Interview: Christopher Landon Reflects on DISTURBIA & Discusses Why We Need PG-13 Horror

Earlier this year, D.J. Caruso’s Disturbia turned 10 years old, and since I was already chatting with him for Happy Death Day, I could not resist chatting with Christopher Landon about the project, which became a turning point in his career as a then up-and-coming screenwriter with huge aspirations.

He discussed how Martha Stewart was the inspiration behind Disturbia, as well as how he channeled his own personal grief into the script. Landon also gave his thoughts on why we always need good PG-13 horror films (and that’s a sentiment this writer is very much in agreement with).

One movie that I feel deserves a little more love is Disturbia, and it turned ten years old earlier this year. I really enjoyed it, and I know it's cool to hate on Shia LaBeouf now and everything, but I loved him in it. And he has this great relationship with Carrie-Anne Moss, too.

Christopher Landon: He was fantastic in it. They both were.

Did your work on Disturbia become a launching point for your career?

Christopher Landon: It really was. My first break happened when I was really young and I was in college, and that’s when I adapted a book called Another Day in Paradise. A lot of things happened very quickly for me, and I was ill-equipped to handle it. It was like a very grown-up world that I suddenly was diving headfirst into, so I ended up crashing and burning really early on, career-wise, and then took some time off.

And then I wrote Disturbia. It was an idea that popped into my head while I was sitting in traffic, listening to NPR, and there was a story about Martha Stewart being on house arrest. That was the genesis of the whole movie. So I sat down, and I just wrote the script. And it was the first time that I wrote a spec script that I had just sent out into the world and it sold.

The movie was, at the time, really well-received. People really liked it. And I think there's a lot of shared DNA between that and Happy Death Day, in terms of the scares, and the humor. Disturbia was really funny, too, but it had this heart to it, too, and that was really important to me. I was dealing with death in that movie, about a boy who loses his father, which is very interesting and telling, because I lost my dad when I was 16. And so Disturbia, and that whole story, was very much about me still dealing with some of that stuff. And then, it's no coincidence that now, I lost my mom a couple years ago, and here we have Happy Death Day. It’s not a sad thing for me, either; in fact, I'm so grateful that I had these really cool ways of expressing myself, and putting some of that real stuff into movies that are completely ridiculous. So I'm glad that people, like you, still enjoy Disturbia.

I wonder if it’s maybe the PG-13 rating that deters more of the hardcore fans? It’s so hard to tell, but it seems like even though there have been a ton of great horror movies that aren’t rated R, PG-13 never quite gets a fair shake.

Christopher Landon: I’ve noticed that online, where people really, really trash, or get really pissed off, about if a horror movie has a PG-13 rating. Even on this movie. I understand if you're watering something down to try make a cash grab, to try and get more people to see your movie. But in this case, and with Disturbia, they didn't need gore to tell the story.

And I think it's funny, because with the concept of Happy Death Day, people automatically think, "But she dies so many times! How could you not get an R rating?" But if you watch the movie, you'll notice that you never actually see her die, and that’s because that is the rule of the time loop she’s stuck in. It's the millisecond before her death that resets her. So there was no need for the gore. Which means, unless I just want to drop F-bombs all over the place, and show nudity, which again, I didn't need in this movie, either, the PG-13 rating was appropriate for it.

It’s just like how I wouldn't need to see an R-rated version of Gremlins, or I wouldn't need to see an R-rated version of Jaws. There are movies that just work because of what they are, and the R rating doesn't suddenly become this stamp of approval. It's such a funny thing to me.

I am the most hardcore, ardent horror fan, and I have done as gory as you can get in some of my movies, but I'm only going to do it if it pushes the story forward. I was never going to make Scouts [Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse] as a PG-13 movie. They tried when I came on. That was what they were attempting to do, and I walked into that room, and I was like, "Nobody wants to see a PG-13 zombie movie. Screw that! You've got to see people get eaten and die, and it's got to be gory." But really, not every movie needs to be rated R.

You know what? If I could change one thing right now, it would be that I would make more scary movies for kids. I grew up watching things like The Watcher in the Woods, which is a movie that most people probably won't know. Or Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Dark Crystal. Those movies had darkness, and they were scary, and I loved them. I would love to see some movies that have the balls to scare kids in a way that is still fun and playful. We really need that.

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In case you missed it, check here to read our previous coverage of Happy Death Day, including the rest of Heather's interview with Christopher Landon.