Director Roger Avary's rock ‘n’ roll high school.

Roger Avary is excited. "I’ve received emails from people saying, ‘I fled the theatre in tears’, ‘I became nauseous’, ‘I threw up onto myself’," he says, waving his arms around. "And all of them had written me, not because they were upset, but to thank me because they hadn’t ever experienced a film that affected them in, like, a physiological way. But I wanted the movie to be like a virus. One that attaches itself to you and haunts you over a great period of time."

Avary, who co-wrote Pulp Fiction with ex-friend Tarantino, is in London to publicise his new film, a high-school glumorama from the pen of Brett Easton Ellis. "I wanted to make something that would make someone re-evaluate their own inner workings just a little bit," he says. "I’d been watching the state of teen cinema and it was like this great big lie. It was showing the hilarity and craziness, but I kept asking myself where were the deep, melancholic moments that I remember experiencing. So I wanted to make a movie that would capture the terror and excitement of that period."

And so he did. Thanks to some drugged-up nihilism and a dark, brooding performance from James van der Beek (Dawson’s Creek) as mad bad Sean Bateman (the brother of American Psycho Patrick Bateman). But what does Brett think? "He snuck into a very early screening of the movie," admits Avary. "I was terrified to know what he thinks because he’s very blunt about what he feels. He lets his thoughts fly right out of him and he doesn’t censor himself at all…" And? "He loved it." Of course. "In fact, he’s now seen the movie about 35 times." Jonathan Carter 28 March 03

The Rules of Attraction, on general release from 28 March 03.