Wes Craven, one of the most influential film-makers of the horror genre died at his LA home on Sunday 30th August 2015.

Wes Craven’s films spanned generations of movie fans, from his very first full length feature film ‘The Last House on the Left’ (1972) which was originally banned in the UK for being too violent; to creating two of the biggest grossing horror movie franchises ever, with ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’(1984) and ‘Scream’ (1996).

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I must admit that I have always been a fan of horror movies ever since seeing the old Universal classics such as Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula etc. It was in the mid-seventies when I was in my teens when I discovered another type of horror.

A whole group of us went to see ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ (1977) as a few years earlier we all missed out on seeing ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ released in 1974 which was an 18 certificate and we were still only 14 years old.

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The Hills Have Eyes more than made up for our disappointment and we never forgot the writer and director Wes Craven, because for a start he had such a cool name that just seem to suit the horror film characteristic.

We looked for other films that Craven had made and we came across ‘The Last House on the Left’ but this had been banned so we couldn’t enjoy being scared out of our wits until the video release quite a few years later.

Luckily Craven wrote a different type of horror film, something that hadn’t been done before which was one thing that he prided himself on. The story became ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’. Not only did the film create a whole new style of horror genre but it gave us a new anti-hero in Freddy Krueger (played by Robert Englund who made a career out of the character). The film also introduced us to a future heartthrob with a young Johnny Depp.

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Elm Street was reputed to have been made on a budget of $1.8 million which it made back in its first week of release in the states. The film went on to gross $25 million on the US alone and was a massive hit and spawned a line of sequels.

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Freddy Krueger: A Nightmare on Elm Street

Craven’s next two movies were not quite up to the same standard. The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) which starred Bill Pullman and came out to mixed reviews and The People Under the Stairs (1991) which fared far worse from the critics but the film still opened at number one in the box office probably due to Wes Cravens name on the credits and it also stayed in the top ten spot for the next month.

It wasn’t until five years later that Craven really hit the jackpot with ‘Scream’ (1996). The film exceeded all expectations and just seemed to hit the right spot with the nineties audience.

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For one thing it parodied all other slasher horror movies that had come before. It was also very funny in parts as well as extremely scary. The opening scene will always be remembered for a sort of cameo from Drew Barrymore and that famous phone call from an unknown number asking her character “What’s your favourite scary movie?” which I’m sure a lot of guys used to scare their girlfriends on their mobile.

There were four Scream movies plus a non-Wes Craven satire of the movie called Scary Movie (2000). Which I always thought was kind of odd as this was a parody of a parody movie.

Wes Craven also wrote 5 episodes of the Twilight Zone from 1985 to 1986. More recently he was working on a Graphic Novel and a TV series of Scream.

So I will leave you with a Wes Craven quote. “Horror films don’t create fear…they release it.”

R.I.P. Wes Craven.