Look, I'll take it as a very positive step in the right direction that this is being laid down pre-production. So now the head is screwed on, no pun intended, let's make this a career defining work Sir Ridley! What I can't understand about the statement is that he's a master film maker, so why is he hinging the notion of a good horror flick around a gore scene. Horror is the genre, terror is what it creates. Hitchcock was a master of terror, but I can't imagine him talking about films like the Psycho or Birds in terms of a stand-out gore scene to create the terror you feel when you watch them, even the shower scene (movie history) is terrifying more in what you're left to imagine is happening but not seeing rather than its bloody gore. In abstract i feel that there is a lot in common with the feelings you go through living out the movies through the great cast in both of these films with Alien I would liken to Psycho or the Birds (Aliens). Maybe Ridley doesn't want to go the extra mile and make great art ... I'm not sure if he's just going to be happy with good enough, but I expect more from him given his oeuvre. But overall, very happy that he's laying down this marker to the suits about the sort of artist freedom he wants.
I remember in the blue ray of Prometheus Sir Ridley talked about playing a joke on Kate Dickie when she's checking out the body of Milburn, i.e., she's not told that the snake thing will jump out. I bet on a cold filming day when she's worrying about nailing her lines, being in the presence of a director megastar then this snake thing suddenly jumps out she got a real shock. It makes me think why didn't Sir Ridley inject this sort of fun playfulness into Prometheus itself: the way a cat terrorises a mouse. Maybe he should take that creativity with him into how to scare us and forget about some gore scene that might look better in a b movie.
