Wes Craven, best known for his blockbuster horror flicks, passed away on Sunday at the age of 76, after battling brain cancer.
Wes Craven burst on to the scene with his movie, The Last House on the Left, which he wrote and directed in 1972. Filmed on a very small budget, the movie hit big at the box office, and turned Wes Craven into a household name. The movie was even remade in 2009, with a different director, but produced by Craven’s own studio Midnight Pictures. Craven had a hiatus for 5 years, but then came back strong with The Hills Have Eyes. About an American family who are being followed in the desert by a group cannibals, the movie became a suspenseful cult classic. The movie spawned parts II and III, as well as a remake in 2006. The movie was also featured on Bravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments.
This was just the beginning of Craven’s successful career in the horror film industry, and in the decades to come he would continue to make those spine-tingling, nightmare provoking films, that generations would treasure for ages. The image that comes to my mind, the one I think about every Halloween (and sometimes when I’m in the dark late at night) is the metal hand, belonging to the incredibly creepy Freddy Krueger. A Nightmare on Elm Street has become one of the most iconic horror movies ever made. The People Under the Stairs was another Craven movie that I watched in my youth, that still haunts me till this day.
In 1996 Wes Craven directed THE movie. Truly, when you think of horror flicks, immediately the connection will be made to Ghostface—the mask belonging to the sinister killer stalking Sidney Prescott, in the film franchise Scream. My colleague and I were just reminiscing about the first 20 minutes of that movie, when Ghostface was chasing Drew Barrymore, and how it was probably one of the scariest scenes we’ve ever watched. When I looked it up, it was actually named the 13th scariest moment on Bravo’s list. Only to be topped by that opening scene in Jaws when the undetected shark attacks!
Needless to say, Wes Craven was a pioneer in the horror film industry, and made countless classics that will be frightening movie-watchers for years to come. No better way to memorialize a person than watching the work that they putting their passion and life into. To check out Windsor Public Library’s full listing of Wes Craven material, that can be rented and watched on Hoopla, please click here.
