English director David Slade started his career with a bang at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 with the success of his acclaimed feature, Hard Candy. Slade is also a well-established commercial director, and his work got him 60 nominations and awards. Before directing, David Slade was a journalist. He now resides in Los Angeles.

Emmanuel Itier: Were you a fan of horror movies, and were you familiar with the graphic novel before getting on board?

David Slade: Yes, I bought, way back, the first edition of the graphic novel of 30 Days of Night. It was in 2001. I really thought the story was great. But then I carried with on my life and went on to direct Hard Candy. Just before I finished Hard Candy, I went to a meeting at Sony and they mentioned 30 Days, so I expressed interest, and after the success of Hard Candy, I got a call from Sam Raimi and I was brought on board. I´m a fan of cinema more than horror movies. I think, for me, all movies are first dramas and then they fall into different categories to help the studios market them to such-or-such crowd. A few years ago, there were films that considered themselves horror, such as Scream, but they were just winking at the horror fans. I didn´t want to make this type of horror. I wanted to do something dark and visceral. For me, I look at films like Don´t Look Now for Nicolas Roeg-like horror movies. Also, I love The Shining from Stanley Kubrick, or John Carpenter´s The Thing. These are my references. I also love Japanese horror. I´m not attracted to gore or slasher movies.

EI: It seems like you went for a very realistic and serious tone.

DS: Yes, we really wanted to take the genre seriously and be totally realistic. We wanted to make it very unsafe so the audience would dive into the horror that the characters are going through. You really go down to hell with each of them. Also, it was interesting because we shot in New Zealand and we got lucky enough to get some incredibly creepy locations. Shooting at night added a layer of horror as well. I wanted the movie to be very raw and unsettling–a movie where you´re as tired as I was when I was shooting it. Shooting in New Zealand was strange, at times, because there isn´t much to do other than drinking, and somewhere between the drunk crew and the vampires, you really couldn´t make the difference between who was who.

EI: What do vampires mean to you?

DS: Well, it´s a cultural creation. There are some people who are truly mad who believe they are powerful, but it´s all B.S. To me, they are a great symbol in regards to the nature of humanity. We love to romanticize things. As a background, they believe they have been around for a long, long time and have witnessed all the horrors that men are capable of; therefore, they ended up being totally disgusted by men and they have no remorse to hunt them for food. And, of course, these vampires can read and write, and read Spinoza and have a good laugh. They read The Bible and had another good laugh. But at the end, they live a very simple existence where it´s all about the “sport”

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