Christopher Landon is a writer and director behind most of the Paranormal Activity movies, Happy Death Day, and Freaky. His upcoming Netflix horror movie is called We Have a Ghost, starring David Harbour and Anthony Mackie. It’s more of a family-friendly horror movie than his usual fare, with a PG-13 rating, and will be released on February 24.
In a new interview with IndieWire, Landon explains how becoming a father has changed his horror writer-director instincts. “You have kids, and you start to see things differently, and you also start to not want to put certain things out into the world. There’s really just a certain kind of violence, like a realistic brutality, that I have a hard time dealing with now, specifically if it involves kids, that’s kind of a no-no thing.”
Landon laughed, recalling an early meeting involving one of his Paranormal Activity films. “Someone [at the studio] presented us with a chart, and it was like, these are the acceptable things that you can do and the things you can’t do.”
“They were designated in a specific order, and at the very top was, you can’t kill a dog, and then under that was a baby, and 10 down, was a cat. Our priorities as a society are very fucked up because dog is above baby.” He laughed. “But I also understand that. I’m a dog lover!” It looks as though the studios draw the line when it comes to man’s best friend.
There has been a whopping seven Paranormal Activity movies, with the most recent film in the poltergeist ghost movie series coming out in 2021. Landon wrote four movies in the series and directed one – Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014). Landon recently gave us some encouraging news regarding another film in his slasher movie series – Happy Death Day 3 – so he hasn’t entirely moved into making movies for children.
If you’re looking forward to We Have a Ghost, check out our guide to some other scary movies for kids.