Alexandre Aja (born 7 August 1977) is a French film director who rose to international stardom for his 2003 horror film Haute Tension (known as High Tension in the US, and known as Switchblade Romance in the UK). He has also directed the horror films The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Mirrors (2008), Piranha 3D (2010) and Horns (2013).
It's a very interesting point because in Europe there is no horror movie. It's very hard to make a slasher or gory movie. There is no audience for that. I think the main difference between Europe and the US is that there is a kind of freedom. We don't have this Puritanism problem. We don't have this stupid, silly problem with nudity. On the other hand we have this problem with violence. It's very hard to get very far. A movie like The Last House on the Left (1972) would be very hard to do in Europe. Like High Tension (2003) was. It was not very easy to do and find money to make the movie because it was so violent. We don't have a nudity problem, the only problem we have is too much violence. To give you an example, The Devil's Rejects (2005), which I saw before I was leaving for LA. It's a great movie, it's an amazing movie but it'd be very hard to do in Europe. Because it's very violent and traumatic but sometimes you are on the side of the killers and that'd be something they'd have a problem with.
2
I'm a huge fan of movies and I watch DVDs all day and I like to be able to watch DVDs that are different from what was in theaters. Whether that's uncut or a director's cut. I think it's an awesome way to rediscover the movie.
3
That's the problem. It's hard to release an NC-17 anywhere right now. It's like you don't have access to theaters to many multiplexes. And I understand that cuts had to be made to the movie.
$15 Million
