Born in Cleveland in 1939 and died in Los Angeles in 2015, Wes Craven was a humanities professor who entered film in the 1970s. The Last House on the Left (1972) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977) were raw and violent works that used horror to comment on American society. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) created Freddy Krueger, a killer who attacks in dreams. He later revived the slasher with Scream (1996), a self-aware film that reflected on the conventions of the genre and was followed by several sequels.
Filmography
- The Last House on the Left (1972)
- The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
- Swamp Thing (1982)
- A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
- The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)
- The People Under the Stairs (1991)
- Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
- Scream (1996)
- Music of the Heart (1999)
- Red Eye (2005)