In the modern world, there's a real genuine fear of loss of individuality, and I think the undead speak to that. I also think the idea of the dead coming back to life, and this unstoppable foe that just keeps coming and coming but rather slowly just chases you, is a real primal fear.

Growing up, I wanted to make the kind of movies that would play in a multiplex, and those were the kinds of movies I ended up making.

One of the things that struck me when I was a kid and I was learning about Pompeii was these figures that were frozen in the moments of their death. It is very powerful imagery, and it is very emotional and very evocative.

You can't just shoot your way out of every scenario in 'Resident Evil' games. You have to use your intelligence.

I love comedy. God has given me this platform.

My father was a really funny guy. He lived a good long life. And he was the reason I wanted to be funny and become a comedian and a comedy writer, so to say that he's somewhat of a mythic figure in my life would be an understatement.

When you spend your day writing comedy, particularly with others, the discussion of jokes and how far to push things with a group of unoffendable colleagues means that your grasp of what is acceptable in normal conversation is often skewed.

I was struck after 9/11 by what seemed the assumption that everyone bereaved by that event was suffering the same thing. I wanted to explore how individual grief is, how complicated, how colored by the complexity of the mourner's relationship with the person who's died.