Meet Christopher Landon, Hollywood’s go-to master of paranormal activity | Canada Voices

If director Christopher Landon had to elevator-pitch his childhood as a movie, he might call it “Little Haunted House on the Prairie.” While his father Michael Landon was known to millions as the star of such family-friendly television hits as Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven, Christopher’s dad was also something of a secret horror-movie super-fan.

Nifty high-concept thriller Drop doubles as the perfect anti-texting PSA for inconsiderate moviegoers

“I grew up in a divorced home, so my dad was a big horror fan and I watched a lot of the stuff with him, but it drove my mom crazy,” the younger Landon recalls today of his youth. “She hated it, and because she had no control over what I was doing when I was with him on the weekends, she’d later search my room for horror magazines and confiscate them. She thought my dad was raising a serial killer.”

What Landon’s mother didn’t realize, though, was that horror was a cathartic outlet for the young boy – a safe way for him to deal with the anxiety of his parents’ split, and later Michael’s death from cancer when Christopher was just 16. But those early father-son horror-movie bonding sessions also helped fuel Christopher’s creative spirit, leading him to become one of today’s most sought-after genre filmmakers thanks to his work on the Paranormal Activity and Happy Death Day franchises.

And now, Landon is preparing to scale new, terrifying heights with his thriller Drop. Following a first date gone horribly wrong atop a 38th-floor Chicago restaurant, the high-concept flick is emblematic of Landon’s approach to filmmaking: it is fast, funny and positively dripping with dread. Ahead of Drop’s release this weekend, Landon spoke with The Globe and Mail about how blood is thicker than water.

You’ve had a long history with the horror genre, which seems to be the one resilient kind of movie when it comes to theatrical releases lately. How have you seen the game change over the years?

You know it’s funny, I think horror has always had a certain popularity because it’s always been a great space to discover new talent. Most horror movies are relatively inexpensive to make, so a lot of people cut their teeth in the space. But the biggest evolution has been a certain level of respect for the genre that didn’t really exist. People in Hollywood for a long time were dismissive of the genre in terms of it being an art form. But we’re finally seeing a certain kind of recognition, between Ari Aster’s stuff or The Substance. And, of course, they recognize that there’s a lot of money to be made in horror.

Growing up, were you the kid with the Fangoria subscription?

A thousand percent, yes, which I had to hide from my mom. I grew up on a very steady diet of horror, maybe five to six movies every weekend for my whole childhood. My mom didn’t understand my obsession. But she finally came around when I was an adult and realized, “Oh, he’s not chopping up bodies and burying them in the backyard.”

You cut your own teeth on the micro-budget Paranormal Activity movies. Is it more fun when you get the budget scale for a movie like Drop?

I’ve directed movies where they’ve been under $5-million and I directed We Have a Ghost, which was $65-million. But what’s interesting is that they’re not wildly different from each other. When you have a low-budget movie, it forces you to be more nimble and creative in a lot of different ways because you have to, to figure it out. And even Drop is a modestly budgeted movie by Hollywood standards. But we still figured out how to build a 12,000-square-foot restaurant and make it look beautiful. For Drop, I was also jonesing to make something that felt a bit more tonally contained, and more specific. It was a movie that met the moment for me – I was in a darker mood when I stepped into this project.

That darker moment, is that alluding to your time developing Scream 7, and then having to step away from that project after its casting fell apart?

I would definitely say that was a big part of it. I was excited about the project, and we had a great script and an exciting movie planned, but there’s not much more I can say about it. I’m very excited about the new movie and see what Kevin Williamson does with it. It’s one of those things where I do believe in fate and the way that things play out, and I do believe that I was meant to make Drop, and he was meant to make Scream 7. I’ll be first in line on opening night.

Just talking about your own exposure to horror, you have two young children. When will you introduce them to horror movies, specifically your own?

Oh it’s happened already. Not mine, but I’m talking gateway horror. We’ve all watched Beetlejuice, both of them. Gremlins, too, which they are obsessed with. It’s funny – they ask a lot about when they can see something of mine. I’ll start with We Have a Ghost, which I feel they can see pretty soon. And then I’ll go straight to Happy Death Day, and hopefully they’ll get to watch three of those. And then we’ll get into the other stuff. Even though Freaky is really gory, it has a lighter touch and tone. I’m more afraid of the Paranormal movies, because those are the kind of movies that give you nightmares.

Okay, you opened the door to discuss the Happy Death Day trilogy just now, so I’ll ask: Is there anything you can say about a potential third movie?

I can’t say too much because it’s in such early stages. But we are actually having real conversations again with producer Jason Blum about a third movie and how we could approach it. But it’s a relief and a joy for us to feel like the door is back open again.

This interview has been condensed and edited.