At the age of 30, South African-born director Jonathan Liebesman is already calling the shots in Hollywood.
Producer Michael Bay head-hunted Liebesman to direct Bay's latest film, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.
The film - gory, violent and extreme - followed Liebesman's cinematic initiation into the Hollywood studio system with Darkness Falls, an imaginative fantasy that turned the fable of the tooth fairy into a horrific nightmare. Now he takes the cult horror film, Texas Chainsaw, and brutally turns its insides out.
But, despite these two films, Liebesman says horror is not his favourite genre. "I'm not a massive fan of horror movies," he says.
He only saw the original 1974 cult classic three years ago and he even stayed clear of meeting Tobe Hooper, who directed the original film, during the premiere of his film in Los Angeles. He was pleased to hear that Hooper "loved it".
"I grew up in South Africa where there was not really a horror film culture. In America, people know about every single horror film.
"I was raised on the big Hollywood movies that were big in South Africa," he says, recalling films like Braveheart, The Last Emperor and Terminator 2.
Despite horror films not being his first choice, he admits that they are "a great way to learn studio politics and get a track record with studios".
"Fear is very visceral, one of the primal kind of emotions, and horror films play right to that," he says. "Films like Jaws tap right into fear and you get one of the most visceral reactions out of an audience."
Although most people will dismiss Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning as just another a horror film, it is ultimately a film about family and the search for identity. "It's about a character who has no place in the world and about a family who accepts him," says Liebesman. "You can look at it like that."
He is wary of success.
"I think the film industry here is very fickle. One day you can be dining with the family, so to speak, and the next day you're on the road. That's how Hollywood is.
Speaking about his place of birth, he says: "When you leave South Africa and you come here, your sense of home becomes a bit confused. I think it's important to really understand where your home is. You have to be very, very strong to survive," he says.
Liebesman's exploration of fear in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning is excellent and it is one prequel that delivers on all levels - it is bloody, brutal and unforgiving.
"Horror movies are, I believe, supposed to be exploitive," he says. "To me, you go in there and you know what you're doing. You're exploiting the audience and that's the point. You're being sadistic and that's why it's a horror film; it's a horrific experience .
"As a film-maker, I don't particularly have an issue . It really depends on the story. If the point of a story is gore and violence, there's no issue.
"It was funny to see reviews saying it's so exploitive, sadistic and nihilistic, but what are they coming to watch?
"They were saying, 'I did not want sit through it'. When you are on a roller coaster, some people want to get off, some people love it. That's what it is."
What is brilliant about Texas is that Liebesman has a sensibility as a |film-maker to choose what to show, when, and to avoid what might be excessive.
He says: "It's fun to say to an audience: 'Let's show you some violence and let's see you turn away'; and 'is this really what you want to see?'.
"The movie is supposed to be sadistic. When I hear the title, I hear people getting cut up. The images are gory."
He refers to conversations he had with actor R Lee Ermey, who plays the sadistic sheriff and is renowned for his role as an equally brutal officer in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket.
"Ermey told me that Kubrick always said that 'more is more'.
"In Hollywood everything is more, and that is kind of the general rule," says Liebesman.
"With this film, with the gore and the violence, you know what, more is more. There are people who will argue against that, but they don't have to watch it."
Although Liebesman is one of a few South African directors who have made it in Hollywood and is an inspiration to many local young film-makers, he finds it difficult to admit this and talk about himself.
"I'm very proud to be an inspiration to South Africans, but I don't think I have achieved close to what I want to yet," he says. His ultimate goal is "to make the great films".
"That's what I always strive to do - unbelievable films like Unforgiven, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus and Lawrence of Arabia; films that stand the test of time. I challenge myself to try to get there one day."
When he heard that Martin Scorcese's film The Departed was going to be premiered on the opening weekend of Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning in America, Liebesman went to see The Departed.
"It was so unbelievable. I left not upset that I was opening against the movie but inspired that I get to make films and I get to open on the same weekend as a film that I consider to be the best I've seen in a year-and-a-half.
"That's what inspires me. Great movie-making, to show what is possible with movie-making."
Liebesman, born and raised in Johannesburg, attended the South African School of Film and Drama before studying at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. At Tisch, he wrote and directed an award-winning film, Genesis and Catastrophe, based on a Roald Dahl short story. The short film won awards at both the Hollywood Film Festival and the Austin Film Festival, and has been used as a teaching tool at his alma mater.
He believes that making short films is a great way for local film-makers to draw attention to their work.
"It is important. Forget what people think. Get it in film festivals. I made one and now I'm directing a big studio movie.
"All I can say is follow your instincts. They tell you what you will be best at."
He firmly believes that the future for South African film-makers is promising.
"Look at Mexico and Australia's film industry. We're like them a few years ago. We have the talent and courage to tell our own stories. It's already started for South Africa."
How does he think Hollywood sees South Africa as a film-making country?
"They're only aware South Africa exists when a great film comes from South Africa or when they need somewhere cheap to shoot. "I wouldn't worry though - they're Americans, they don't know everything!"