The idea of twee-comedy purveyor Wes Anderson making a horror movie is so seemingly ridiculous, it was even the subject of a Saturday Night Live sketch a few years back. But come to find out, the notion’s not so farfetched; it’s one he’s entertained for a while now.
“I have thought of doing a horror movie,” he told novelist Donna Tartt in a talk at the Rome Film Festival. “Horror is an area where if a filmmaker really wants to use all the tricks, the techniques to affect your emotions… with the kind of movies I do, you’re supposed to say ‘is this part supposed to be funny, or is this part supposed to be sad?’ Well, you say, ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure.’ This is the way we wanted it. When you make a horror or a thriller, you say, ‘You’re supposed to be scared here. You’re supposed to be relieved here. Here we’re explaining something so you know the next part so you’ll be more scared then.’ I like the idea of the requirements and the obligations of working in a genre like that.”
Anderson also confessed he’s toyed with another unexpected genre—and was refreshingly candid about why: “The good thing with a Christmas movie — if you make a great Christmas song or movie or book, as Dickens showed us, you can make a huge fortune, because they come back every year. As long as you have a piece of the action, then it’s a perennial.”
The promise of a Wes Anderson horror movie, a Wes Anderson Christmas movie, or (dare we say it) a Wes Anderson Christmas horror movie are plenty tantalizing. Maybe he’ll line them up after that stop-motion dog movie?
[via Guardian ]