Quotes from Dan Trachtenberg

Before we understood that houses shift just over time because the ground is moving, the creaks in a house were assumed to be apparitions, or ghosts. Before we understood that we live on a planet, and there are others, the only answers to where we came from had to be something supernatural.

At a horror movie, you can see other people dealing with the scary things. They can bolster you. You can think, 'Okay, if that guy can deal with it, I can deal with it.' There are lessons to be learned there, as opposed to having a frivolous popcorn experience. I think some of this stuff is good for your soul.

John Goodman is like the Jackie Chan of acting. Any prop that you put in front of him, he's going to take advantage of it in some peculiar way.

One of the first cassette tapes I ever purchased was the 'Rambo III' score. I was not allowed to see 'Rambo,' but my mom would allow me to buy the music, so I would listen to that score over and over and imagine the movie.

I used to review games on 'The Totally Rad Show,' and the best thing about that was I would finish games. Now, it's become challenging for me to actually sit through an entire game. I tend to get excited about the next shiny thing.

I thought that we all were afraid of death, but I've talked to my wife and other people, and they're not afraid of death the way I am. I find that really confusing. I don't like the idea of nothingness - that's terrifying to me.

For me, 'Jaws' is much more of an adventure movie, but when it's scary, it's terrifying. When it's funny, it's hilarious. When there's drama, it's the most sincere stuff on screen. When there's adventure, there's swashbuckle. It's all those things.

A lot of the commercials that I was doing were very slice-of-life, emotional, documentary-style, not big and cinematic and ultimately like the kind of movie I wanted to make.

I love thrillers - 'Dead Calm' is one of my favourite movies of all time.

I spent a long time trying to make it in the commercial world hoping that commercials would then lead to movies. That was a less-travelled path at the time, although it's very well-travelled now.

I grew up loving Ridley Scott and Tony Scott and Michael Bay and Adrian Lyne.

I appreciate the craft in 'Bioshock' and 'Resident Evil,' and I've played all of them. But I also learned that I don't like playing them because I get really scared.

My family went Intellivision instead of Atari. I would go over to my friends' houses to play their Ataris and was so jealous of that. I don't remember them ever being jealous that I had the Intellivision.

I allow myself to get firmly sucked in. I love that! I come from that.

I still don't know how to jump-start a car, even though it's been told to me a million times. But I do love thinking about how creativity works.

The reason I think we hold films like 'The Sixth Sense' and 'Citizen Kane' in such high regard is those are movies that were amplified by their twists but were already bringing the goods.

I love being able to tell a story visually. It's something I love about making commercials, where you put a magnifying glass over the mundane and make it feel extraordinary.

Life is a very scary thing because it's unknown. Anything can happen anytime, and that is terrifying for all of us: to not to be in control.

I never really lost touch with video games. Even while shooting '10 Cloverfield Lane,' I brought my PlayStation with me, the most portable of all the consoles, and was playing every night.

I don't think a lot of people would spot the video-game influences in '10 Cloverfield Lane.' People think it's just a Hitchcockian mystery. And I was heavily influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, for sure. But for a generation prior to mine, that would be the sole influence. Since I grew up playing video games, I drew so much inspiration from that world.