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Wes Craven

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Wes Craven
Craven in 2010
Born
Wesley Earl Craven

(1939-08-02)August 2, 1939
Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
DiedAugust 30, 2015(2015-08-30) (aged 76)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting placeLambert's Cove Cemetery
West Tisbury, Massachusetts
Other names
  • Abe Snake
  • Guru of Gore
  • Master of Horror
  • Sultan of Shock
Alma materWheaton College
Johns Hopkins University
Occupations
  • Film director
  • screenwriter
  • producer
  • actor
  • editor
Years active1968–2015
Known for
Spouses
Bonnie Broecker
​
​
(m. 1964; div. 1969)​
Mimi Craven
​
​
(m. 1984; div. 1987)​
Iya Labunka
​
(m. 2004)​
Children2, including Jonathan
Signature

Wesley Earl Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and editor. Amongst his prolific filmography, Craven was best known for his pioneering work in the horror genre, particularly slasher films, where he mixed horror cliches with humor and satire.[1][2][3] Craven has commonly been recognized as one of the greatest masters of the horror genre due to the cultural impact and influence of his work.[4][5][6][7][8][9]

Craven created the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise (1984–present), specifically writing and directing the first film, co-writing and producing the third, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), and writing and directing the seventh, Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994). He additionally directed the first four films in the Scream franchise (1996–2011). He also directed cult classics The Last House on the Left (1972) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977), the horror comedy The People Under the Stairs (1991), and psychological thriller Red Eye (2005). His other notable films include Swamp Thing (1982), The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), Shocker (1989), Vampire in Brooklyn (1995), and Music of the Heart (1999).

Craven received several accolades across his career, which includes a Scream Award, a Sitges Film Festival Award, a Fangoria Chainsaw Award, and nominations for a Saturn Award and several other film festivals. In 1995, he was honored by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films with the Life Career Award, for his accomplishments in the horror genre. In 2012, the New York City Horror Film Festival awarded Craven the Lifetime Achievement Award.[10]

On August 30, 2015, aged 76, Craven died of a brain tumor at his home in Los Angeles.[11][12]

Early life

[edit]

Craven was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Caroline (née Miller) and Paul Eugene Craven. He was of English, Scottish, and German descent.[13] He was raised in a strict Baptist family.[14] From 1957 to 1963 Craven earned an undergraduate degree in English and psychology from Wheaton College in Illinois. During his senior year, he developed Guillain-Barré Syndrome which delayed his graduation by a few months.[15] After his recovery, Craven went on to get his master's degree in philosophy and writing from Johns Hopkins University.[16]

In 1964–65, Craven taught English at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, and was a humanities professor at Clarkson College of Technology (later named Clarkson University) in Potsdam, New York.[17] He also taught at Madrid-Waddington High School in Madrid, New York.[18] During this time, he purchased a used 16 mm film camera and began making short movies. His friend Steve Chapin informed him of a messenger position at a New York City film production co, where his brother, future folk-rock star Harry Chapin worked. Craven moved into the building where his friend Steve Chapin lived at 136 Hicks St. in Brooklyn Heights.[18] His first creative job in the film industry was as a sound editor.[17]

Recalling his early training, Craven said in 1994, "Harry was a fantastic film editor and producer of industrials. He taught me the Chapin method [of editing]: 'Nuts and bolts! Nuts and bolts! Get rid of the shit!'" Craven afterwards became the firm's assistant manager, and broke into film editing with You've Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You'll Lose That Beat (1971).[18]

Career

[edit]

Craven had a letter published in the July 19, 1968, edition of Life praising the periodical's coverage of contemporary rock music and offbeat performers such as Frank Zappa.[19] Craven left the academic world for the more lucrative role of pornographic film director. In the documentary Inside Deep Throat, Craven says on camera he made "many hardcore X-rated films" under pseudonyms. While his role in Deep Throat is undisclosed, most of his early known work involved writing, film editing, or both.[20]

Craven's first feature film as director was The Last House on the Left, which was released in 1972.[17] Craven expected the film to be shown at only a few theaters, which according to him "gave me a freedom to be outrageous, and to go into areas that normally I wouldn't have gone into, and not worry about my family hearing about it, or being crushed." Ultimately the movie was screened much more widely than he assumed, leaving him ostracized due to the content of the film.[21]

After the negative experience of Last House, Craven attempted to move out of the horror genre, and began writing non-horror films with his partner Sean S. Cunningham, none of which attracted any financial backing. Finally, based on advice from a friend about the ease of filming in the Nevada deserts, Craven began to write a new horror film based on that locale. The resulting film, The Hills Have Eyes, cemented Craven as a "horror film director" with Craven noting, "It soon became clear that I wasn't going to do anything else unless it was scary".[22]

Craven frequently collaborated with Sean S. Cunningham. In Craven's debut feature, The Last House on the Left, Cunningham served as producer. They pooled all of their resources and came up with $90,000.[citation needed] Later, in Craven's best-known film, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Cunningham directed one of the chase scenes, although he was not credited.[17] Craven had a hand in launching actor Johnny Depp's career by casting him in A Nightmare on Elm Street, Depp's first major film role.[23]

Elm Street villain Freddy Krueger appeared with Cunningham's Jason Voorhees in the 2003 slasher film Freddy vs. Jason, produced by Cunningham with screenwriter Victor Miller credited as "Character Creator". In the 2009 remake of The Last House on the Left, Cunningham and Craven share production credits.[24]

Although known for directing horror/thriller films, he worked on two films which are outside this genre: Music of the Heart (1999) and Paris, je t'aime (2006) (as one of the 22 directors responsible for it).[20] Craven designed the Halloween 2008 logo for Google[25] and was the second celebrity personality to take over the YouTube homepage on Halloween.[26] In the mid-1980s, Craven worked briefly in the television industry by directing seven episodes of the 1985 reboot of The Twilight Zone, including an episode that was written by George R. R. Martin.[27][28]

Craven created Coming of Rage, a five-issue comic book series, with 30 Days of Night writer Steve Niles.[29] The series was released in digital form in 2014 by Liquid Comics with a print edition scheduled for an October 2015 debut.[29]

Filmmaking

[edit]

Influences

[edit]

Craven has cited filmmakers Ingmar Bergman, Luis Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock, Federico Fellini, Jean Cocteau, and Francois Truffaut as among his major influences.[30][31][32] Craven's first film, The Last House on the Left, was conceived as a remake of Bergman's The Virgin Spring (1960).[33] The goat in the dream sequence at the beginning of A Nightmare on Elm Street was included by Craven as a homage to Buñuel.[34]

Style and themes

[edit]

Ideas that come out of families which are fractured or disturbed in some way are the most profoundly terrifying things to me. And I've always felt that I was on solid ground when I was making movies about families. The first real terrors happen to us in the first five years of our lives and that's where we are—in the middle of our family. Quite often, for children, the most terrifying things are adults, and unfortunately often it's the parents themselves that are the most frightening.

—Craven on the theme of family in his works[35]

Craven's works tend to explore the breakdown of family structures, the nature of dreams and reality, and often feature black humor and satirical elements.[31][36] Ostensibly civilized families succumb to and exercise violence in The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes. A Nightmare on Elm Street, Shocker, and the Scream films address the process of addressing family trauma.[16]

Several of Craven's films are characterized by abusive familial relationships such as The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The People Under the Stairs, and others. Families in denial are a common thread throughout his movies, an idea Craven openly discussed:

The family is the best microcosm to work with… It's very much where most of our strong emotions or gut feelings come from… I grew up in a white working class family that was very religious. There was an enormous amount of secrecy in the general commerce of our getting along... If there was an argument, it was immediately denied. If there was a feeling, it was repressed… I began to see that as a nation we were doing the same things.[37]

The blurring of the barrier between dreams and reality, sometimes called "rubber-reality", is a staple of Craven's style.[38] A Nightmare on Elm Street, for example, dealt with the consequences of dreams in real life.[39] The Serpent and the Rainbow and Shocker portray protagonists who cannot distinguish between nightmarish visions and reality. Following New Nightmare, Craven increasingly explored metafictional elements in his films. New Nightmare has actress Heather Langenkamp play herself as she's haunted by the villain of the film in which she once starred.[11] At one point in the film, the audience sees on Craven's word processor a script he's written, which includes the conversation he just had with Langenkamp—as if the script were being written as the action unfolds.

In Scream, the characters frequently reference horror films similar to their situations and at one point Billy Loomis tells his girlfriend that life is just a big movie. This concept was emphasized in the sequels as copycat stalkers re-enact the events of a new film about the Woodsboro killings (Woodsboro being the fictional town where Scream is set) occurring in Scream.[17]

Collaborators

[edit]

Marianne Maddalena served as a producer on twelve of Craven's films.[40] After working on Wes Craven's New Nightmare, Patrick Lussier became an editor on all of his features up to Red Eye.[41] Craven tended to employ cinematographers Peter Deming, Mark Irwin and Jacques Haitkin on his films.[42][43][44] With the exception of Music of the Heart, composer Marco Beltrami worked on all of Craven's films from Scream to Scream 4.[45] Although he usually wrote his own films, Craven worked with screenwriter Kevin Williamson regularly after Scream.[46] Craven often used a number of the same actors on his projects including Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Robert Englund, Michael Berryman, Heather Langenkamp, and David Hess.

Personal life

[edit]

Craven's first marriage, to Bonnie Broecker, produced two children: Jonathan Craven (born 1965) and Jessica Craven (born 1968). Jonathan is a writer and director.[17] Jessica was a singer-songwriter in the group the Chapin Sisters. The marriage ended in 1970.

In 1984, Craven married a woman who became known professionally as actress Mimi Craven. The two later divorced, with Wes Craven stating in interviews that the marriage dissolved after he discovered it "was no longer anything but a sham."[47] In 2004, Craven married Iya Labunka; she frequently worked as a producer on Craven's films.[48]

Craven was a birder. In 2010, he joined Audubon California's board of directors.[48] His favorite films included Night of the Living Dead (1968), The Virgin Spring (1960) and Red River (1948).[49]

Death

[edit]

Craven died of a brain tumor at his home in Los Angeles on August 30, 2015, aged 76.[11][12] Many actors and fellow directors paid tribute to him, including David Arquette,[50] Adrienne Barbeau,[51] Angela Bassett,[50] Bruce Campbell,[52] Heather Langenkamp, Neve Campbell,[53] John Carpenter,[52] Courteney Cox,[50][51][54] Joe Dante,[52] Johnny Depp,[55] Robert Englund,[50][51] Sarah Michelle Gellar,[50][54] Lloyd Kaufman,[52] Jamie Kennedy,[54] Rose McGowan,[51][54] Kristy Swanson,[50] Edgar Wright,[52] and Amanda Wyss.[53] The tenth episode of the horror television series Scream and the fifth film in the franchise (2022) were dedicated in his memory.[56][57]

Craven was buried at the Lambert's Cove Cemetery in the town of West Tisbury on the island of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.

Trivia

[edit]

The first scholarly collection of work dedicated to Craven was published by Edinburgh University Press in July 2023.[58]

Filmography

[edit]
Main article: Wes Craven filmography
Directed features
Year Title Distributor
1972 The Last House on the Left Hallmark Releasing / American International Pictures
1977 The Hills Have Eyes Vanguard
1978 Stranger in Our House (Summer of Fear)
1981 Deadly Blessing United Artists
1982 Swamp Thing Embassy Pictures
1984 A Nightmare on Elm Street New Line Cinema
1985 The Hills Have Eyes Part II Castle Hill Productions
1986 Deadly Friend Warner Bros.
1988 The Serpent and the Rainbow Universal Pictures
1989 Shocker
1991 The People Under the Stairs
1994 Wes Craven's New Nightmare New Line Cinema
1995 Vampire in Brooklyn Paramount Pictures
1996 Scream Dimension Films
1997 Scream 2
1999 Music of the Heart Miramax Films
2000 Scream 3 Dimension Films
2005 Cursed
Red Eye DreamWorks Pictures
2010 My Soul to Take Universal Pictures
2011 Scream 4 Dimension Films

Bibliography

[edit]
  • Wes Craven (November 1, 1999). Fountain Society. Thorndike Press. ISBN 978-0-7862-2270-4.
  • Wes Craven; Steve Niles (October 25, 2014). COMING OF RAGE #1. Liquid Comics. ISBN 978-1-62665-913-1.

Awards and nominations

[edit]
Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Wes Craven

Throughout his career, Craven was nominated for and won numerous awards, including multiple Saturn Awards and several film festival honors.[59]

In 1977, Craven won the critics award at the Sitges Film Festival for his horror film The Hills Have Eyes.[60] In 1997, the Gérardmer Film Festival granted him the Grand Prize for the slasher film Scream.[61] In 2012, the New York City Horror Film Festival awarded Craven the Lifetime Achievement Award.[10]

See also

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References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Paying Tribute to Modern Horror Pioneer, Wes Craven".
  2. ^ Dimelow, Gareth (September 1, 2015). "RIP Wes Craven: A Pioneer Who Tested The Limits Of Horror". Sabotage Times. Retrieved October 15, 2016.
  3. ^ "The 5 scenes that show Wes Craven will always be the Master of Horror". August 31, 2015.
  4. ^ Leydon, Joe (August 31, 2015). "Wes Craven Remembered: A Master of Modern Horror". Variety.
  5. ^ "Wes Craven, Horror Maestro, Dies at 76". The Hollywood Reporter. August 30, 2015.
  6. ^ "Wes Craven, Whose Slasher Films Terrified Millions, Dies at 76". The New York Times. September 1, 2015.
  7. ^ Garrett, Preston (July 29, 2010). "The Top 13 MASTERS OF HORROR: Writer/Directors – The Script Lab".
  8. ^ "Wes Craven, Hollywood's Horror Pioneer, Dies at 76". NBC News. August 31, 2015.
  9. ^ "Here's Why Wes Craven is the Greatest Horror Movie Director of All Time". MovieWeb. January 9, 2022.
  10. ^ a b "2012". New York City Horror Film Festival. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  11. ^ a b c "Wes Craven, horror movie director, dies at age 76". CNN. Retrieved August 30, 2015.
  12. ^ a b "Wes Craven, Horror Maestro, Dies at 76". The Hollywood Reporter. August 30, 2015. Retrieved August 30, 2015.
  13. ^ "Wesley Earl Craven (b. 1939)". mooseroots.com. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  14. ^ "The Horror of Being Wes Craven". The New York Times. April 17, 2011.
  15. ^ Keith Call (September 1, 2015). "Wes Craven at Wheaton College". Retrieved June 15, 2023.
  16. ^ a b Muir, John Kenneth (1998). Wes Craven: The Art of Horror. Jefferson, South Carolina: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-7864-0576-7. p. 114.
  17. ^ a b c d e f "Wes Craven". Biography.com. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  18. ^ a b c Lovece, Frank (October 13, 1994). "The Man Who Created Freddy Krueger is Back With Renewed Respect". Newsday. New York. Archived from the original on August 31, 2015. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  19. ^ Craven, Wes (July 19, 1968). "Letters To The Editors". Life. p. 17.
  20. ^ a b Domonoske, Camila (August 30, 2015). "Wes Craven, Master Horror Movie Director, Dies At 76". NPR. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  21. ^ Tobias, Scott (March 11, 2009). "Wes Craven". Avclub. Retrieved January 25, 2018.
  22. ^ Stratford, Jennifer Juniper. "WES CRAVEN: ONE LAST SCREAM". The Front. Retrieved January 25, 2018.
  23. ^ Blitz, Krasniewicz. Johnny Depp: A Biography.
  24. ^ "'Scream IV' Officially Greenlit with Wes Craven Attached". March 23, 2010.
  25. ^ "Wes Craven Carves Google Logo". October 31, 2008.
  26. ^ "Wes Craven Takes Over YouTube for Halloween!". Tubefilter News. August 31, 2008. Archived from the original on December 5, 2008. Retrieved November 11, 2008.
  27. ^ Kurland, Daniel (April 18, 2019). "The Twilight Zone: Hidden Gems of the 1980s Reboot". Den of Geek.
  28. ^ Fratini, Dawn (September 30, 2015). "Wes Craven in the 'Twilight Zone'". Cinema Mediations.
  29. ^ a b Rich Johnston (July 17, 2015). "Wes Craven's Coming Of Rage Finally Comes To Print From Steve Niles And Francesco Biagini – Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movie, TV News". Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movie, TV News. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  30. ^ "Wes Craven: the mainstream horror maestro inspired by Ingmar Bergman". The Guardian. August 31, 2015.
  31. ^ a b Skelton, Shannon (2019). Wes Craven: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781496826114.
  32. ^ Robb, Brian J. (1998). Screams & Nightmares: The Films of Wes Craven. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press. p. 17. ISBN 0-87951-918-5. OCLC 40150665.
  33. ^ "The Bergman Film That Inspired Wes Craven". Criterion.com.
  34. ^ Wes Craven. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Blu-Ray audio commentary, 1:20.
  35. ^ Newton, Steve (November 7, 1991). "Terror titan Wes Craven on the horrors of family and being cast in the role of the scary guy". The Georgia Straight.
  36. ^ Robb, Brian J. (1998). Screams & Nightmares: The Films of Wes Craven. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press. p. 14. ISBN 0-87951-918-5. OCLC 40150665.
  37. ^ Muir, John Kenneth (1998). Wes Craven: The Art of Horror. Jefferson, South Carolina: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-7864-0576-7. p. 5.
  38. ^ Muir, John Kenneth (2004). Wes Craven: The Art of Horror. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p. 114. ISBN 0-7864-1923-7. OCLC 66655309.
  39. ^ "Wes Craven: Film By Film". Empire Magazine. September 17, 2015. Retrieved September 17, 2015.
  40. ^ Kurtz, Rodrigo (August 19, 2020). "Interview: Marianne Maddalena". HelloSidney.com. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  41. ^ "CREDITS". patricklussier. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  42. ^ "Cabin in the Woods / Peter Deming, ASC – The American Society of Cinematographers". ascmag.com. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  43. ^ oliverjlwebb (June 27, 2020). "An Interview with Mark Irwin". CloselyObservedFrame. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  44. ^ "From Iconic Low-Budge Horror to 'Kong': DP Jacques Haitkin's Shooting Advice". No Film School. April 3, 2017. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  45. ^ "Composer Marco Beltrami on Craven, Del Toro and More". ComingSoon.net. June 19, 2017. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  46. ^ JonathanBarkan (September 4, 2015). "Remembering Wes Craven: Kevin Williamson and Neve Campbell". Bloody Disgusting!. Retrieved June 7, 2021.
  47. ^ Emery, Robert J. (2003). The Directors: Take Three. Vol. 3. Allworth Press. ISBN 1581152450.
  48. ^ a b Garrison Frost (May 28, 2010). "Director Wes Craven joins Audubon California's Board of Directors". Audublog. Audubon California (National Audubon Society). Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  49. ^ "Wes Craven Favourite Films". Film Doctor. November 1, 2013. Retrieved August 30, 2015.
  50. ^ a b c d e f Michael Rothman (August 31, 2015). "Wes Craven Dead at 76: Celebs Pay Tribute". ABC News.
  51. ^ a b c d Jonathan Barkan (August 31, 2015). "Robert Englund, James Wan, and More Mourn Wes Craven". bloody-disgusting.com. Retrieved September 13, 2018.
  52. ^ a b c d e Woerner, Meredith. "Fans, creators and horror makers mourn the loss of Wes Craven". capitalgazette.com. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  53. ^ a b Ben Child. "Wes Craven: Hollywood pays tribute to horror maestro". The Guardian. Retrieved September 13, 2018.
  54. ^ a b c d Jessica Dershowitz (August 30, 2015). "Wes Craven dead: Courteney Cox, Rose McGowan, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and more pay tribute". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved December 29, 2020.
  55. ^ Ramin Setoodeh (September 15, 2015). "Johnny Depp Pays Tribute to Wes Craven, Talks 'Blass Mass' – Variety". Variety. Retrieved September 13, 2018.
  56. ^ Kathy Sales (September 2, 2015). "Scream's 10th episode, dedicated to Wes Craven's memory". Archived from the original on September 2, 2015.
  57. ^ "'Scream' review: It's smug, bloody and fairly entertaining. Neve Campbell leads a better cast than this latest sequel deserves". Chicago Tribune. January 13, 2022.
  58. ^ Calum Waddell, ed. (2023). ReFocus: The Films of Wes Craven. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9781399507004.
  59. ^ "THE SATURN AWARDS". Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  60. ^ "Awards". Sitges Film Festival. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  61. ^ "Historique". Festival international du film fantastique de Gérardmer. Archived from the original on January 3, 2019. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
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