Italian horror maestro Dario Argento finds movie inspiration in his own nightmares

Dario Argento takes inspiration for his horror films from his own nightmares.

The 82-year-old Italian maestro is regarded as one of the most influential directors in the genre over the course of his six decade spanning career.

Argento explained that after being at the helm of classics such as 'Suspiria', 'Inferno', 'The Bird With the Crystal Plumage' and 'Deep Red', making movies is as "natural" to him as breathing.

He said: "It felt like not even a month had passed. I've made so many films it is as natural to me as eating or breathing. So I draw my inspiration from my nightmares and my dreams, that is what I need for my inspiration but others must be inspired by me. That's a normal thing. It's a bit like when I go to a museum and I see a picture and I get inspired by that. So art is something that is interchangeable."

Dario most recently completed work on 'Dark Glasses' for streaming service Shudder - which stars newcomer Xinyu Zhang as a little boy who helps a blind young woman track down a serial killer and is his first feature since 2012's 'Dracula 3D' - and explained he was "very lucky" to find such an intelligent performer to take on the role.

He told HeyUGuys: "I was extremely lucky to find this boy because he is a very intelligent boy but he had never acted before but he had seen a lot of films so he knew how to act and I just told him what to do and he did it."

Meanwhile, the soundtrack to the new horror was supposed to be provided by 1990s French duo Daft Punk until their manager called Dario to inform him that they were no longer working and he had to find someone else.

He said: "With Daft Punk, everything was already discussed and almost finalized but at that point, the manager called me and told me that they didn't exist any longer I had to look to someone else to do the music for the movie, the soundtrack. So I looked and I found Arnaud Bottini and he is a wonderful musician and he did that wonderful electronic soundtrack, so everything worked out."