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Wesley Earl Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, screenwriter and producer. Amongst his prolific filmography, Craven worked primarily in the , particularly , where he mixed horror cliches with humor. Craven has been recognized as one of the masters of the horror genre.

Craven created the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise (1984–present), writing and directing the first film, co-writing and producing the third, (1987), and writing and directing the seventh, Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994). He directed the first four films in the Scream franchise (1996–2011). He 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 , a Sitges Film Festival Award, a Fangoria Chainsaw Award, and nominations for a . 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.

On August 30, 2015, aged 76, Craven died of a at his home in Los Angeles.


Early life
Craven was born in , Ohio, the son of Caroline (née Miller) and Paul Eugene Craven. He was of , , and descent. He was raised in a strict family. From 1957 to 1963 Craven earned an undergraduate degree in and from Wheaton College in . During his senior year, he developed Guillain-Barré Syndrome which delayed his graduation by a few months. After his recovery, Craven went on to get his master's degree in philosophy and writing from Johns Hopkins University.Muir, John Kenneth (1998). Wes Craven: The Art of Horror. Jefferson, South Carolina: McFarland & Co. . p. 114.

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

Recalling his early training, Craven said in 1994, "Harry was a fantastic and producer of . He taught me the Chapin method of: '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).


Career
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 . 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.

Craven's first feature film as director was The Last House on the Left, which was released in 1972. 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.

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 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".

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. 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. Craven had a hand in launching actor 's career by casting him in A Nightmare on Elm Street, Depp's first major film role.

Elm Street villain appeared with Cunningham's 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.

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). Craven designed the 2008 logo for and was the second celebrity personality to take over the homepage on Halloween. 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.

Craven created Coming of Rage, a five-issue series, with 30 Days of Night writer . The series was released in in 2014 by Liquid Comics with a print edition scheduled for an October 2015 debut.


Filmmaking

Influences
Craven has cited filmmakers , Luis Buñuel, , , , and Francois Truffaut as among his major influences.
(2025). 9781496826114, University Press of Mississippi.
(1998). 9780879519186, Overlook Press.
Craven's first film, The Last House on the Left, was conceived as a remake of Bergman's The Virgin Spring (1960). The goat in the dream sequence at the beginning of A Nightmare on Elm Street was included by Craven as a homage to Buñuel.Wes Craven. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Blu-Ray audio commentary, 1:20.


Style and themes
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.
(1998). 9780879519186, Overlook Press.
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.

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 blurring of the barrier between dreams and reality, sometimes called "rubber-reality", is a staple of Craven's style.

(2025). 9780786419234, McFarland.
A Nightmare on Elm Street, for example, dealt with the consequences of dreams in real life. 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. 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.

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

(2025). 9781399507004, Edinburgh University Press. .


Collaborators
Marianne Maddalena served as a producer on twelve of Craven's films. After working on Wes Craven's New Nightmare, became an editor on all of his features up to Red Eye. Craven tended to employ cinematographers , and on his films. With the exception of Music of the Heart, composer worked on all of Craven's films from Scream to Scream 4. Although he usually wrote his own films, Craven worked with screenwriter Kevin Williamson regularly after Scream. Craven often used a number of the same actors on his projects including , , , , , Heather Langenkamp, and .


Personal life
Raised a strict Baptist, Craven was a 1963 graduate of Wheaton (IL) College, where he majored in English and psychology and was writer and editor for Kodon (the school's literary magazine). He obtained master's degree in philosophy and writing from Johns Hopkins.

Craven was married three times. Craven's first marriage, to Bonnie Broecker, produced two children: (born 1965) and Jessica Craven (born 1968). Jonathan is a writer and director. Jessica was a singer-songwriter in the group the . 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."

(2025). 9781581152456, Allworth Press. .
In 2004, Craven married Iya Labunka; she frequently worked as a producer on Craven's films.

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


Death
Craven died of a at his home in Los Angeles on August 30, 2015, aged 76. Many actors and fellow directors paid tribute to him, including , , , , Heather Langenkamp, , , , , , , Sarah Michelle Gellar, , , , , , and . The tenth episode of the horror television series Scream and the fifth film in the franchise (2022) were dedicated in his memory.

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


Filmography
+Directed features !Year !Title !Distributor
1972The Last House on the LeftHallmark Releasing / American International Pictures
1977The Hills Have EyesVanguard
1978Stranger in Our House ( Summer of Fear)
1981
1982Swamp Thing
1984A Nightmare on Elm StreetNew Line Cinema
1985The Hills Have Eyes Part IICastle Hill Productions
1986Warner Bros.
1988The Serpent and the RainbowUniversal Pictures
1989Shocker
1991The People Under the Stairs
1994Wes Craven's New NightmareNew Line Cinema
1995Vampire in BrooklynParamount Pictures
1996Scream
1997Scream 2
1999Music of the Heart
2000Scream 3Dimension Films
2005Cursed
Red EyeDreamWorks Pictures
2010My Soul to TakeUniversal Pictures
2011Scream 4Dimension Films


Bibliography


Awards and nominations
Throughout his career, Craven was nominated for and won numerous awards, including multiple and several honors.

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


See also
  • Wes Craven's unrealized projects


External links
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