Chuck Russell: Horror films let us face our worst fears and survive them | English Movie News

Chuck Russell says that the horror and comedy genres are surprisingly similar. While comedy connects people through laughter and joy, reminding us not to take life too seriously, horror, on the other hand, helps us confront our fears. Talking about how both horror and comedy can be cathartic, he says, “Horror films lets us face our worst fears and survive them, reminding us of our inner hero. It shows us that even common people can rise with courage to face evil. When I’m telling a horror story, I’m not really telling a fairy tale. It doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending. But it has to show common people rise up in courage for the love of another, to face a greater evil – because good will always beat evil.”

‘It’s not about how graphic horror can be, but for me, it’s how it is staged’

Chuck says that when he crafts horror films, he focuses on storytelling and characters because when the audience cares about the characters, it makes the scares more impactful.
He says, “One time one of the big studios called me in, and they just wanted to start with only a monster design in the story. They were thinking, ‘Oh, the monster design is so cool.’ It is, but it’s the story, storytelling, and characters. You have to have a resonant story. In my case, I want to make a universal story. I want to make films where the audience thinks, ‘That’s how I might behave, even if it’s a spaceship,’ or ‘That’s how I might behave, even if it’s someone trapped in a cabin or whatever.’ Now once I have the audience’s heart in the character, now I can scare the hell out of them. This is the horror you really remember. The people that tell me the scenes in my movies they remember the most – often they’re the most imaginative, but they’re terrifying because they cared about the character. So it’s not just how graphic it can be, for me, it’s how it is staged.”