Stephen Sommers Quotes (12 Quotes)

The key to humor in a horror film is that it has to be organic. It has to be organic to the situation.... if you know you're doing anything to get a laugh, or anything to scare people - that's great. But to try to get people to do both - to try to get people to scream in horror, and a moment later burst out laughing - I think that's a neater trick.

I love all of mythology and rules pertaining to all of the monsters, but I like to go the extra step.

A Night at the Museum.

The best scary movies have great humor in them and a great story.

No one is going to think going into this movie that they are going to come out loving Frankenstein, and not in a cheap of cheesy way at all - he's really an angry, vicious guy - a beast. But when you think of the originals, they were scary melodramas. The characters were so deep. I always felt as badly for Frankenstein as I did for his victims because, like Lenny in Steinbeck's 'Mice and Men,' he's a man-child. I've always found that fascinating.

Everybody knows that you can't see Dracula's reflection in a mirror, but nobody has ever asked, 'Why' That's a good question and I answer it. I also thought, 'You know, Dracula is like the father of all vampires and you can kill vampires with a stake in the heart. But Dracula has to be more complicated than that. No one knows how to kill Dracula'.

There are four movies that got me into wanting to make movies Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Swiss Family Robinson, and Jason and the Argonauts. Those are the movies that took me to different places when I was a kid. I fell in love with movies by watching those movies.

I never want to write something until I know every scene in the movie. I don't want someone hiring me and then me not being able to write it. Which is always a fear. So I like to figure it out, know all the characters, and know almost every scene in the movie before I start writing.

I wanted to make a small movie about a guy and a girl on the beach, but then I thought, wouldn't it be cool if a werewolf was there

Frankenstein's monster is so iconographic, so my creature designers spent many, many months designing him. I said, 'OK, he has to have a flat head, blots on his neck and Doc Martens on his feet, but other that - we can play with him'.

I hope in my career I get to do every kind of movie. When I did Huck Finn, I got all those Disney kid scripts. When I did Jungle Book, then I got all the animal scripts. Now I do a couple Mummy movies and it's like, 'Oh, he does monsters.

I think Frankenstein and The Mummy were my favorites. The Mummy was the only one that really scared the hell out of me. I loved Frankenstein as a kid, but I always felt sorry for him. I liked Dracula a lot, but it wasn't one of my favorites. I even liked The Wolfman a little better than Dracula. Dracula was too remote for me, or something.