Wes Craven obit

Wes Craven, master of horror and slasher films, dies at 76

He was not on the list.

Wes Craven, who had a strict religious upbringing that forbade the watching of movies, only to gain renown as a master of the horror genre with the “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Scream” franchises, died Aug. 30 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 76.

The cause was brain cancer, his family announced in a statement.

“A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984), “Scream” (1996) and their many sequels helped Mr. Craven win recognition as one of the major figures behind the slasher film.

With the razor-fingered Freddy Krueger of “Elm Street” becoming an internationally known symbol of menace, Mr. Craven achieved popular if not always critical success. By 2011, his movies were said to have grossed more than $1 billion at box offices around the world.

In many of his films, Mr. Craven explored, to terrifying effect, the edge — even the razor’s edge — between dreams and daily life. The outlandishness of the nightmare world, embodied in particular by Krueger, intrudes on what is depicted as real life.

In one of the “Scream” movies, characters engaged in making a horror movie find themselves to be imperiled in their presumably real lives by the fiendish Ghostface, who symbolizes just the sort of frightfulness that they are trying to depict.

Abounding in ironies, in self-awareness and the self-referential, the “Scream” films, displaying Mr. Craven’s penchant for tweaking the conventions of his genre, managed the feat of leaving audiences amused as well as afraid.

Mr. Craven asserted that the horror or slasher film was about more than splashing blood for gore’s sake. Instead, he told the Los Angeles Times, “I think the genre goes outside the boundaries of reality in many ways in order to get at some central truths and feelings that aren’t served well by very factual states.”

Wesley Earl Craven was born in Cleveland on Aug. 2, 1939, and he was brought up in a firmly observant Baptist home. He was in college when he saw his first movie — “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962), based on the Harper Lee novel — and realized that the silver screen was essentially harmless.

He graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois — where he developed an interest in writing for a college publication — and received a master’s degree in writing and philosophy from Johns Hopkins University in 1964. He was teaching at what is now Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y., when he was exposed to world cinema at a nearby art house theater.

He called it a revelation to see works by Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, François Truffaut and Luis Buñuel. After a period of reflection, he bought a 16mm camera he saw in a pawnshop, made a break with academia and tried to break into moviemaking.

“I was 27, and I hadn’t become a world-famous novelist,” he told the New York Times. “I wasn’t sure if I was doing something that made sense or I was just a total lunatic.”

Filmography

Film

Year       Film       Director                Producer              Writer   Notes

1972      The Last House on the Left           Yes         No          Yes         Also editor

1975      The Fireworks Woman   Yes         No          Yes         Credited as Abe Snake;

Also editor

1977      The Hills Have Eyes          Yes         No          Yes         Also editor

1981      Deadly Blessing                 Yes         No          Yes        

1982      Swamp Thing     Yes         No          Yes        

1984      The Hills Have Eyes Part II             Yes         No          Yes        

1984      A Nightmare on Elm Street           Yes         No          Yes        

1986      Deadly Friend    Yes         No          No         

1987      A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors     No          executive            Yes        

1988      The Serpent and the Rainbow     Yes         No          No         

1989      Shocker                Yes         Yes         Yes        

1991      The People Under the Stairs        Yes         executive            Yes        

1994      Wes Craven's New Nightmare     Yes         executive            Yes        

1995      Vampire in Brooklyn       Yes         No          No         

1996      Scream Yes         No          No         

1997      Scream 2              Yes         Yes         No         

1999      Music of the Heart           Yes         No          No         

2000      Scream 3              Yes         No          No          Uncredited co-writer

2005      Cursed Yes         No          No         

Red Eye                Yes         No          No         

2006      Pulse     No          No          Yes         Remake

Paris, je t'aime   Yes         No          Yes         Segment Père-Lachaise

2007      The Hills Have Eyes 2      No          Yes         Yes         Remake

2010      My Soul to Take                Yes         Yes         Yes        

2011      Scream 4              Yes         Yes         No          Final film / Uncredited co-writer

Producer Only

Year       Film       Notes

1971      Together             

1993      Laurel Canyon   

1995      Mind Ripper       aka The Hills Have Eyes III

1997      Wishmaster        Executive producer

2000      Dracula 2000

2002      They     

2003      Dracula II: Ascension      

2005      Dracula III: Legacy           

Feast     Executive producer

2006      The Hills Have Eyes          Remake

The Breed           Executive producer

2009      The Last House on the Left           Remake

2015      The Girl in the Photographs