Chris Landon’s love of horror flicks goes way back.
The “Drop” director says that he was introduced to the genre by his dad, “Little House on the Prairie” star Michael Landon.
“The truth is, the reason why I got into horror movies is because he loved them,” Chris exclusively told The Post in a recent interview. “So, when I was a kid, we watched them together.”
Michael, whose TV career spanned decades, starred in the 1957 cult classic, “I Was a Teenage Werewolf,” and was born on Halloween.
“We watched all the movies,” Chris recalled. “All the Friday the 13ths, ‘Halloween,’ ‘Rosemary’s Baby,’ ‘The Shining,’ you name it, we saw it … I grew up on a very, very steady diet of horror movies.”
Michael died from pancreatic cancer in 1994 at age 54, when Chris was just 16.
Which makes his latest directorial endeavor, “Drop,” feel like a full circle moment.
The movie stars Meghann Fahy, a widowed mom whose date night with a man named Henry (Brandon Sklenar) goes awry when she receives phone messages from a mysterious hooded figure who threatens to kill her son and babysitter unless she murders Henry.
“I think that the real fun of the movie was just sort of taking this lone piece of technology and then seeing how it gets turned against us,” he explained.
Chris added that working with Fahy, fresh off the second season of “The White Lotus,” was a “dream come true.”
“I had to really pinch myself,” he continued. “And, you know, it’s funny though, like when we met, after she read the script, we met for coffee and sort of turned into one of those long meetings because we just really hit it off. And so I walked away from that meeting feeling like, I think I got her.”
The “Happy Death Day” director wants people to go see “Drop” in a movie theater because “it is an absolute thrill ride!”
“They’re going to be scared, they’re gonna be a nervous wreck, they’re gonna laugh and they’re gonna cheer,” he told The Post. “So I’m really hoping that people show up and see it in the theater the way it’s meant to be seen.”
Before working on “Drop,” Chris was attached to helm “Scream 7” — but announced months later that he was no longer involved with the project.
It’s not something he dwells on.
“Oh, I’m over it,” he said. “Very rearview mirror for me.”
Chris, who came out in his early 20s, and shares two children with his husband, explained that his work has changed since becoming a father.
“They’re the whole reason I do what I do now,” he gushed about his kids. “I think that my work prior to kids and prior to marriage was a little bit darker, a little more cynical. And then sort of having children really sort of opened my eyes and reoriented the way that I want to work and the kinds of things I want put out in the world.”
