Farewell to Wes – Dread Central Writer Stephen Romano
Horror. Honesty. Wes.
A lot of people talk casually about the ends of eras. They throw phrases around like “80s horror” and “throwback films” and go on and on about current-day movie directors as “masters” of the genre. And while it is truly important for the young to carry that flame into the future, let’s just say that an era doesn’t truly end until it fucking well ENDS, people.
For that to happen, someone usually has to die.
No one would argue that in the defining post-modern era of horror film—the one that began so explosively with Night of the Living Dead in 1969 and continued through the 1970s and into the 1980s—there were just five original “Masters of Horror” (seven, if you count Herschell Gordon Lewis and Bob Clark; I usually don’t and I have my reasons). These were the directors who stood at a truly unique new horizon in the business of scaring people and who came at the form with brashness and daring. They truly innovated ideas and created sub-genres, reinventing the way people thought about this stuff, making new monsters and even breathing horrific life into a few of the old ones with personal style and technique never before seen in the industry.
Those masters were George A. Romero, John Carpenter, Joe Dante, Tobe Hooper and, of course, Wes Craven.
Other filmmakers followed quickly in their footsteps—guys like Sam Raimi, Stuart Gordon, Don Coscarelli and even Clive Barker—but the true innovators at the top tier had already opened the floodgates, and after their arrival, things would never, ever be the same. Their filmographies contain some of the finest, most influential motion pictures of all time. I, myself, was even fortunate enough to work alongside many of these guys in 2005, when I penned the screenplay for the first episode of “Masters of Horror,” a Showtime cable program that brought 13 of the new and old guys together for some cutting-edge badassery. It was an honor I cannot easily describe. So I won’t try to. Suffice it to say that as a fan and a professional, I am often humbled before the great works of these men, the way some people regard the music of Wagner or the paintings of Michelangelo. It’s just that important to me. It’s that important to anyone who reads this website.
Since 1969, our Masters of Horror, new and old, have always been with us.
Until now.
The post-modern horror world took its first great loss this week. I don’t even have to speak his name. It’s on the lips and in the hearts of every card-carrying horrorphile in the known world tonight. But, of course, I will speak his name.
Wes.
Who could forget the first time their eyes and ears were scorched from a viewing of The Last House on the Left? A cinematic gang rape which traded in such stark, unforgiving realism that many considered it a snuff film, Last House hit the exploitation drive-in circuit in 1972 like a scum-fueled atom bomb, galvanizing critics and blasting open the horror world to new realms of honesty and grit. The post-modern term “torture porn”” may have been coined to describe the work of such recent Masters as Takashi Miike, but the form itself was invented in the Seventies. Through the lens of Wes Craven. The Hills Have Eyes, released in 1977, traded in the same brutal reality. And though it was a much slicker, more Hollywood film than the super low-budget Last House had been, it again shocked the world with its sadistic violence, unflinching eye and authentic performances, cementing Craven’s position as a post-modern Master.
All of this is well known. As it is also well known that Wes often lamented his title in the early days, resenting being boxed into any specific narrative focus, much less the hard and nasty stuff. I believe that if Wes had truly been granted his wish, he would have made many films in many styles and genres, reaching for new borders and frontiers in each one. A lot of the other Masters would have gone this way also, and we might have seen some stunning, genre-busting work because of their ambitions.
But, well… you know, Hollywood, man.
Later, as Wes grew to embrace the fact that he was “in the business of intensity,” he created his undisputed commercial masterpiece in 1984: A Nightmare on Elm Street. This film was made during a terrible and uncertain time in Craven’s life, when he was broke from job to job as a “working director” and was almost penniless, having to borrow money just to pay his taxes. With his back against the wall and with nothing to lose—his previous films, such as Invitation to Hell and Swamp Thing had been commercial and critical disasters after protracted battles on and off set with product-minded producers and distributors—Wes let his legendary dark genie out of the bottle. Reinventing the slasher formula pioneered and perfected by fellow Masters Carpenter and Hooper, A Nightmare on Elm Street became the classic horror picture of the 1980s, launching a string of sequels and somehow managing to propel a burned-up, razor–fingered child molester/killer into the outer stratosphere of mainstream popular culture.
A lot of this is also well known. As are Craven’s battles with New Line Cinema over the fate of Freddy and his ultimate full circle with New Nightmare in 1994.
But here’s some food for thought you might have missed.
Though people often think of Craven’s later Scream as the first “meta” horror film, it was actually New Nightmare that did it first—and, in my opinion, much better. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until I purchased the special edition Laserdisc of New Nightmare a few years after the film was made and I perused Craven’s brilliant director’s commentary track that I truly realized what a fascinating mind this man possessed. Here was a guy who been to school—literally. He’d even been a school teacher in his early years. He was eloquent and challenging in his many off-screen ruminations about the meaning of horror and the myriad levels of gestalt, rebirth and human nature that lurked between the lines of the otherwise very obvious. This was not the man who had compromised his ideals to pay the rent with Deadly Blessing or Swamp Thing. This was a man of true and unique vision. That commentary is still among my favorites, and the track has even been preserved on the newer Blu-ray release of the entire Freddy series. It’s a master class in Horror 101. Even if you think the film is kinda goofy. Which it probably is.
Many of Wes’ movies were less than perfect. He was always a “working director,” sometimes even at his best. A Nightmare on Elm Street is as crassly commercial as it is visionary in many ways. But what a lot of people don’t remember is that there are only THREE MURDERS in that film. THREE, people. That’s all you need when the story you are telling is structured with such skill and suspense. Each death sets off a chain reaction which affects everyone, from the unbelieving adults to the hapless kids to the coroner, who ends up puking in the john when he sees the body of Johnny Depp plastered on the ceiling. And the murders are so effective, imaginative and shocking in and of themselves that we need not even have another after Depp buys it near the end—it is Nancy’s protracted cat-and-mouse battle with Freddy that holds our attention, all of which may not even be real, depending on what fan you talk to about the film’s final 20 minutes.
But this is what films should do. They get us talking. They make us build our own worlds. They even grow beyond the control of their masters, when they are worthy. If they were masterful to begin with.
After Nightmare in ’84, Craven continued his battles with the Hollywood system through the Freddy sequels, Deadly Friend, Chiller and The Serpent and the Rainbow. It wasn’t until Shocker in 1989 that he was finally given complete autonomy. For the first time in his career, Wes was not instructed to change his script. He retained “final cut.” And he wasn’t even required to show dailies to any suits during the shoot. “It’s a great gift given to me by my producers and Universal Pictures,” Wes said in a video interview during production. “This is the most pure and unadulterated Wes Craven film you’ve yet to see.”
Left to his own devices, ironically, Wes delivered a truly bizarre and sometimes incomprehensible journey. Shocker begins in a place of focused intensity—a real “next level” horror film which combines true-to-life serial killer grue with a laser-guided revenge plot—and yet, the film quickly spirals into a berserk, no-holds-barred psycho-horror action-comedy that knows no shame and pulls few punches. (For example, when summoning the God of Electricity to do his bidding, horror baddie Horace Pinker wires himself up to a TV in his prison cell and is visited by a shimmering electric mist that forms a pair of mid-air Mick Jagger lips that exclaim: “You GOT IT, BABY!”) The film was met with stunned stupefaction by many critics, and a lot of us had no idea what to do with it either. Today, I find the film a fascinating case study. Knowing what a truly brilliant man Wes was, I don’t find it hard at all to imagine the sorts of discussions that must have fueled the batshit crazy insanity on screen, which seems to be influenced by everything in pop horror culture at the time—from his own Freddy films to Evil Dead 2. While The Serpent and the Rainbow had been long on tense, authentic scares and “directorial sadism” (as was observed by Cinfantastique), Shocker seemed like Craven’s attempt to play to the kids and still be kind of a visionary. He did what he wanted to do, sure—but by then “what he wanted to do” may have been a strange and indefinable thing. Perhaps even he was uncertain of what that was. You can feel the conflict in the finished film. It’s a weirdly schizophrenic tone that speaks to the artist in me who sometimes becomes confused as to why he keeps doing what he does. As it should speak to many others who’ve often felt like victims of their own success or desires.
For this reason, Shocker is my second-favorite Wes Craven film.
Right behind A Nightmare on Elm Street.
In the fantasy-horror genre, Nightmare is almost without peer in terms of story, structure and style. (Never mind that Nancy rigs up all those booby traps in, like, two minutes—it could all be a DREAM, okay?) Conversely, Craven’s most important efforts were probably House and Hills—but, even for someone like myself, who trades in a lot of unflinching brutality with his own work, I often find those films difficult, even painful, to watch. Which is the whole point, really. Art isn’t safe. Horror isn’t safe. We’re not here to be nice.
All these personal feelings aside about Wes’ journeyman years or even his later post-Scream efforts, which were something of a mixed bag to be sure… the fact remains that Craven’s lasting contribution to the genre was something that can be summed up in one simple word.
Honesty.
At his best, in the films he created that truly helped to redefine the genre—and even in films like Shocker, where he struggled to redefine his voice—Wes Craven never lied to us. His horrors were real. Even when they were unreal. This is why his work mattered and why his legacy will resonate with awesome importance, long after his death.
Obviously, this is a sad day. But it is also a happy day.
Because now an era has truly ENDED, people. And we can look forward, into the future, to see what new horrors may come from those who carry the flame, who respected and learned from the true Masters.
Wes.
You were our teacher. You live through us now.
And you will live forever.
— Stephen Romano
With the tragic passing of Wes Craven, literally everyone in the industry has been reeling and expressing love for the man and his work. Several people have been writing in to Dread Central to ask if it would be cool to post their thoughts. So this Farewell to Wes feature will be their opportunity to share their feelings and their thoughts with you, the horror community.
Some will be long, some will be short, but all are important and will be featured with love and caring. It’s our honor to be able to do this for the man who gave us so very much.
Categorized:News
