As FrightFest 2015 reaches its closing stages, the sad news reaches us that veteran horror director Wes Craven has died aged 76. Born in Cleveland in 1939, he was best known for bringing the iconic Freddy Krueger to the screen in A Nightmare On Elm Street, as well as helming the long-standing Scream franchise. He made his name with controversial shockers The Last House On The Left and The Hills Have Eyes.
Though associated with razor-fingered dream invaders and post-modern serial murderers, Craven was also an avid conservationist and dabbled in fare outside of his blood-spattered comfort zone, helping Meryl Streep toward another Oscar nomination for drama Music Of The Heart. He contributed to the DC Comics universe writing and directing Swamp Thing and turned a domestic setting into a terrifying booby trap in The People Under The Stairs.
However these were footnotes compared to the Elm Street saga, which took the genre to new commercial heights and made a star of Robert Englund. Aside from the original, Craven wrote the third instalment Dream Warriors and returned to the megaphone for Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, which reset the story to have Freddy breaking into the real world.
Though he became reluctant to get too involved with Krueger’s endeavours he went on to direct all four Scream movies. These developed the New Nightmare theme of a self-referential slasher flick, as a community regularly fell prey to a macabre mastermind. The property lives on as a TV series.
He passed away in Los Angeles from brain cancer. We at THN would like to offer our condolences to his family and thank him for all the jolts he gave us over his long and unmistakeable career.
