Remembering Wes Craven's Most Terrifically Terrifying Movies
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‘The Last House on the Left’ (1972)
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Craven made his writing-directing debut with this genuinely shocking thriller about a pair of teenage girls whose brutal abuse at the hands of gang members sets off a diabolical revenge plot. Decades later, the film is remembered both for its shoestring sleaze and its infamous movie-poster catchphrase: “To avoid fainting, keep repeating: ‘It’s only a movie.’”
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‘The Hills Have Eyes’ (1977)
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Originally given an X rating, Craven’s commercial breakthrough was this suspenseful thriller about a vacationing family who must face down a group of crazed, nomadic savages. The movie was remade three decades later.
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‘Swamp Thing’ (1982)
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Decades before comic-book adaptations were commonplace, Craven brought this gothic DC Comics character to the big screen, resulting in a modestly successful (and undoubtedly campy) creature feature.
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‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ (1984)
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Craven launched one of the biggest horror-movie franchises of all time with this otherworldly tale, which solidified (and smartened) the modern slasher-thriller formula and gave the world one of its most indelible boogeymen: Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), a knives-for-fingers teen killer who haunts his prey while they sleep. It was followed by several sequels and helped make Craven one of the best-known terror helmers.
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‘Deadly Friend’ (1986)
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Craven initially sat out the ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ sequels, choosing instead to make this suburban-set thriller about a teenage girl (Kristy Swanson) who goes on a mysterious murder spree.
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‘The Serpent and the Rainbow’ (1988)
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Bill Pullman starred as in this supernatural drama about an anthropologist who journeys to Haiti to check out rumors that corpses are being brought back to life. He winds up learning the hard way that the dead don’t always stay that way.
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‘Shocker’ (1989)
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Craven closed out the ’80s — a decade he’d helped define — with this middling would-be franchise starter, about an executed convict (future ‘X-Files’ star Mitch Pileggi) who’s zapped back from the dead and exacts revenge upon his foes.
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‘The People Under the Stairs’ (1991)
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Craven’s first comeback hit of the ’90s was this over-the-top (but effectively creepy) tale of a young kid who sneaks into the scariest house on the neighborhood — only to discover a terrifying family secret. ‘Stairs’ opened at No. 1 at the box office, and became one of the highest non-franchise movies of Craven’s career.
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'Wes Craven's New Nightmare' (1994)
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The seventh movie in the 'Nightmare' series, it was also the first time Craven returned to the director's chair for the franchise since the 1984 original. This time around, he has his be-gloved slasher villain Freddy haunting the set of a new 'Nightmare on Elm Street' movie. The meta-narrative wasn't a huge hit at the box office, but his knowing tweaks of the horror genre would pay off two years later with 'Scream.'
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'Scream' (1996)
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The 1996 hit directed by Craven and written by Kevin Williamson followed a group of California teens (including Neve Campbell, Rose McGowan, and a not-long-for-this-world Drew Barrymore) who are terrorized by a masked, horror-movie obsessed killer. One of Craven's most enduring movies, 'Scream' helped reinvent the horror genre and inspired three sequels and the current MTV series.
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'Scream 2' (1997)
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The 1997 sequel followed Neve Campbell's terrorized heroine Sidney Prescott to college, where she has to face a copycat killer who is inspired by original villain Ghostface. The movie also features the return of Courteney Cox as TV reporter Gale Weathers, David Arquette as Officer Dewey Riley, and a fictional movie-within-a-movie called 'Stab.'
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'Music of the Heart' (1999)
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In between 'Screams,' Craven directed one of his only forays outside the horror genre, this drama about a real-life music teacher (Meryl Streep, in an Oscar-nominated role) who builds a successful violin program in a tough New York City public school. "Most of the people I run into who loved it are surprised that I made it," Craven said in a 2005 interview. "When you have a name that means scares, you have to live with that."
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'Scream 3' (2000)
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The third installment in the horror series was also perhaps the most meta: Our heroine Sidney (Neve Campbell) comes out of her totally understandable exile when a new Ghostface starts killing people on the set of 'Stab 3,' the fictional sequel in the movie-franchise-within-a-movie-franchise.
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'Red Eye' (2005)
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"I just didn't want to make another movie about teenagers being stalked," Craven said, while promoting this psychological thriller about a woman on a plane (Rachel McAdams) who gets embroiled in the terrorist plot of a fellow passenger (Cillian Murphy).
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'My Soul to Take' (2010)
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Craven wrote and directed this horror movie — a bust with critics and audiences — about a group of teenagers who have to battle the spirit of a serial killer.
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'Scream 4' (2011)
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Craven and writer Kevin Williamson returned for one more 'Scream,' this time following Sidney (Neve Campbell) on her book tour as she returns to Woodsboro — just in time for Ghostface to begin terrorizing a new generation of high-school kids. "We want the 'Scream' films to scare people, make them jump, laugh, and also think. That thinking part is tough, and you can only do it in a way that the audience are actually impressed by," said Craven in 2011.
Everett CollectionWes Craven, who died on Sunday at the age of 76, gave film audiences nightmares for decades. The writer-director was behind some of the all-time classic horror movies including 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' and 'Scream,' continually putting fresh and frightful spins on the age-old genre. "The majority experience coming out of a good scary film is the audience is bubbling. Something has been released in a way that scared the bejesus out of them, but also lifted something off of them," he said in 2011. Click through to see a gallery of some of his most memorable movies, that will keep scaring and enthralling fans for years to come.