Horror Films Quotes

There are two different stories in horror: internal and external. In external horror films, the evil comes from the outside, the other tribe, this thing in the darkness that we don't understand. Internal is the human heart. ~ John Carpenter

I'm honestly kind of scared of horror films. My girlfriend always tries to expose them to me. Being in a scary movie and seeing all the fake blood and stuff definitely takes away from the magic and kind of humanizes scary movies to me now, though. ~ Chris Carmack

My brother and I are huge fans of foreign horror. Some of the most interesting movies are coming from overseas. I guess if there was one change we'd like to see, it would be more original horror films made by the studio system and less of a reliance on remakes. ~ Michael Rasmussen

Rob [Tapert], myself and Bruce Campbell sat in hundreds of drive-insnot hundreds, but tens of drive-ins, watching these movies and learning how they were made, and we started to make our own in Super 8. And that's really how we got into horror films. After a while we learned to really like them, and the craft that went into them. ~ Sam Raimi

There's more emphasis on art and culture in Europe than there is in the United States and I think that a lot of American directors and writers are just trying to copy other American horror films, they don't pick up much in the way that European filmmakers do. ~ Wes Craven

Horror films don't create fear. They release it. ~ Wes Craven

When I was a kid I was really into horror films. I watched every single horror film that came out in the 80s. ~ David Hayter

All of us have our individual curses, something that we are uncomfortable with and something that we have to deal with, like me making horror films, perhaps. ~ Wes Craven

I don't watch any horror films. I get scared very easily. ~ Ed Oxenbould

When I was younger, I'd make a point of driving to the middle of nowhere and spending an evening with just me, the wind, and the moon. Your skin crawls up an octave. This is what I tap into when I'm working on horror films. I'm just afraid a time will come when I lose touch with that part of myself. ~ Christopher Young

Not many people realize this, but I'm a really squeamish guy. When I watch other horror films that are really over-the-top with their blood and guts, I cannot watch it. ~ James Wan

I'd love to work with Tarantino, Scorsese, Sofia Coppola - all of them! I love thrillers and action movies. I love good horror films. I watched them so much when I was younger that I find it impossible to get scared. ~ Cara Delevingne

What I love about watching classic horror films is that they take you on a ride and they obviously make you scared because you're so invested in the characters, you're almost forgetting that oh my God, this is about to scare me. ~ Katie Holmes

I don't like horror films. Horror films in the sense of the way horror films are now, like 'Saw,' I don't like that, I don't. ~ Atticus Shaffer

I'm a huge baby and horror films just terrify me, they're very effective with me. ~ Alexandra Daddario

Suspicious of the lone bat, he glanced behind to check there wasn't a black cloaked figure standing behind him with two long sharp teeth. Much to his relief, there was not. His love of horror films was definitely waning. With ~ Ben Hammott

Basically people who love horror movies are people with boring lives. They want to be stimulated, and they need to reassure themselves, because when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether it would mean losing one of the few ways we have to ease the anxiety of the imagination. And I bet you'd see a big leap in the number of serial killers and mass murderers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news, right? ~ Ryu Murakami

I'm in a band. I don't go to church every Sunday. I love punk rock music. Sometimes I use swear words a lot. I respect and admire gay men and women. I'm obsessed with horror films. I know what shame feels like. And guess what old man? Jesus is still my Savior. ~ Hayley Williams

I haven't said it yet, but it seemed implied, that cinema for me was the American one, current Hollywood productions. "My" period goes roughly from The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (Henry Hathaway, 1935) with Gary Cooper and Mutiny on the Bounty (Frank Lloyd, 1935) with Charles Laughton and Clark Gable, to the death of Jean Harlow (which I relived many years later like the death of Marilyn Monroe, in an era more aware of the neurotic power of every symbol), with lots of comedies in between, the mystery-romances with Myrna Loy and William Powell and the dog Asta, the musicals of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the crime pictures of Chinese detective Charlie Chan and the horror films of Boris Karloff. I didn't remember the names of the directors as well as the names of the actors, except for a few like Frank Capra, Gregory La Cava, and Frank Borzage, who represented the poor rather than the millionaires, usually with Spencer Tracy: they were the good-natured directors from the Roosevelt era; I learned this later; back then I consumed everything without distinguishing between them too much. American cinema in that moment consisted of a collection of actors' faces without equal before or after (at least it seemed that way to me) and the adventures were simple mechanisms to get these faces together (sweethearts, character actors, extras) in different combinations. ~ Italo Calvino

I have a lot of stories. I had done a thing called Nightmare in Red White and Blue, which was an anthology of horror films. I narrated it with a man named Joe Maddrey, who's a writer. He came to my house and said, "Lance would you consider doing this?," and I like Joe so much that I completely relaxed. ~ Lance Henriksen

I've always been fascinated by horror films and genre films. And horror films harbored a fascination for me and always have been something I've wanted to watch and wanted to make. ~ Edgar Wright

I think that, back in the day, there used to be a lot of horror films that kind of had a checklist of what went into making the 'perfect horror film', and I think now people are raising the bar in the industry, as far as the types of horror films that are being made. ~ Elisha Cuthbert

I normally stay away from horror films; I tend to do light and happy roles. ~ Megan M. Duffy

I have a really embarrassing reaction to horror films. I break out in a fever. ~ Juliet Rylance

I always go with the story and character and if those are good and if the setting is something that's scary (horror films seem to always take place at night and the weather's always bad) then I might be interested. ~ David Naughton

At Universal Studios, Marston had a hand in films like Show Boat, in 1929. He also helped get films past the censors, including All Quiet on the Western Front, in 1930. When Carl Laemmle's son, Junior Laemmle, took over Universal, he turned it into a specialty shop for horror films: Marston's theory of emotions lies behind the particular brand of psychological terror in Laemmle's Frankenstein (1931), Dracula (1931), and The Invisible Man (1933). Before Marston left Hollywood, he also worked for Paramount. For Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), he tested audience reaction by strapping viewers to blood pressure cuffs while they watched the rushes.30 ~ Jill Lepore

After my film 'The Tale of Two Sisters,' I received a lot of offers from Hollywood to direct, but because 'A Tale of Two Sisters' was a horror film, I received a lot of horror films. But I wasn't interested in working in the same genre, and the scripts I received for films in different genres were for projects that were near completion. ~ Kim Jee-woon

I was always a fan of horror films as a kid. ~ Jeri Ryan

When you become old ... When you become old, you find yourself auditioning for the role of a lifetime; then, after interminable rehearsals, you're finally starring in a horror film--a talentless, irresponsible, and above all low-budget horror film, in which (as is the way with horror films) they're saving the worst for last. ~ Martin Amis

As far as film goes, I enjoy all Hollywood films and all Horror films like The Bride of Frankenstein, which also might be my favorite. I like 60's and 70's Italian and Spanish Horror films. ~ Johnny Ramone

Typically in horror films the character just services the plot, and you really are just going from 'point a' to 'point b,' just so that you can end up at 'point c.' They are just sort of stick characters. That's just not interesting to me. ~ Kevin Williamson

There's a real kind of snobbery in the U.K. about horror films. ~ Neil Marshall

Japanese horror films take the business of being frightening seriously. There is no attempt at postmodernism or humour. They are incredibly melancholy, with a strong emotional core, while remaining absolutely terrifying. ~ Jane Goldman

The fourteen-man snake moved in spasms ... Their eyes flickered rapidly back and forth as they tried to look in all directions at once. They carried Kool-Aid packages, Tang - anything to kill the chemical taste of the water in their plastic canteens. Soon the smears of purple and orange Kool-Aid on their lips combined with the fear in their eyes to make them look like children returning from a birthday party at which the hostess had shown horror films. ~ Karl Marlantes

That's definitely true! It was before my father died, so I can't attribute it to an obsession with death. When I was seven, I loved those old Sherlock Holmes movies with Basil Rathbone. The Scarlet Claw was one of my faves. And I loved all the Halloween's and that film about the haunted house ... Burnt Offerings, with Oliver Reed. Every birthday party was a slumber party and we'd watch horror films. ~ Cate Blanchett

I never used to watch horror films because I was a nervous type. I believed all the publicity about The Exorcist when it was released - you know, all that nonsense about people fainting in the cinema - and decided it would definitely freak me out. I particularly remember my girlfriend telling me about Suspiria - ironic considering my first ever film work was with Argento - and how scary it was. ~ Simon Boswell

I really like suspense in movies. I don't really like rom-coms. But that being said, as an audience member I really like horror films and actress I really like working with fake blood; I think it's so fun. ~ Grace Phipps

I'm pretty mad at horror films for ruining my childhood. ~ Haley Bennett

I think that horror films have a very direct relationship to the time in which they're made. The films that really strike a film with the public are very often reflecting something that everyone, consciously or unconsciously feeling - atomic age, post 9-11, post Iraq war; it's hard to predict what people are going to be afraid of. ~ Eli Roth

I didn't want to be known as a man who only made horror films. I made some - very few. ~ Christopher Lee

It's a very good time for horror. This business certainly has changed, but there's still room for serious horror films. Look at 28 Days Later, that's not a tongue-in-cheek picture. ~ John Carpenter

When I started experimenting with fantasy and horror films and looking for characters who had some sort of emotional or mental difficulty, I saw opportunities to express my music - dare I say art - in a way that I could get a bit surreal - like Francis Bacon's screaming pope, or Edvard Munch with [The Scream]. ~ Nicolas Cage

Women have always been the most important part of monster movies. As I walked home one night, I realized why. Making my way down dark city streets to my apartment in Brooklyn, I was alert and on edge. I was looking for suspicious figures, men that could be rapists, muggers or killers. I felt like Laurie Strode in Halloween. Horror is a pressure valve for society's fears and worries: monsters seeking to control our bodies, villains trying to assail us in the darkness, disease and terror resulting from the consequences of active sexuality, death. These themes are the staple of horror films.

There are people who witness these problems only in scary movies. But for much of the population, what is on the screen is merely an exaggerated version of their everyday lives. These are forces women grapple with daily. Watching Nancy Thompson escape Freddy Krueger's perverted attacks reminds me of how I daily fend off creeps asking me to smile for them on the subway. Women are the most important part of horror because, by and large, women are the ones the horror happens to. Women have to endure it, fight it, survive it - in the movies and in real life. They are at risk of attack from real-life monsters. In America, a woman is assaulted every nine seconds.

Horror films help explore these fears and imagine what it would be like to conquer them. Women need to see themselves fighting monsters. That's part of how we figure out our stories. But we also need to see ourse ~ Mallory O'Meara

'Alien' is one of my all-time favorite horror films - that has a great monster. ~ Jackie Earle Haley

Strategically, horror films are a good way to start your career. You can get a lot of impact with very little. ~ Peter Jackson

I know that Wes Craven feels watching horror films does have a psychological effect, in a good way. It is very cathartic. He might be right about that. ~ Marley Shelton

As much as I like watching horror films, I never thought I would act in them. ~ Jessica Lucas

With apologies to Judy Garland and Cole Porter, all the world does NOT love a clown. John Wayne Gacy might have been the final nail in the coffin in terms of anyone associating clowns with funny (if a bunch of clowns die, do they all fit into one coffin?) ~ Christopher Lombardo

I did love horror films from the '70s and '80s. That was my sweet spot. ~ Drew Barrymore

Everybody's making horror films and, to me, not especially well. ~ Wes Craven

I love superheroes and I love weird horror films ... I could definitely feel that there was a lack of movies like The Martian being made: smart genre movies that can appeal to adults. ~ Drew Goddard

You need to be invested in what happens. The characters are your conduit to the story. Many modern horror films are fun but not frightening because one has not connected with the characters. ~ Jane Goldman

The funny thing about murder is that the act is often committed decades before the actual action. Something happens, and it leads, inexorably, to death many years later. A bad seed is planted. It's like those old horror films from the Hammer studios, of the monster, not running, never running, but walking without pause, without thought or mercy, toward its victim. Murder is often like that. It starts way far off. ~ Louise Penny

I realized that I really, almost by accident, had fallen into a labyrinthine, very powerful paradigm for dealing with these things through genre films. And once I realized that and realized the power of it, and the fact that because horror films aren't, in general, studio products - studios back them sometimes, but they don't try to meddle too much, because they kind of don't want to sully their skirts - you have a lot of freedom. ~ Wes Craven

When you're watching an action movie, you experience an action movie more outside of the aquarium, you're out of the aquarium looking in at all the swimming fish that are in there. Whereas horror films and thrillers are designed to put the audience into that box, into that aquarium. ~ James Wan

Actually, I can't stand watching violent scenes in films; I avoid watching horror films. I don't tend to watch action films mainly because I find them boring, but I watch the films of David Cronenberg and Martin Scorsese, usually in a state close to having a heart attack. I'm a complete coward. I make violent films as a result of my sensitivity to violence - in other words, my fear of violence. ~ Park Chan-wook

I love all kinds of movies. I love a really good comedy and not the cheesy ones. My parents hate this, but I love horror films. Those are my favorite, and of course, dramatic roles. I'm really drawn to those as well. All different genres. ~ Liana Liberato

People who love horror films are people with boring lives ... when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether, I bet you'd see a big leap in the number of serial killers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news. ~ Ryu Murakami

I feel like most horror films are made for teenagers about teenagers. I've done a couple of those horror films. There's nothing wrong with that but the older I get the more I starve for more adult material. ~ Mary Elizabeth Winstead

When you're talking about who is doing the most exciting and interesting horror films of the last 20 years, it's Japan. I mean, they are making amazing films. ~ Drew Goddard

My favorite movies are gory horror films. I love Faulkner. I wanted to see the most painful things possible. ~ John Darnielle

I've always loved ... actually I didn't always love horror films. I started out and I only liked comedies and dramas. ~ Sam Raimi

It's very important to me to find ways to relate the audience to the characters. This is the first thing to go in most mainstream horror films. ~ Ti West

When the black thing was at its worst, when the illicit cocktails and the ten-mile runs stopped working, I would feel numb as if dead to the world. I moved unconsciously, with heavy limbs, like a zombie from a horror film. I felt a pain so fierce and persistent deep inside me, I was tempted to take the chopping knife in the kitchen and cut the black thing out I would lie on my bed staring at the ceiling thinking about that knife and using all my limited powers of self-control to stop myself from going downstairs to get it. ~ Alice Jamieson

I think there's an instinct to make grotesque horror films that are purely carnal, like the 'Saw' movies. ~ Amber Heard

With horror movies, a bigger budget is actually your enemy. You want to feel the rough edges, the handmade quality to good horror films. It's a genre that benefits from not having everything at your disposal. ~ Drew Goddard

I love my horror films and they will always be very close to me. ~ Amber Heard

Most horror films fail to scare me. ~ Martin Henderson

Horror films do not prepare us for the hours lost in searching after one clear thought. ~ Norman Mailer

Poor decisions and bad luck are contingencies of most horror films. ~ Wesley Morris

Horror films are very functional like comedies. The main thing with a comedy, the big question is "is it funny?" And with horror the question is "is it scary?" ~ Leigh Whannell

Horror films had taught her that a person could will a thing into existence, but once it was outside their consciousness, the consciousness that had been busily inventing simultaneous possibilities, it became a force unto itself, ferocious and uncontrollable. ~ Laura Van Den Berg

I'm a fan of horrors. I love the ones that make you jump. My girlfriend hates it. I've been dating her for one-and-a-half years and I'm crazy about her, but she's terrified of horror films. Not the cute 'Will you hold me?' way, but she's weeping. With 'House of Wax,' we'll be sleeping and I'll go to the bathroom and she's sitting up waiting for me. ~ Jared Padalecki

I think horror films in the past maybe touched on social themes having to do with whatever era in which they were made, but in the end, it's definitely an escapist form of entertainment. ~ Brooke Nevin

They say a basis in fact underlies most legends. They say it all the time, all those Wise Elders in all those old horror films, the high priests, the scientists, the gypsy fortune tellers. On this single issue they agree unanimously. ~ Robert Dunbar

I love horror films, but it's more than an adrenaline rush for me. I love them because I know they scare me. It's kind of like I go on roller coasters, but I'm terrified of roller coasters, sort of thing. ~ Emily Browning

I never would have guessed I would be making science fiction and horror films. ~ Matt Reeves

I've made a way to allow myself to do big films, small films, dramas, comedies, action films, horror films, or whatever interests me, as a movie-goer. I like watching myself in movies. I want to choose movies that allow me to enjoy myself, the way that I want to entertain myself. ~ Samuel L. Jackson

Horror films had died a little bit before Scream came around. That was one of the reasons I wrote it. I wanted to write something that wasn't being made right now and maybe sell if I come up with a new horror film. Because no one is watching those movies. Let's do it. That was my whole goal, and it paid off. I feel like it's never stopped. ~ Kevin D. Williamson

I'd never imagined myself writing at all until I was almost 30. And horror films weren't to my taste, at least the super popular (slasher-y) ones of the day back then. The first novel I ever loved as a kid was Frankenstein, and I was always a crazy Hitchcock and Polanski fan ... but I never saw myself - a square spazzy girl from the suburbs - writing anything that would horrify anyone. Or so I thought ... ~ Karen Walton

It grossed something like 12 million dollars and started a cycle of so-called boy-meets-ghoul horror films. ~ Boris Karloff

I think my mom is the inspiration of me wanting to do film and TV and be an actor because she loved film so much. She loved, like, horror films and action films, so growing up, she loved watching all the Charles Bronson films and all the westerns. ~ Rick Gonzalez

I like the fact that major studios have been attempting horror films recently. ~ Richard King

Death's just something that inspires me, not something that pulls me down. I used to get called morbid at school. I have always loved horror films; I like being frightened. ~ Damien Hirst

I do know that I've read somewhere that it's been statistically proven that in times of war, horror films are much more popular. I don't know why that is. You'd think it'd be the opposite. You'd think people would want to escape from it. ~ Aaron Stanford

Horror films are art, it's all make believe. It's great if a filmmaker can try to push boundaries and see how much an audience can take and see what happens. It's fun to be able to do that. ~ Tom Six

Most horror films fail to scare me. I think 'The Ring' plays more as a psychological thriller. It's smarter, there's more character development and some of the themes explored go a little deeper. ~ Martin Henderson

There have been 14 versions that I can find of Burke & Hare movies. They have all been horror films and all the movies have taken place in Victorian times, which doesn't make any sense. ~ John Landis

As an adult, the only people who care about horror movies are academics. No one loves to talk about horror films more than somebody with a Ph.D. in cultural studies at a university. ~ Chuck Klosterman

As a kid, I couldn't articulate it but I sought out things that could. At first it was horror films - extreme panic and terror, grotesque and maniacal. These films calmed me and made me feel more connected in my experiences. ~ Tony Burgess

Remember, you are not your negative thoughts. You are not
your painful imaginations. See yourself as separate from your
thoughts. This will aid you in dismissing the horror films. Just as
fire fades when not fed additional fuel, so do emotional fires fade
away when we cease to fuel them with negative imagination. ~ Vernon Howard

In all the horror films that I have done, all of those women were strong women. I don't feel I ever played the victim, although I was always in jeopardy. ~ Adrienne Barbeau

It is interesting to note that the best periods of Italian Horror films came out of the Sixties, when Italy was enjoying a carnival period of phenomenal optimism, and the shadowy side surfaced with all of its attendant dark, beautiful, baroque, catholic symbolism. ~ Barbara Steele

I grew up loving horror films. But I had to step away since I didn't want all that negative stuff in my psyche. I didn't want to conceptualize those thoughts into my life. ~ Keke Palmer

Horror films have always been quite operatic for me. I always sort of scratch my head at people's offense to them? If you don't get them, and you don't like them, then don't watch them. ~ Bryan Fuller

It's just occurred to me that some horror films everybody laughs because they're so ridiculous and they're so frightening in a way, the filmmakers' are trying everything, that they just end up being funny. ~ Susan Hill

At this point in my career, it doesn't bother me much that I'm probably hopelessly typecast. I like to work, and horror films definitely keep me working. ~ Donald Pleasence

There's something very terrifying about that and very primal about it. It's my belief that what horror does for people is that it provides that primal fear that, when we were wild hunter-gatherers, we had as part of our natural lives because maybe something was trying to hunt and gather you as well. We don't have that anymore in life and that's one of the things that horror films and action films provide for us. ~ Paul W. S. Anderson

Ever since Poltergeist terrified me when I was 12, I can't watch horror films, I'm a real wuss. ~ Josh Hartnett

I think of horror films as art, as films of confrontation. Films that make you confront aspects of your own life that are difficult to face. Just because you're making a horror film doesn't mean you can't make an artful film. ~ David Cronenberg