Thank You Wes

So I realized today is the birthday of Wesley Earl Craven aka the Master of Horror aka my number one top favorite filmmaker ever aka one of my heroes of writing. Wes Craven’s life was no doubt defined by the great body of cinema that he left behind and I wanted to highlight his cinematic masterpieces that helped to shape me as an artist.

A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984).

In 1984 Wes Craven redefined the slasher genre with A Nightmare On Elm Street. This film crawled under the skin of horror fans and horror phobes all over when it introduced one of the most iconic horror villains ever, Freddy Krueger, portrayed by the charismatic Robert Englund. A Nightmare On Elm Street is brilliant for not only bringing our subconscious fears of the uncontrolled environment of dreaming to the surface, but also for its hidden message that is: the only way to overcome your fears is to face them.

The People Under The Stairs (1991).

The People Under The Stairs is perhaps Wes Craven’s most underrated film to date. As an African American male from the projects this film definitely struck both an enjoyable as well as a frightening chord with me. The whole concept of a family of demented White landlords keeping people underneath the cellar of their house to keep them company while they rule over the ghetto sounds insanely outlandish until you throw in the social subtext about how life for the citizens of the projects is effected by this activity. This movie is also very ahead of it’s time by taking the groundbreaking initiative of making a young Black child, Pointdexter aka “Fool” portrayed by Brandon Adams, the star of the film.

New Nightmare (1994).

This seventh entry in the A Nightmare On Elm Street series was actually the first entry in the series that I ever watched and I was hooked from there. When I first saw it in the late 90’s of course it just appealed to me as a great horror film, but when I got old enough to understand the film’s premise I realized the genius of this movie. This seventh film in the series, which was once again written and directed by series creator Wes Craven himself, is centered around the spirit of evil itself taking on the form of Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare series and seeks to leave the film world it has been held captive in so it can kill in reality, but the evil must first eliminate its cinematic adversary, Heather Langenkamp, who portrayed Nancy Thompson in the film series, as she was the first character in the series to defeat Freddy Krueger.

This concept was both brilliant and chilling because it actually made me question if this is the reason why filmmakers keep a series running for so long: to keep an underlying spirit surrounding it from effecting reality.

Scream series (1996-present).

The entire Scream series had perhaps the biggest impact on me out of all of Wes Craven’s work. Written by Kevin Williamson, Scream is of course the film series that made me want to study filmmaking, making it my top favorite movie series ever. The entire Scream series is genius, from its plot, characters, themes and how it all relates to real life, the Scream series elevated horror and ushered in a new generation of storytelling by being the perfect mix between the old school great quality filmmaking mixed with new quality. It also seems fitting that the fourth film in this groundbreaking series that was in part created by Wes Craven’s direction was also the final film he ever made before he passed away in 2015.

In the eight years since his passing Scream lives on in television and it still dominates the big screen. The new team known as Radio Silence which has made the two latest entries in the franchise made the films as tributes to Wes Craven, the fifth film even ends with the words “For Wes.” As a thank you to the legacy he has left behind.

There are so many other films that I love from Wes Craven: “The Serpent and the Rainbow”, “Vampire In Brooklyn”, “Cursed”, “The Pulse”, and of course, “Red Eye.” All of these films even in their lowest points are a testament to how creative the man who was born on this day will always be, even as he has passed on.

~~Happy heavenly birthday to the late great Wes Craven. Thank you for your legacy of art that has inspired me as a writer.