Quotes from Panos Cosmatos

Well I don't think of myself as like a horror or science fiction filmmaker. I just think of myself as a filmmaker.

In the night there's sometimes a sort of cursed quality to the Pacific Northwest.

My mother died in 1997 and I spiralled into this self-destructive vortex of trying to annihilate my consciousness. I was afraid to face the grief of losing her, because she was somebody I loved more than anybody else in the world.

I don't know if I'm a sequels kind of person. I prefer each film to have its own unique identity.

I was, like, 'I really wanna see an Eric Rohmer movie take place in a Bert I. Gordon universe.' Where there's a story going on that's about, you know, loss and desire, but with a giganticized-animal element.

I realized the modern equivalent of a broadsword duel would be a chainsaw battle.

I think what I was unconsciously expressing in 'Black Rainbow' was a very abstract and metaphorical grief, in the way I had suppressed my grief about my mother dying. In retrospect I realise I started writing 'Mandy' as a sort of antidote to that, to sort of express those emotions, to purge that grief.

I don't know anybody who goes horseback riding at sunset, but everybody watches TV and eats.

I think making a film is as much knowing what you don't like as what you do like, and avoiding the things that you don't like like the plague and making sure that they never appear onscreen in any shape or form.

Being compared to 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' is a huge compliment.

I love to choose the right actors. It's kind of a pleasure to work with them and watch them imbue your concepts that you write.

I am not against it. But I am suspicious of all forms of New Age spirituality, and religion in general.

Well, when I was really young and we lived in Sweden, the only films that were around at that point were... We had this collection of these super-8 highlight reels that they used to sell; like, they sold these super-8 reels that only had the best parts from a movie. So early on that's what I was seeing.

I want my films to be very tactile, visually and sonically.

I try to look at the films as I make them from a distance, in a way. I think of them as kind of pop culture artefacts. I'll often make posters and tag lines as I'm working on them, and not just conceive of them as a story I'm going to tell, but as a whole, a piece - a whole object that exists in the pop culture realm.

I guess a little bit of delusion can go a long way.

I might actually be allergic to testosterone. Whenever I've felt a testosterone rush I get, like, sick afterwards, and I feel exhausted and terrible.

The thing I do miss about the way some sequels were in the past was that each film felt like its own unique, complete tone. Now, sequels are tonal facsimiles of the ones before them, like a television series, whereas back in the past sequels would often be radically different from the ones before.

The last thing on earth I wanted to do was make a movie that plays directly to a sort-of frat boy audience, you know?

When I was finally allowed to watch horror in my early teens I think I overdid it, I actually ended up generating some kind of low grade PTSD, I was paranoid and scared of our house being broken into. It actually took me a long time to get over that.

My goal from the very beginning was to make very visually lush, juicy films that you can really sink your teeth into. That's always been part of my modus operandi.

I taught myself filmmaking on my own.

The male ego is a terrifying, terrifying thing, you know? If it's shattered, it becomes even more dangerous.

Well, I think it's important to have some kind of a narrative engine that pushes the audience through the landscape. But I love films like 'Apocalypse Now,' which is a very mood driven film. It's a magnetic force that's pulling them through.