For most horror filmmakers it's a near-impossible task to break the mould or serve audiences up with something they've never seen before.
Courteney Cox and Rose McGowan lead tributes to horror legend Wes Craven
Wes Craven, who passed away yesterday at the age of 76, was different. Over a career spanning five decades he put an immeasurable stamp on the genre on four separate occasions.
Here are four essential Craven horrors that blazed a trail and led others to follow.
1. The Last House on the Left (1972)
After giving up a career as a teacher, Craven moved to New York to break into the film industry. He worked in post-production before making "many hardcore X-rated films" (as revealed in documentary Inside Deep Throat) and shifting into low-budget horror with his 1972 debut The Last House on the Left.
Craven took inspiration from Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring to craft a twisted, nasty rape-revenge story that became a sleeper box office hit in the US.
Last House's hardcore violence led to a 'video nasty' tag and a decades ban in the UK. It took until 2008 for the BBFC to grant it a release in its original uncut form. Imitators followed in the immediate aftermath, while a Craven-endorsed remake was produced in 2009. Home invasion and torture porn horrors both owe a huge debt to Last House on the Left.
2. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
John Carpenter's Halloween turned the teen slasher into a lucrative horror sub-genre, but by the mid-'80s it was already starting to show signs of strain thanks to a saturated marketplace.
Enter Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street, a teen slasher with a supernatural edge that spawned one of the greatest horror villains of all time in Freddy Krueger. Slip into dreams at your peril – one, two, Freddy's coming for you.
Not only did Elm Street spawn a long-running franchise, it also gave a young Johnny Depp his major movie breakthrough. As further proof of its cultural significance look no further than The Simpsons' ace Treehouse of Horror homage 'Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace'.
3. Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
The original Nightmare blurred the line between real and unreal, and Craven's return to the series with 1994's New Nightmare took things a step further by pulling Freddy Kruger out of the cinema screen and into a cleverly meta slasher flick.
Original stars Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund returned to play themselves, while Craven also had a role cooking up a new Nightmare as the film celebrated its 10th anniversary.
A playful movie-within-a-movie that explored ideas of horror movies vs their creators, New Nightmare might not be be regarded as an all-time classic, but it did something wickedly inventive and helped tee Craven up for his last masterpiece.
4. Scream (1996)
By the mid-'90s, horror was approaching rock bottom, swimming in straight-to-video sequels and tired franchises that'd lost their killer edge. Craven's Scream, based on Kevin Williamson's whip-smart script, took the genre by the scruff of the neck and shook it up for a new generation.
The film (originally titled Scary Movie) featured a cast of characters acutely aware of the tropes and conventions of horror, making their demises at the hands of the Ghostface killer all the more shocking. If knowing the rules can't save you, then what can?
Scream boasted one of the all-time great shock horror openings, a spot-on cast to chew through Williamson's razor-sharp dialogue and reverential tone that ultimately made it a love letter to a blood-splattered genre. Sequels (and spoofs) followed and they were never quite as good, but Scream lives on today thanks to MTV's just-launched small screen series.
What's your favourite Wes Craven movie? Share your memories in the comments below.
Movies Editor
Simon has worked as a journalist for more than a decade, writing on staff and freelance for Hearst, Dennis, Future and Autovia titles before joining Cision in 2022.
