Wes Craven, a Hollywood horror filmmaker famous for creating classics such as
Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, The People
Under the Stairs and Vampire in Brooklyn, died on 30 August
at the age of 76. Craven passed away at his Los Angeles home after suffering with
brain cancer.
Though his health had deteriorated over the last few years, Craven continued his
work in the industry and was involved in a number of television projects. He also
wrote a comic book series, Coming of Rage, and executive produced a
new film which will have its world premiere at the upcoming Toronto International
Film Festival (TIFF). The film, The Girl in the Photographs, is a
Scream-inspired horror.
Hollywood has delivered condolences and tributes to the New York City Horror Film
Festival Lifetime Achievement Award winner on Twitter. Actress Courtney Cox, who
starred in Scream posted: “Today the world lost a great man, my
friend and mentor, Wes Craven. My heart goes out to his family.” Actress Sarah
Michelle Gellar posted: “I had the great privilege of working with #WesCraven one
of the kindest most gentle souls, who made great scary films.
#RIPWesCraven’
Craven commented on the future of cinema in a 2013 interview with Arrow in the Head: “I think the experience of going to a theatre and seeing a movie with a lot of
people is still part of the transformational power of the film, and it’s equivalent to
the old shaman telling a story by the campfire to a bunch of people. That is a
remarkable thing, if you scream and everyone else in the audience screams, you
realise that your fears are not just within yourself, they’re in other people as well,
and that’s strangely releasing. But on the TV, you can still watch it with friends. We
watch films on so many different mediums now, that I think they’ll complement
each other for a long time.”
