The fear factor
We Have A Ghost director CHRISTOPHER LANDON on his freaky horror career
ILLUSTRATION MIKE CATHRO
Scouts Guide To The Apocalypse; Freaky; Happy Death Day; Happy Death Day 2U; Freaky; Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones; The Marked Ones again; We Have A Ghost.
HIS FIRST FILM, 2010’s effed-up anthology Burning Palms, aside, Christopher Landon has spent the last decade and change carving out a career as one of the best and most interesting voices in mainstream American horror. His latest, the atypically family-friendly We Have A Ghost, is now on Netflix, affording us the chance to track his progression as a director…
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES (2014)
After Burning Palms “ briefly scared me away from directing ”, Landon set up a sideline writing the first wave of Paranormal Activity sequels. But his hands-on presence (“I was on set saying, ‘The camera needs to be here’”) resulted in a natural step up to directing on the fifth instalment, by some distance the most intense of his career. “I did put a ton of humour in, but it was very grounded humour,” he says. “And after that I was hooked on making more.”