Crying for Craven

Good evening everyone and welcome to The Magical Mystery Blog.

Halloween is just around the corner. With it comes orange and black décor, seasonal treats, and costumes of iconic characters like Freddy Krueger and Ghostface.  But this Halloween will seem less scary, less frightening, less terrifying all because we lost Wes Craven on August 30^th, 2015 to brain cancer in Los Angeles, CA.

Wes Craven was born in Cleveland, Ohio on August 2^nd, 1939 with incredibly strict Baptist parents. His parents’ method of raising him was so strict that they refused to show him anything other than Disney movies due to their religious beliefs. After leaving his constrained Midwestern upbringing, Craven went to Wheaton College in Illinois and from there, his mind was opened beyond than what his parents had allowed him to see. While he had to take a year off due to his illness, he was able to get back into the swing of things and eventually became an editor and contributor for his college’s literary magazines. Craven explored writing during his time at college, even while earning his master’s degree at the John Hopkins University in 1964.

For a while, Craven had multiple teaching positions. He initially taught English at Westminster College, then Humanities at the Clarkson College of Technology. He additionally taught at Madrid-Washington High School and during this time, he purchased a 16mm film camera and started crafting short movies. From there, Craven managed to land a job as a sound editor for Harry Chapman and began living in Manhattan. These events gave way to Craven’s bright future of filmmaking, directing, and editing.

One of his least noted accomplishments was having a helping hand in the popular porno movie, “Deep Throat”. What this part is, no one is for certain. However, this role could have been under a pseudonym – just like the many other hardcore X-rated films that Craven worked with.  Craven became a director for the classic horror film, “The Last House on the Left” (1972); this movie later inspired his other iconic flicks, “The Hills Have Eyes” (1977) and “The Hills Have Eyes II” (1985) (as well as their remakes in 2006 and 2007).

Following these movies, Craven decided to cement himself in the horror genre by crafting his well beloved franchise, “Nightmare on Elm St.” (1984). This movie was not only inspired by a strange phenomena of men dying in their sleep, but also launched Johnny Depp’s career.  Freddy Krueger would later return in other “Nightmare” films, including “Freddy vs Jason” (2003). Craven barely became involved with any of the “Nightmare” sequels despite the fact that he wrote the screenplay for the third film in the franchise and briefly worked on “New Nightmare”. Craven stuck to his horror roots when crafting “Scream” (1994), the remake of  “The Last House on the Left” (2009), and “My Soul to Take” (2010). The final movie he worked on and directed before his passing was “Scream 4” (2011). At one point, Craven even attempted to create a humor-horror hybrid flick called “Vampire in Brooklyn” (1995) which was nothing when compared to “Scream” and “Nightmare”’s success.

However, Craven wasn’t all horror and terror; in fact he did work on some rather non-mortifying projects.  Craven directed “Music of the Heart” (1999) which was well received and gave Meryl Streep an Academy Award nomination for her work in the drama. Craven also directed the suspense thriller “Red Eye” in 2005 which starred Rachel McAdams. Craven was also one of the twenty two directors involved in the film anthology “Paris Je T’aime” (2006). Craven even had a cameo as himself in “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” (2001). He also worked on different mediums separate from movies altogether such as the comic book series, Coming of Rage and 30 Days of Night which is set to have a print release this October with a digital release already available. He even had a letter published in Life Magazine in 1968 discussing the periodical’s coverage of rock music.

Craven was a creative, fear inducing man and what better way to illustrate this point by the awards he won? In 1977, Craven received the critic’s award at the Stiges Film Festival for “The Hills Have Eyes”. Twenty years later, Craven was granted the Grand Prize from the Gerardmer Film Festival for “Scream”. In 2012, Craven was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the New York City Horror Film Festival.

Wes Craven led me into my first horror movie franchise, “Nightmare on Elm Street”. With the combination of his excellent storytelling and Robert Englund’s fantastic acting, I found myself under the spell of that horrifying, but intriguing series. To this day, I love it when Freddy Krueger murders Spencer using the Nintendo Powerglove and proclaims, ”Now I’m playing with power!". It’s such a thing that Freddy would do : torment his victims in a unique manner while having fun before dealing the finishing blow.  This series also caused me to explore the horror genre further, stumbling upon old Vincent Price movies that I love dearly, “Halloween”, “Friday the 13^th”, “Chucky”, and many others. Had I never watched “Nightmare on Elm Street”, I wouldn’t be the horror loving woman that I am, and for this, I couldn’t be more thankful to Craven and also deeply heartbroken that he has left our world. While he leaves his legacy of horror movies and his children, Jonathon and Jessica, and his wife, Iya Labunka, this world will never be the same without him.

Rest in peace, Wes Craven. You are but another wondrous soul who we have tragically lost this year and with your passing, we will remember all you have done. How many times you’ve scared us with Freddy’s antics or Ghostface’s killing sprees, how many moments we endured while cringing at your effects, how many times we became victims to your masterful macabre skills we’ll never know or regret. With every scream and scare, we grew to love your work more and more to the point where it has become a part of us.

Thank you Wes Craven, for being a dreadful delight to our lives and adding a little scare in our step.

And thank you for reading this evening’s entry. If you enjoyed it, feel free to comment, critique, share, and subscribe.

So tell me, what’s your favorite Wes Craven film and why?