Jeremy Kriss: Horror Screenwriter & Filmmaker

Jeremy Kriss is a filmmaker who treats horror as a study in attention. Through films like Something Horrible, he explores how fear becomes a kind of focus and how imagination fills the dark with what we don’t want to see. We talked about suspense, the pressure to reveal the monster, and the tension between what’s shown and what’s withheld.

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What do you think people are really afraid of when they watch horror?

Horror is fear of the unknown. Terror is fear of the known. Horror is the dark, the mystery under the bed, the void. Terror is the Green River Killer, Michael, Jason, Freddy. Horror gives us the power of our imagination, where the real fear lurks, while terror is the thing that makes us lock our doors.

How do you decide what to show versus what to leave unseen?

There is no real decision. The only concern is how long you can hold out without showing anything. The audience wins out eventually. They want to see the monster. But any good writer knows that the longer you hold out, the better. The scarier. The more disturbing. The mind is always better at constructing something horrible.

How do you keep mystery alive in a world where almost everything can be explained or Googled?

The great challenge has always been to find the new. Humans keep thinking everything that can be invented has already been invented, and then along comes a new mousetrap. That’s creativity. Ingenuity. That’s Shakespeare. He never wrote a single original story. He just made the old ones feel new. And better. More universal.

Where do you find inspiration when you’re not looking for it?

The greatest inspiration comes from doing the work. Every day. Butt in seat. There’s no such thing as writer’s block. Blockage is the natural state. If writing were easy, everyone would do it. And when you think you’re blocked, switch it up. Go for a walk. Free the mind. Inspiration comes when you least expect it.

What do you wish people understood about writers who work with fear, uncertainty, or the unknown?

Horror is the oldest genre there is, so we’re not peddlers of evil or freaks with mental issues. The campfire that sustained the tribe also birthed the first monsters, the things that went bump in the dark of the cave. And it taught us to face our fears. And conquer them.

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For Jeremy, the unseen isn’t a gimmick. It’s the pressure point. He writes toward the space where imagination does the violence, and the real fear waits just outside the frame.

Learn more about Jeremy at:

 • IMDb

 • LinkedIn