Quotes from Eli Roth

Movie stars need to retain some of that mystique if you are a big movie star.

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.

What's important for me is staying healthy.

'Eraserhead' is a weird, horrible nightmare, and it doesn't narratively make sense. Stuff's happening, but you honestly feel like you're in a nightmare, and it has such disturbing imagery that it stays with you forever once you've seen it.

I have control issues. For sure, no question.

When you make a film for a million and a half dollars and it opens at 20 million, the next question out of everyone's mouth is, 'When's the next one, when's the next one, when's the next one?'

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.

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

I get a little too obsessive with work.

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.

You know, the dirty secret in the Director's Guild is that the average life expectancy of Director's Guild members is 57 years old. The stress level is so high and directors are generally really out of shape, cause they sit in the chair and they eat craft service.

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.

I have a strong art-history background.

I never put out a vanilla edition of a DVD.

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

'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.

Possession and exorcism is something that's in every religion and every culture. It's a real primal fear: Is the body a vessel for our spirits? What happens if something else takes over it? Where does the spirit go?

Some disaster movies look like you're watching someone else play video games. They're fun but it's not real.

I've always been fascinated by the idea that there's no such thing as evil; it's all in your point of view. To one group a suicide bomber is the antichrist and to one he's a hero.

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 think horror should never be safe, whether it's violent or non violent.

What is important to me is that people know I respect the business of making movies.