an artform is the presentation of a series of images and
sounds in an attempt to evoke a specific emotional reaction from the audience. And to quote
Lovecraft: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.” A film that works to create
fear is going to create the most powerful emotional reaction of any kind of film.
Thus, a horror movie is the most powerful type of film that can be made. And if art has a
whole is an expression of the human experience, what better way to use the artform of
cinema to explore the human experience than with a horror movie?
To ask what people are afraid of is to discover what they care about. If the audience is
frightened, they are invested; if they are invested, they are engaged. There is no separation
between the film and the audience’s mind.
On top of that, the audience knows they are safe. They are sitting at home, in a familiar place;
or they are sitting in a dark room full of strangers, but it’s a theater which they know to
generally be a non-dangerous setting. And yet they are scared, and they want to be! How
wonderful is that?

5. How do you use symbolism and allegory in your horror movies to comment on societal
fears or issues?

I haven’t yet made a movie that is primarily about a social or cultural concern. Which isn’t to
say I can’t or won’t, but thus far I’ve been focused on films that are about more universal
aspects of the human experience; things that are inside us, as opposed to outside.
For example, DEATH METAL, thematically speaking, is about a longing for immortality, a
hope that this short life we have isn’t all there is. Ivan lost his parents at an early age; he isn’t
a religious person, so he doesn’t have any pre-conceived notions of a soul, afterlife, etc. So
far as he knows, they simply were, and are now gone.
That sense of inevitable nothingness terrifies him. So he tries to find immortality in the way
of many creative people: through his work. He sees that decades after rock musicians have
passed they are still remembered; centuries after classical composers have passed, they are
still remembered. They have lived on beyond their own mortality via the vehicle of the music
they have created. Ivan wants that – so badly, in fact, that he is willing to do anything, give
up everything else, to achieve that one thing.
Little does he know, but there is an evil in the world that exists purely to snare people who
have this exact desire. The unnamed Composer who lived in Paris in 1800 suffered the same
fate, caught by the same cheese on the same trap, for the same reasons. Now she is trapped
within the “music” of the composition, and she is the instrument of the curse as it unleashes
its power.
We tie a contemporary death metal band together with a centuries-dead classical violinist by
the same core, understandable human elements: music, ambition, a desire for immortality.
In terms of pure symbolism, in the sense of “this image is a visual shorthand for this idea,”
I’m not really reaching for that tool in DEATH METAL. But I will say I’m currently
working on a project that does incorporate some symbolism. I’ll be able to better answer this
question after I make that film.

6. Could you share your perspective on the psychological impact that sound design and
music have in enhancing the horror genre?

I would say that horror starts with sound. Hearing the ghost creates the dread; we first hear
the ghost. Seeing the ghost is the scare. And as touched on earlier dread and scare are two
equally valuable elements of creating effective horror. But more than equal; in many ways I
would say about 80% of the impact of horror is created in the sound.
In post-production I spent more hands-on time with the sound design than any other aspect of
the process. I spent weeks experimenting with and creating aspects of the sound design. For
example, there is a moment in DEATH METAL in which Shadia and Joe make their way
through a house that has been completely suffused with the evil power of the curse. The
sound we hear on top of this scene is the Chicago tornado warning siren – a sound created to
warn people of imminent, environmental danger. Then we make it strange by playing it
backward (as an allusion to the next scene in which Shadia has to play the Concerto
backward to break the curse) and run the siren through reverb to give it the dreamlike,
nightmarish quality of the scene. On the surface, we’re just watching two people walk down
a hall. But the scene becomes horror thanks to the sound.
I believe sound affects humans on a lower, deeper level. A more elemental level, closer to the
basement of the psyche, more impactful on the soul. Think of when you stand in front of a
giant stack of speakers pumping loud bass; you don’t just hear that, you feel it; the bass
literally vibrates your body. It affects your state of being.
We talked about how horror is the most powerful of all the emotional experiences a work of
cinema can create. Sound is the most powerful way by which horror can create that
experience.
To the soundtrack: This is a movie called DEATH METAL. Of course, it’s about a death
metal band, and we need some death metal in a movie called DEATH METAL. We open the
film with Incantation playing a death metal song on stage – we immediately check that box.
We have quite a few other death metal bands/songs on the soundtrack. But you’ll note we
don’t play death metal during the later scenes, when we’re trying to create fear, and scare the
audience. This is because I think metal as a genre is inherently cathartic. For all of the horror-
movie-style imagery and subject matter associated with metal as a whole, and death metal in
particular, death metal doesn’t create fear; it creates passion, catharsis, release. It is ironically
more of an expression of life than a fear of death.
By way of example, note that Argento would sometimes include metal songs in this films.
For instance, Iron Maiden’s “Flash of the Blade” is playing during a sequence in
PHENOMENA. As much as I love that song, the song doesn’t make the scary scene scarier.
The song makes the scene exciting, but not scary. However, this is a scene in a horror movie,
and thus it should be scary. The song is undercutting the core intention and value of the scene
in a horror movie, to scare the audience. It provides excitement as opposed to dread, catharsis
as opposed to scares.
Which is the reason why there is a long portion of my movie DEATH METAL during which
we don’t hear any death metal. Because that is the portion of the film during which I’m
trying to create dread and scares, and the irony is putting death metal into those parts of
DEATH METAL would make those parts of the film less effective, because ultimately
DEATH METAL is a horror movie, and should be scary.
So we also have this wonderful score by Dan Gutschmidt, who is also a producer on the film.
(In fact, he owned and provided the primary locations; we shot in his studio, and on his
farm). In early conversations about the score, we talked about the idea of aiming for
something with a very “classic” feel, both in the sense of classic horror movies of the ‘70s
and ‘80s, and also “classical” as a musical form. With that in mind, it’s a very simple, subtle
approach built around a single piano, and a memorable hook, theme, and chord structure. It’s
the foundation on which we build the soundtrack (the death metal songs) and the sound
design.

7. What is your philosophy when it comes to subverting traditional horror tropes to keep
your storytelling fresh and engaging?

Going back to Lovecraft, his full statement is: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind
is fear, and the oldest and strongest fear is fear of the unknown.” To be unknown is to create
fear. The inverse is true; is something is familiar, then it’s harder to create fear. Coming to
understand something is to finds ways to fear it less.
In application of horror movies... There are hundreds of movies in the world that will show
you people getting eaten by zombies. The idea of being eaten by zombies was originally very
scary. Now, this is an imagery that has been presented so often that it has grown familiar. We
don’t like the idea of being eaten by zombies, but it’s “known.” The same goes for creating
fear with, say, a big galoot putting on a mask and stabbing people with a knife. That sure was
scary in the original HALLOWEEN. But these days it’s little more than a Halloween
costume, or perhaps a jumping-off idea for comedy, or a board or video game. The idea of a
masked murderer has become so familiar that it’s primarily used for fun. It isn’t scary.
With DEATH METAL, the idea is that once the Concerto has been heard, the curse inflicts a
kind of nightmare logic on the afflicted. “Nightmare logic” touches on the aforementioned
idea of horror movies being the nightmare version of the shareable dream of cinema. We find
it best expressed in the classic Italian horror movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s, this concept that it
doesn’t matter if something is grounded or “makes sense” in a traditional manner – if it’s
scary, it’s going into the movie. It’s nightmare logic. So we’re taking a general concept
within horror filmmaking and applying it in a direct manner to the “rules,” the nature of this
particular evil in DEATH METAL. Once you hear the music, anything goes – so long as it’s
bad and you are eventually doomed.
Thus, each character meets a separate doom. And I strive to create a nightmare situation that
doesn’t feel like a version of anything else we have seen too often in horror cinema. There
are influences, of course. But for instance while there are hundreds of movies about people
getting eaten by animals or monsters or zombies, and hundreds of movies in which a galoot
in a mask goes around stabbing teenagers, there are very few films that inflict this kind of
strange, demonic body horror on its victims.
When the audience doesn’t know what’s happening to the character or why, they can be
frightened for the character. Think of the first time you saw John Hurt’s character die in the
original ALIEN. Nobody knew what was happening or why – not the characters, not the
audience. We only know this poor man is suffering. Then the infant xenomorph bursts from
his body, and our minds are so blown that we have to restructure our mental reality to make
room for this bizarre occurrence. That’s scary. That is the creation of fear.

8. How do you maintain a sense of originality in an industry saturated with horror content,
and what inspires your unique creative vision?

Again: there are certainly influences at work in DEATH METAL and FROM THE
SHADOWS and my short films, et al. But I’m mostly inspired by my own dreams. If I have a
dream that’s striking enough to remember when I wake up, I’ll often write it down, or simply
carry it with me. I still have a vivid recollection of dreams I had decades ago. They sit in my
mental filing space, waiting for an opportunity to be used.
In fact, while we were on the set of DEATH METAL, one of my actors, Johnny Yurco,
bluntly asked me, “Where do you get this stuff?” At the moment, he was referring to the
scene in which his character gets his head pulled off, which later returns to float around and
give the other characters a hard time – not something you see every day. I told him the
simple truth: “I dreamed it.”
Another example: the scene in which Katon is haunted by the vision of the bus driving in
reverse from a dense mist, shadowy hands pawing at the windows from the inside. I had that
dream back when I was still in film school. I remembered it and, years later, I put it in the
screenplay for DEATH METAL.
Drawing on your dreams is a way to directly connect with the inherent strength of cinema as
an artform, particularly horror. It’s also a way to ensure you are saying something unique,
offering an image from your specific psyche, and thus giving the audience something that is
both fresh and personal.

9. In your opinion, how does the international cultural context influence the way horror is
perceived and received by different audiences?

As a general statement: I absolutely love watching horror movies from a variety of countries
and cultures. Everyone has their own take on what best scares their specific audience, but we
can also find a lot of great commonalities that are universal to human fears. Horror movies
are often inspired and informed by the folklore, stories, legends, and beliefs of their people
and region, so we can get vastly different (and thus interesting) takes on shared fears, for
instance ghosts, demons, monsters, killers.
In the same way that not every culture’s cuisine is for everyone, not every culture’s take on
horror is for everyone. The best example I can offer is the aforementioned Italian horror
cinema of the ‘70s and ‘80s. I absolutely love these films for their wild, lurid, nightmarish,
anything-goes take on the genre. But I’ve shown these films to other people who just get
bored; they feel “it doesn’t make any sense,” so they disengage and don’t connect with the
movie. That’s fair – it’s art, which is inherently subjective, and nobody is “right” or “wrong,”
any more than I would disparage someone for the kind of food they like to eat. All I know is
what I like.
But I’m always looking for new voices and influences, and one of my great joys in life is
encountering horror cinema from a country, culture, or region that I hadn’t before seen. For
example, one of the best ghost movies I’ve seen in the last few years is TERRIFIED. I was
very unfamiliar with the horror cinema scene out of Buenos Aires, but seeing TERRIFIED
immediately made me hungry for more, much in the same way that Joko Anwar’s film
SATAN’S SLAVES brought my attention to the horror cinema of Indonesia, and made me
immediately start looking for more titles from that region.
Everyone has a unique way to scare the audience. I want to see what everyone has to offer
horror. More more more!

10. Can you discuss the ethical considerations you take into account when depicting graphic
violence or disturbing themes on screen?

It comes down, again, to a) giving the audience what they want, and signed up for when they
decided to buy a ticket to this particular movie; b) making sure that each choice is done with
a clear artistic intention.
I have no problem inflicting all kinds of bizarre, nightmarish dooms onto my characters
because they are so strange that they are mostly just funny to me. There is a lot of blood and
screaming and suffering, of course, but it’s in a fantastic place where we can watch this stuff
for fun. It’s the fun kind of horror.
Take a movie like MARTYRS, for example. I could imagine doing a film of that nature
because even if the torture and such is much more uncomfortable, it’s done with a clear
artistic purpose.
But there are things I don’t think I would be comfortable making, writing, or directing, for
instance violent rape scenes. There is a place for this kind of scene in cinema, but we have to
be clear that it’s for a specific intent, for example in IRREVERSIBLE. I’ll leave that to other
filmmakers to explore, I suppose.

11. What is the role of the uncanny and the unknown in eliciting fear, and how do you
employ these elements to capitate your audience?

The less the audience understands what’s going on, the more capable they are of being
frightened. The oldest and strongest fear is fear of the unknown. But they do need to
understand the basics: who the characters are, why they are in danger, why the audience
should care about whether or not they are in danger. Beyond that, we should cast a ruthless
eye on extraneous exposition.
As I was editing and re-editing and re-re-editing DEATH METAL, I kept pulling out
exposition. I had a lot of scenes in which characters are explaining to each other how such-
and-such knows each other, how this-or-that situation came to be, what they think is going on
and why, and so on.
All of this is what’s called “connective tissue,” and you certainly need a certain amount so
the audience understands who the characters are and what’s happening in the story. But
ultimately exposition isn’t scary.
Every time you pause to indulge in exposition, you stop the horror movie from being scary.
The audience needs to understand the story, but they didn’t come to the theater to learn all
about your imaginary friends; they came to be scared.
For the same reason I don’t have death metal songs playing on the soundtrack during the
back half of the film, I have stripped the exposition and connective tissue down to the bone.
So much so that some audience members have expressed a desire for more. And those scenes
certainly exist; I just took them out of the current cut. I prefer to leave the exposition to
inference. If you watch it two or three times you should be able to fully understand the whos
and whats and hows and whys simply by picking up on little things between the characters.
The exposition comes from who they are and where they are in life as opposed to people
making big speeches about their childhood or whatever. And DEATH METAL is a short
movie, it should be easy to watch 2-3 times.

12. How do you believe horror films can serve as a reflection of social anxieties and act as a
cathartic outlet for collective fears?

Horror only works if the audience cares about what happens to the characters, who act as
proxies for themselves within the story. To discover what people fear is to discover what they
care about – and care about losing.
However, it has to come from action and inference; the more directly we state the case, the
less impact it has. For example, DAWN OF THE DEAD is beautifully rich with commentary
about our culture, our society, and our fears. Romero has a lot on his mind with that film, and
it comes through the setting, characters, and story.
But in some of his later OF THE DEAD films, he starting putting the subtext into the
characters’ mouths, having them bluntly state in dialogue that they were being political, or
stating this or that commentary. The moment we make the spice the main course we ruin the
meal.
I’m guilty of that, as well, though. For instance, in DEATH METAL we a scene in which
Ivan and Fleming bluntly discuss the themes. It makes me wince, because it’s so direct. But I
didn’t have the themes expressed in a manner that was both subtle and clear in another scene,
so I had to settle for the bluntest instrument in my tool box to get the job done. In that
sense... live and learn.

13. In your experience, how does the pacing of a horror film impact the tension and
emotional engagement of the audience?

After the sound design, the pacing is the second-most-important aspect of creating fear for
the audience. We have these two elements: dread and scares. Too much dread, and we risk
the audience getting bored. Too many scares, and these lose value.
Pacing was the problem I worked to crack in the editing of DEATH METAL. My initial cut
included everything: all of the exposition, all of the scenes we shot, the whole thing. It was
terribly dull. I stripped out all of that, and aimed for a less-talk/more-rock telling of this
story.
On top of that, I worked to find a weird, jittery, disjointed editing style to accentuate the
fever dream aspect I was trying to give the film. In places, I incorporate a degree of slow
motion, mostly as a way to give the audience an opportunity to draw one long breath and
absorb the scene a bit before plunging back into the mosh pit.
I have gotten three main compliments for this film: 1) the casting; 2) the practical effects; 3)
“It’s never dull!”

14. As a director, how do you create a sense of empathy or connection with characters in a
horror narrative, even when their actions might be morally questionable?

The best, easiest, and fastest way to get the audience on a character’s side is to make them
funny. We automatically like people who make us laugh. Which is why there are a lot of
lighter beats in the first act. I’m trying to get the audience to like these characters so they care
when doom befalls them.
But the lighter moments aren’t just for an artificial purpose; they also reflect what it’s like to
be in a band. You’re often hanging out with these people, joking around, giving each other
shit, and so on. The humor is true to the experience of playing in a band, but is also there for
a strategic artistic purpose.
In the case of a character like Ivan, we’re exploring the idea that evil isn’t just “eeeeeeeevil,”
it’s a corruption of something that is at least initially good and noble. Ivan wants to make
music that people enjoy. He’s ambitious and wants to be successful. He wants to be
financially stable so he can propose to Shadia. All of these are good, laudable motivations.
But it’s also the hook that the curse uses to get into Ivan’s soul.
This speaks to the nature of evil, while also giving us an opportunity to understand Ivan;
what he’s doing and why. It’s easy to say, “I’ll do anything to succeed!” But then evil comes
around and says, “’Anything?’ What do you mean by ‘anything?’ How badly do you want
this laudable goal? Are you willing to do something a little weird and shady? If you’re
willing to do that, are you willing to do something a bit worse?” And so on, until before you
know it you have horns sprouting out of your skull – literally, in Ivan’s case.
We can be afraid of Ivan, and see him as a monster. But he’s also a tragic character.

15. What advice would you give to aspiring filmmakers seeking to venture into the horror
genre, considering its intricacies and challenges?

We have never before in human history had the means of cinematic production so readily
available. If you have a smart phone in your pocket, you have a video camera, and a
computer than can run editing software, and an internet connection by which to upload your
work to the world. If you want to be a filmmaker – poof, you’re a filmmaker. Just start
making movies. There is no better way to learn than by doing.
Don’t be afraid to stumble or struggle or make mistakes; it’s just part of the process. A
filmmaker makes film; if you’re a filmmaker, you make film. Is it hard? Of course. Yes, it’s
hard. Good! The difficulty is nothing but the artform asking how much you want to make the
film. It’s a test, and an opportunity to let yourself know that you mean business, that it means
something to you.
When it comes to specifically making horror, I’d say study the genre as you would any other
genre you wanted to explore. If you wanted to make comedies, you would watch all the
comedies.
The trick is to watch these movies in both a passive and active manner. By “passive,” I mean
the way the general audience sees the film. Just enjoy it. If you don’t like watching horror
movies, then you probably won’t enjoy making them. You should want to make horror
movies because you love them so much you want to add your voice to the conversation.
But also watch them actively. By that I mean... if something scares you, step back and ask
why it scared you; ask how the filmmakers crafted the beat in a way that created that feeling
of fear. The sound? The imagery? The acting? The pacing? The writing? All of the above?
Disassemble movies as you watch them. See what makes them run, how they tick.
You can do this with other people. A lot of people like to watch movies together just to make
fun of them, like MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER. That’s fine, it’s a fun thing to do. But
you can also watch movies with like-minded people, other filmmakers, and pause and talk
about what the movie you’re watching is doing. The choices that are being made. Put
yourself through your own film school.
Watch a million horror movies, see what you like, see how they tick... and then let those
films influence you, but make sure they remain influences. Don’t simply copy what other
films are saying.
For example, I have seen many, many films that are constructing characters and scenes that
are basically straight from ALIENS, for example, with the serial numbers filed off. Learn
from Cameron, be influenced by Cameron, but when it comes time to make your own film –
make your own film. Don’t make a copy of Cameron’s film; he already made that film, so all
you can offer is a lesser version of something someone else has already made.
Your unique voice is the one thing you have that nobody else in the world has, or will have
ever again. It is the most valuable thing you own as an artist and as a human being, and the
best and most valuable thing you can offer the world via your art – whether that art is a
doodle of a dog on a napkin or a song or a novel... or a horror movie.