Wes Craven

**Wesley Earl "Wes" Craven** was an American director, writer and producer. Craven is another "master of horror" due to his involvement with the horror genre. Craven is also infamous for creating Ghostface of the Scream series and Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger.

## History

During his young years, Craven lived with a strict Baptist family and earned an undergraduate degree in English and psychology from Wheaton College in Illinois. Craven also briefly taught English at Westminster College and even additionally taught at Madrid-Waddington High School in New York.

During his time of teaching, he purchased a used 16 mm film camera and began making short films. When he was informed of a messenger position at a post-production company in New York by his friend Tom Chapin, said company being run by Chapin's brother, Craven moved to Manhattan.

During his work for Chapin's brother Harry, Craven's first creative job was as a sound editor. He even managed to become the assistant manager of the comedy film "You've Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You'll Lose That Beat" in 1971.

After leaving the academic world behind, Craven went on to direct several films, although starting out as pornography. Craven's first feature film "The Last House on the Left" was released in 1972 and gave Craven "the freedom to be outrageous", but the film had a negative experience on Craven, who tried to leave the horror genre behind and started writing non horror films with Sean S. Cunningham, none of which attracted any financial backing.

Eventually, at the advice of a friend, Craven wrote a new horror film based on the locale of the Nevada deserts where his friend advised about the ease of filming. It would be this film, "The Hills Have Eyes", which would cement Craven's status as a horror director. In 1984, Craven would direct his most widely known film, A Nightmare on Elm Street, which introduced the character of Freddy Krueger and went on to become a film franchise. Oddly enough, Krueger would be paired off with Cunningham's creation from Friday the 13th, Jason Voorhees in Freddy vs Jason.

Craven is also credited for having launched actor Johnny Depp's career after his debut in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Throughout the series, Craven would only be involved in two films after the original, first working on the screenplay with the third movie along with Frank Darabont and directing the seventh film, as well as appearing as himself alongside several cast and crew members from the original film.

Craven would then create the cult classic film Scream in 1996, which was made memorable for making the characters self aware of horror/slasher movies and creating the character Ghostface. Scream would go on to spawn a franchise like Nightmare on Elm Street and The Hills Have Eyes did, although the Scream series only had four films.

Scream 4, the final film in the Scream series, would be the last film Craven would direct before his death in 2015 of brain cancer.

Craven's death was mourned greatly by several of his cast members, such as Neve Campbell, who played the main character Sidney Prescott in the Scream series, and Robert Englund, who played Freddy Krueger in every film in the original Nightmare on Elm Street series.