Eli Quotes

Twitter is wonderful. You can kill rumours instantly.

I have the infinite galaxy from '2001 as my screensaver - so if I space out while I'm writing and it goes to screensaver, I can just stare off into the stars.

If someone gets up and walks out of the movie, it means it's really affected them.

What's important for me is staying healthy.

Well, anytime I make a movie, I like to load it up with more things than you could ever catch on the first viewing.

I've realized that I can't multitask in the writing department; I can only kind of do one thing at a time.

I saw Alien when I was 8 years old. To me, it was like a combination of Jaws and Star Wars and that's the movie that made me want to be a director.

When I was filming the death scene [in Inglourious Basterds], and I'm killing somebody, I had to work myself up.

I'm not interested in going after a part. I think if someone wants me for a part and approaches me then I'll take it on a case-by-case basis and see what that part is.

I want people to see my name on a movie, pay money and know they're going to be entertained for 90 minutes.

I knew how to act and had studied acting and enjoyed it, but I'd never pushed myself to really perform as an actor, and create a role, and have the whole character's backstory.

When I go see an R-rated horror movie, I want lots of violence.

It's very flattering to feel like you actually helped create a sub-genre.

I think characters are most terrifying when they're relatable. It's best when your most horrible characters make sense, and are believable. That's when a movie is most terrifying.

Anytime you make a movie, the goal is a wide theatrical release, with the right distributor.

I never put out a vanilla edition of a DVD.

I have a strong art-history background.

I like movies like 'Mother's Day', where you watch it, and you've liked it for years as a horror movie.

I love historical movies. I want to make a violent medieval epic.

Las Vegas is a 24-hour city. It never stops.

Look at comic books. It used to be something that only geeks were into. And now it's everywhere.

I'd love to see us get to a point where you can make a movie and not worry about the limits of the violence. Then I think they'd get so violent that people would get bored of it.

Lucio Fulci is such a massively underrated director. Everyone knows him as the Godfather of Gore.

I have so many different projects, I hear voices in my head - the characters talking all at once - and I have to write to make them stop.

I think filmmakers, in general... There are some awesome, really great filmmakers - but on the whole, filmmakers, actors, I think they are the biggest bunch of whiny, over-paid babies on the planet.

I get a little too obsessive with work.

I generally follow my own compass and make films about what's scaring me.

Hopefully we'll get to a point where people realize movies don't cause violence. It just reflects the violence going on in the culture.

Horror audiences don't need to see some TV actor they're familiar with.

I'll direct any movie starring a monkey or the Olsen Twins. Preferably both.

I can think of endless horrible things to do to people!

I've always been a fan of 3D, going back to movies in the '50s. I was part of the early '80s 3D craze, which was coming at you in Jaws 3D, so I've always wanted to make a 3D film.

Everyone is so terrified of being labeled a racist.

Even post-WWII, nobody talked about the Holocaust. It wasn't until the '50s that people started talking about it.

In musical theater, if you have a song, it has to advance the plot. If you have a song in a musical and it does not advance the plot, it gets dropped.

Creative writing and shooting are muscles that atrophy. But when you work them, you become a self-generator who can branch out.

Chile could work as a double for L.A.; it's very production-friendly and there's terrific talent down there.

Believe it or not, but I was a camp councilor for three years. I love kids.

As a kid, I was the neighbourhood baby-sitter - very responsible, always in charge.

One of the great elements of the supernatural is having that mystery and letting people's imaginations run wild with it.

The film, 'Aftershock,' for me is really about how the minor problems in life that we think are so major ultimately mean nothing when a tragedy happens, when a real problem happens.

'Troll 2' is one of the rare sequels where you don't have to waste time watching the first one, since the films have absolutely nothing to do with one another.

I look at careers like Ben Stiller and think that's a great career to have where you're doing movies that you write and direct, and also act in films, although he's primarily an actor.

'Beatrice Cenci' was an amazing film. If it were released today it'd win Best Picture. It's so well done, it's so contemporary, and the filmmaking is so smart.

As a kid, my idols were Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, and I get into crazy races with myself. Raimi was 21 when he made movies, and when I didn't get 'Cabin Fever' made that fast I thought I'd failed.

When you're making a television show, it's about the story and arc of the show rather than any particular episode or director.

We live in an age now where so many people watch movies based on what Netflix recommends. It learns your taste and they really understand viewer habits.

The best movies now are called 'thrillers.' Because if you use the word 'horror,' people's associations are straight-to-video crap.

I need to eliminate 'like' from my vocabulary. I begin sentences with, 'That's seriously like ' I hear myself talking in this Los Angeles high-school student kind of way, and I hate it.

One of the great joys of life, now that you can afford a nice suit, is getting one for free. That's why I like to do press tours - I always say making movies is just an excuse to get free clothing.