Interview: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who is best known for his genre films Intacto, 28 Weeks Later, -- as well as the new Intruders -- believes in a connection between the supernatural and human worlds.

However, genre fans usually demand either one or the other; a mix, such as Intruders has, is generally frowned upon.

"From the very beginning, I thought this was going to be a controversial movie," Fresnadillo says during a recent phone conversation. "You have to create a hybrid if you want to express many things."

The filmmaker says he's not interested in movies with "one simple label."

Intruders follows the story of a young boy in Spain who begins seeing a faceless monster, known as "Hollow Face," entering his home at night.

This story is crossed with another one of a girl, in England, who sees a similar creature in her room. Clive Owen stars as the girl's father.

Fresnadillo says he chose the very primal image of the faceless monster to relay his ideas.

"The movie is about the origin of fear," he says. "I was exploring the idea of when you wake up in the middle of the night and you hear a noise, what happens to you in that journey, the thoughts you have. Those thoughts define yourself."

Introducing an additional theme, the Spanish family goes to a priest for help, while the English family visits a psychologist. Neither offers a real solution.

Fresnadillo says that this problem is "very emotional." He says he's deliberately putting the audience in a place wherein they can't find relief via traditional methods.

The director -- who also received an Oscar nomination for his 1996 short film Linked -- likes the horror genre because it's "a vehicle to express complex and contradictory feelings."

"Reality is full of these things," he says. "Love and hate are mixed with each other."

But in his spare time, he prefers to watch Stanley Kubrick and others, who "when you're watching their movies, you're watching the world for the first time."

Meanwhile, if Intruders faces backlash from horror fans, Fresnadillo is ready.

"I have to pay attention to what I need to express and what I'm feeling," he says. "If I pay attention to the audience, I'm losing myself. It doesn't mean I'm not concerned about making movies to share with the audience. But sharing doesn't mean that you have to lose yourself."