British director Paul Anderson has established himself as a provider of thrills and chills with the likes of "Event Horizon" and "Mortal Kombat". Now he's loading another computer game adaptation with "Resident Evil"...

What problems do you face making a film of a successful computer game like Resident Evil?

The main problem is that you have a very strong core audience who expect a lot from a movie like this. Resident Evil is their favourite game and they've been playing it for seven or eight years, and now some asshole film maker is going to come along and mess it all up and ruin it. That tends to be what they're scared of.

So you have to be sure to please them above all?

Well, in pleasing them you have to be sure not to make a movie that's inaccessible to a more mainstream audience as well. Those things can sometimes be quite contradictory.

The films you've made have tended to be stylish ones that combine elements of horror and sci-fi. Do you find it easy to scare audiences?

No, it's difficult. Especially with genre audiences, because they've seen everything. They see everything coming. I think it's one of the reasons why there's a lot of comedy in "Resident Evil", there's been a shift in the last ten years towards more action horror-comedy, rather than straight horror. I went to see the re-release of "The Exorcist" a couple of years ago, and they were hooting and hollering, they thought it was the funniest film ever made. It was terrible. I remember it being the scariest film ever, so I was terrified watching it, but generally audiences don't take that stuff seriously any more.

Yet you have to create a scenario where zombies are frightening, keeping the audience with the story as you do so...

After a while the undead stop being scary, they become funny, so we limited the amount they're in the movie. I think they have a big impact in our movie, but you might be surprised by how little screen time they actually occupy.