Eli Roth hopes ‘The House with a Clock in Its Walls’ will introduce kids to "scary movies".
The 46-year-old filmmaker has always wanted to make a family-friendly film and is paying homage to the 80s classics he loved as a child because he thinks the genre has been "watered down" over the years and was keen to make things fun but spark a little bit of fear in his young audience.
He said: "I’ve always wanted to do a kids’ movie, but it had to be my version of a kids’ movie.
"When I was growing up, my first scary experiences in a movie theatre were those fantastic early Amblin movies. Films like ‘Raiders Of The Lost Ark’, ‘Poltergeist’, ‘Gremlins’, ‘Goonies’ – these were the films that really made you want to make movies. The first 20 minutes of ‘E.T.’ are so scary, and none of those films pandered or talked down to kids….
"Somewhere along the way, kids movies got very watered down and became sanitised. They’ve become either animation or PG-13 superhero films.
"I wanted to make a movie that reminded people how great these films can be, and do a true, pure PG-rated movie for kids. Really make a gateway movie that gets kids into scary films.
"The violent films I saw as a kid were on VHS at a sleepover. You obviously can’t start a kid on ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, it’d traumatise them, but if you want your kid to get into scary movies this is the movie you take them to. To show them how fun it is to be scared."
But Eli knew it was important to consider the adults who would also be watching just as much as younger viewers when making the movie.
He added in an interview with Den of Geek: "It’s fun to go see a movie with your parents when you’re a kid, it’s a good family activity.
"So you have to have a movie that parents aren’t going to be bored with…
"It’s so much fun to be screaming in the theatre with a bunch of people. That collective, communal experience of screaming, laughing and having fun.
"There’s just nothing like it. The movie’s so bonkers and crazy that there’d be nothing like seeing it on the big screen."
Eli Roth wants to scare kids
