If we're not compelled to gain a deeper understanding of good and evil, how can we make the world a better place? How can we find ourselves at the end of our lives and know that our lives were significant? Those things would be impossibilities. Scott Derrickson More Quotes by Scott Derrickson More Quotes From Scott Derrickson The role that blood plays in Christian iconography is huge - the washing of the blood, the shedding of blood, the blood of the cross, the crucifixion, the violence of that imagery. These are horrific, and yet they are at the center of the Christian faith. There is a place where beauty and terror merge, and it's at the cross. Scott Derrickson place violence faith beauty I don't fear pain or failure anymore because I'm too grateful for the pains and failures of my past - they have made me who I am, and most of the good things in my life are a direct result of them in some way. Scott Derrickson good me failure life When I went to Europe a few years ago, I felt very at home there, and I loved standing in Notre Dame and looking at all the gargoyles on the outside of that building and realizing that, as scary and frightening as they were, what I was looking at was something that was built to the glory of God. Scott Derrickson loved looking god home Kurosawa is my hero, and I've taught courses on his films, and I love what he does, and 'Rashomon' is, I think, his second greatest film after 'Ikiru.' Scott Derrickson i-think think hero love The momentum of my creative life and intellectual growth is still the momentum of breaking out of fundamentalism. Because of that, I'm very grateful for it. But I'm also grateful that at the center of it was something that I still believe to be true - those fundamentals of faith. Scott Derrickson grateful growth faith life If you really look hard at the evidence, the most rational conclusion is to believe that the demonic is real. Scott Derrickson look you real believe Fundamentalism is rooted in fear, and it's another reason I'm interested in the horror genre, because I know the fear that fundamentalism is built upon. Scott Derrickson know horror reason fear I'm an orthodox Christian. When people ask me if I'm a Christian, I always want to qualify and know what they mean by that. I'm not a Republican, and I'm not right wing. I'm not a dispensationalist. I don't think the world's about to end. Scott Derrickson think me people world My faith sometimes burdens me with the responsibility to think very deeply and long and hard about the choices I make creatively. There are projects I turn down because the material is too much a violation of what I believe. But that's true of anybody. Scott Derrickson me responsibility faith long I'm not standing above the audience trying to manipulate them as a puppet master or a trickster; I'm inside the story I'm writing and making and thinking about things very seriously and feeling very deeply at times, and trying to translate that into a narrative. Scott Derrickson story feeling writing thinking Priests and pastors are probably the most stereotyped characters in film and television, and the reason why, I think, is that most people don't know one. Most writers who work in Hollywood don't know any. Scott Derrickson think work people television Some of the most intelligent people I've met in my life are priests and pastors; now, a lot of them aren't that, though. Some of the most sanctimonious and hypocritical people I've met are priests and pastors, also. Scott Derrickson my-life some life people I've never been a materialist; I've never been somebody who believes in only what we can see and measure. I continue to be a student of religious philosophy, and I continue to take those ideas very seriously. Scott Derrickson never see philosophy ideas There's a clean simplicity to the plotting of 'Sinister,' whether you like it or not. And the scares are deliberate and even heavy-handed in a way. There's not a lot of sophistication or nuance in the plotting and not much restraint in the scares - and that's a part of what makes the movie accessible. Scott Derrickson like you simplicity way I love the horror genre for how cinematic it is. I gravitated, I think, initially, toward the horror genre because, of all the genres, I think it is the genre that is most friendly to the subject matter of faith and belief in religion. Scott Derrickson think faith love religion The more frightening and sort of dark and oppressive a movie is, the more free you are to explore the supernatural and explore faith. The two just somehow go hand-in-hand really nicely. Scott Derrickson free you faith dark I spent a lot of my adult life overcoming fear. It was a subject I knew a lot about, and it's one of the most important and most powerful human emotions. Fear is one of the greatest driving forces in the world. So I thought I could go into the horror genre and do things differently and contribute a different point of view. Scott Derrickson view fear life world In my personal life, dark material is kind of an emptying out - it leaves more room for light. If I'm writing a particularly awful scene, something is released in the process. Scott Derrickson light dark writing life I can't imagine making something that is made only to be scary. For me, the darkness and scary material has to have meaning attached to it, or I can't invest the time and energy it takes to write and script or make a movie. It has to mean something. Scott Derrickson me energy darkness time
