Quotes

I was the uninvited guest to the British film industry. Nobody wanted to know me. I knew I wanted to make films, but I would see these serious-looking guys going around with scripts under their arm, spending three or four years trying to get their films made. I couldn't be like that - I had to make a living and I wanted to get behind a camera and shout "action". So I would go out and shoot something like School for Sex (1969) - God, that was a terrible film - and a few weeks later every cinema in the country would be showing it.

But recently I had to record commentary for the DVD releases [of The Comeback (1978) and House of the Long Shadows (1983)], so I saw the films for the first time since making them, and you know what? They're not as bad as I thought. But searching for hidden meaning . . . they were just films. All I wanted to do was create a bit of mischief.

I've got to say this and I got to be quite honest: I was never a horror film fan. I never considered myself to be a horror filmmaker. I considered myself to be a terror filmmaker. I never thought of myself as making horror movies. I was making thrillers. If you wanted to say that they were verging on horror, I'd rather use the word terror.

[ why he liked casting Shiela Keith in his horror films] Sheila Keith was a lady who lived a quiet life with her dogs and her cats and came into work to do, brilliantly, whatever was asked of her. She was like your nice old aunt who would serve you cucumber sandwiches before ripping into a dismembered limb - without complaining.