This fortnight sees the 3D release of The Hole, the latest film by Joe Dante, the enfant terrible who fused B-movie invention, cartoon slapstick and satirical, Spielbergian small-town stories to create the likes of Piranha, Gremlins and The ’burbs. He reflects on his filmography with Tom Huddleston.

Piranha (1978)
“I was convinced it was going to be a disaster, I spent all my nights and days in the editing room trying to fix it, I didn’t even go to my own wrap party because I was so terrified it was going to be awful. But then it was a surprise hit.”

Gremlins (1984)
“I’d heard the stories about Spielberg [supposedly] taking over Poltergeist from the director Tobe Hooper, so I was concerned when I signed up to work on Gremlins. But Steven had heard the same stories and didn’t want them to go any further. He thought that if people believed he was taking over he’d never be able to hire anyone to work for him. So I was pretty much left alone. In fact, when he saw what I’d made, he was pretty perplexed. Originally it was a low-budget horror film, but by the time he saw it, it had become a comedy. The original ads made it look like a sequel to ET, so when Mom puts the gremlin in the blender people were going, ‘Wait a minute…’!”

The ’burbs (1989)
“The ’burbs today is revered as a cult classic, but at the time it got the worst reviews since Mein Kampf. When you get really bad reviews, you tend to remember them. The New York Times said ‘as empty as a movie can be without actually creating a vacuum’. I saved that one. But people have warmed to the movie, and it was a lot of fun to make.”

The Hole (2010)
“I always liked 3D. I was a kid when the ’50s 3D boom happened. But I don’t agree that every movie should be in 3D and I definitely don’t believe you should shoot a movie in 2D and then have some technician layer the picture like a Viewmaster. If they continue to provide substandard 3D they could kill the whole thing, just like they did in the ’50s. I’m very happy with the 3D aspect in The Hole. It’s a very stimulating way to make movies, it’s like Cinemascope or colour, if it’s used well it helps the movie. For example, Avatar is a compendium of every movie cliché ever, but it succeeds because it puts everything together in a new way. There’s nothing new in the entire film, it’s derivative in the extreme, but it looks so great that people actually want to live in the movie, they don’t want to leave.”

The future
“There are the movies you want to do, and the movies other people want you to do. And the movies you want to do are generally a lot more interesting. I’ve been offered some movies that went on to be very successful, but I just wasn’t the right guy to do them. I want to make movies I want to see. There’s a spark of inspiration that makes a really interesting movie, and it’s usually the excitement and interest of the director.

The Hole opens September 2.