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| 1939-2015 |
What can be said about a man that created nightmares....
We lost a legend on August 30st 2015 as Wes Craven was removed form this mortal coil, but he will live on in the minds and hearts of horror fans everywhere. We at Simplistic Reviews say this sucks and....well....it sucks.
While his filmography has had its series of ups-and-downs, there is no denying his influence on not just the horror genre, but film in general.
While this is just one man's opinion, but of course it's the right one, here is my Top Five List Wes Craven Films:
5. The People Under the Stairs (1991)
An outlier in his filmography, but also one of his most out of the box horror efforts. Always one to make a social message, Craven chose "Stairs" to talk about income inequality and the failure of Reaganomics in the inner city. There are also tones of child abuse and the breakdown of the seemingly All-American Family in the suburbs. This also one of the first screen appearances by Ving Rhames and there are scenes of nice tension and of course gore. People think "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Scream" when they think of Craven, but "Stairs" is certainly one of his strongest efforts.
4. The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)
Do you want a creepy voodoo story, look no further than "The Serpent and the Rainbow." Filmed in the Dominican Republic due to political turmoil in Haiti, Craven weaves a tale about "real" zombies and includes the corruption and political strife that was gripping Haiti at the time into the storytelling. By no means is this film perfect, but it is perfectly unsettling and the trippy visuals add a lot of style.
3. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
I wrestled with this decision as I understand that normally its sacrilegious to not make "A Nightmare on Elm Street" the guaranteed number one on any Wes Craven list, but hey, its not my number one. The creation of Freddy Krueger is one of the most iconic in not just horror history, but in film itself. At the time the concept of a monster that you couldn't hide from, even in your dreams, was revolutionary and all but perfected the slasher genre. My one big gripe, and this is only recently, and after watching "Never Sleep Again" is the way the ending was changed in order to create a create a series of films as opposed to just one great horror film. Mind you, just my opinion, but the sequels do play into my overall opinion of the film itself.
2. Scream 2 (1997)
Yes, it's true, I prefer "Scream 2" to the original. While "Scream" reinvigorated the horror genre and pretty created a new wave in slasher cinema, "Scream 2" used the template used and made a sequel worthy of the original. There are old faces and new faces and a good twist that kept the "Scream" mythology going for two more sequels.
1. New Nightmare (1994)
The beginning of self-referential Craven was "New Nightmare" a love letter to all "Nightmare" fans. Much of the whole of the original cast shows up in cameos, and Heather Langenkamp shines in a role that made her a star 20 years before this film. You could see Craven took all he learned from his years as a horror director/writer and put his heart and soul into something that he held dear for so many years despite the sour taste I'm sure he had in his mouth in the years following the original film.
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