Somewhere along the way, the ability to make terrifying big budget films like 'The Exorcist' or 'The Shining' was lost, and I don't know if we'll ever get it back.

I don't know if I can see myself writing another 'Saw' film. It's such a special part of my life, and I almost don't want to ruin it by going back.

I always want to fulfill genre expectations and think that should be the bedrock of any film - then you can layer in thematics.

Creating 'Upgrade' was really something I enjoyed even though it was stressful. I would do it all again.

You never meet other screenwriters because it's such a lonely profession.

The thing I love the most about low budget films is the creative freedom.

Every now and again, something will pop into my head when I'm driving or I'm in the shower, you'll just get an image and it stays with you. It doesn't have to be much, it doesn't have to be a story, it could just be an image. But it won't leave your head and that's when you know you've got something.

What I feel like science fiction fans respond to is just people trying to hit them with something new, something they haven't seen. And if you do that you'll be okay.

I remember when James Wan and I did the first 'Saw' movie, a lot of people would say to us, 'Well, you left the door open for a sequel.' And we would say, 'No, we literally closed the door!' We thought it was a nice ending. Little did we know that the producers had other ideas once the film was a hit.

The most fun part of making a horror movie is watching it with an audience.

The great thing about 'The Exorcist' is it's dead serious horror. No comedy, no self-reference, it's a documentary style.

Australia, most of the filmmakers there write a film and they direct it. There's a lot of writer/directors there, because nobody wants to write a script and then let it go when they've had that much of a personal investment to it, because you're not getting paid huge amounts of money in Australia to direct.

I think that's the problem, when you're a young filmmaker and you're starting out, you don't know people, you're easily lead, you don't know the right people to talk to, you really need guides.

I don't think humor is something to be afraid of.

I really liked that documentary, 'Room 237.'

James Wan is somebody who doesn't have any problem coming in and directing somebody else's script, he'll be the director for hire and he has his own style and he loves that.

The good thing with 'Insidious' and 'The Further' is that it's so nebulous, this supernatural world, that it allows you to bend things. There's a lot of room, it's very malleable, like how in the second film we had a lot of time travel.

The good thing about directing a screenplay that you've written is that you see the film in your head as you're writing it and then you see those decisions through to the end.

I'd always had this romantic idea, ever since I've been writing scripts, that I would travel one day and pull up stumps, as we say in Australia. It's a cricket reference. You can Google it. Pull up stumps in some country like Italy or Spain and do my little Truman Capote thing.

If you have a year where a few good horror films come out, all of the sudden, horror is back and everyone's talking about how it's a vintage year for horror.

If you look back at a film like 'Dawn of the Dead' - You can either watch it as a straight-up genre film and have fun with zombies being shot, or you can look at it as a metaphor for consumerism. Or a metaphor for the Vietnam war.

It's always an interesting experience with the 'Saw' films, when a sequel comes out that I didn't have anything to do with, creatively, because here's this idea, this story, and this character that I created for James Wan, but now it doesn't need me anymore.

I mean, I certainly wouldn't want to paint myself as, you know, the evangelist for practical effects or some sort of anti CG guy because it's really a tool. Like filmmaking is this toolbox and you use what's appropriate in relation to the story.

For me in a horror film, just looking down a long corridor and seeing somebody standing there, the simplest thing in the world, has a really seismic impact to me.

Saw' was a film that James Wan and I came up with back in Australia and we were just hoping anyone, literally, anyone would make that film and if nobody would give us the money we were going to shoot it in a garage somewhere.

It is nice to be validated by audiences and have people come up to you after a screening and tell you that they loved the movie. It never gets old.

When I directed the third 'Insidious' film I loved it so much that I decided this is what I want to do from now on. I don't even think I would write something as a screenplay now with no intention of directing it.

I'm not actually terrified of technology. Though I'm certainly not an early adopter, either.

Usually with me, the ideas I have for movies just sort of pop into my head. I've read a bunch of screenwriting books over the years and, to be honest, they're mostly pretty crappy.

Writing a screenplay is an act of faith. First, that it's interesting enough that anyone would want to make it. Secondly, that anybody would want to watch it, let alone enjoy it.

I think I've had a lot of experience with watching other people shepherd my ideas with the 'Saw' films. They made four 'Saw' movies without me. I never really had a protective or fierce policy towards that. I let it go.

I mean I met James Wan at film school. That's where we met. I didn't go to film school to find someone else to work with. I was thinking I would go and learn to direct and go and be a director like everyone else at school.

When you sit down to write a film, you direct it in your head. If you are writing a scene, you are watching the scene. And maybe it's different when you are writing a novel because you are thinking of it in terms of being read. But films are only consumed one way - through the eyes and the ears.

I'm the opposite of the actor that is bursting with confidence who just knows they're going to make it. I'm the guy who's like yeah, probably, it won't happen.

I couldn't believe that people went to see 'Saw,' that people actually lined up.

I wasn't a frustrated writer who really wanted to act or a frustrated writer who really wanted to direct. I was really happy writing screenplays, and there's a lot of people who just do that - they're screenwriters.

Writing feels safe, you know, it's a hard job, but at least you're in your office or wherever you are and there's no one standing over your shoulder staring at what you're writing. And when you're directing, everybody's looking over your shoulder.

When 'Psycho' came out back in 1960, it was seen as an abomination and as this really gory thing. We all watch 'Psycho' today, of course, and think it's so tame since there's no blood or any real gore in it. But for the standards of the day when it was released, it was extreme.

I do try and keep my scripts quite economical.

I was influenced by people like David Fincher and William Friedkin, and these directors who kinda paint their films with these dark shades.

I've actually written a children's film called 'The Myth,' which you could say is like a big 'Harry Potter'-esque fantasy for kids, and that's a film I would love to see get made. That's a dream project of mine.

One of our film lecturers, one of the guys teaching the course, said to the departing film class, 'No one in this room is going to make it, as a filmmaker.' I have no idea why he said that.

I think, what happened with 'Dead Silence' is that other people told us that we should be doing that and now that I look back, I realize, 'should' is not a word that comes into an art. It's whatever you're feeling like doing.

If you chose to be an actor, if you take that baton and say 'OK, this is what I want to do with my life.' you're really putting your fate and your life in the hands of others.

If you go back and watch 'Saw,' I was very young. I'd never really done anything before.

Somewhere in the '80s during the home video era something happened and horror started getting more and more marginalized and thought of as schlock.

You can't compare David Cronenberg's 'The Fly' to the older version.

So when I look back at 'Saw' and 'Insidious,' I just think, 'Wow. Both of those films went way past what we ever could've dreamt for them' and it makes me genuinely thankful, like every single day, once a day, even if it's just for thirty seconds, sitting in my car, I have a moment where I'm like, I can't believe I'm here.

I think repetition is the hardest thing to avoid with sequels, because you've told a story and now you're adding more story to the story.

I think you can't help but write in your own voice.