Event Report: Wes Craven Double Feature at The Aero / Talks My Soul to Take and Scream 4
Heather Wixson
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On a rainy Sunday night in Santa Monica, Wes Craven came to the Aero Theater to present two of his more provocative pieces from the midpoint of his career: The People Under The Stairs and The Serpent and The Rainbow.
The People Under The Stairs, in case you are unfamiliar with Craven’s 1991 deranged horror comedy, is centered around Fool (Brandon Quintin Adams), a youngster who wants better for his family so he goes along with two cons (Ving Rhames and Jeremy Roberts) who plan to break into the house of their deadbeat landlords (the insanely brilliant Everett McGill and Wendy Robie), only to get more than they bargained for. If the deranged sibling duo of McGill and Robie don’t get their hands on them, then the infamous “people under the stairs” will.
The second feature, The Serpent and The Rainbow, is a twisted journey to the deepest parts of hell and back starring Bill Pullman as an anthropologist who goes to Haiti after hearing rumors about a drug used by black magic practitioners to turn people in zombies. During his stay in the troubled country that was in the midst of political and social chaos, Pullman must decipher what is fact and what is superstition before it’s too late.
Between the two features Craven spoke with the evening’s moderator, Mick Garris, who is currently hosting the series “Post Mortem with Mick Garris” for FearNet.
Garris and Craven chatted in detail during the evening about both featured films as well as Craven’s thoughts on remakes of his work (which included his final word on his feelings regarding the Platinum Dunes remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street) and his latest project, My Soul to Take, which was initially done for Rogue Pictures, but as the film was being finished, Rogue was being bought by Relativity, which is under Universal. This exchange led to some uncertainty for Craven in terms of the project’s future.
“When we finished initially, we only had to get people from Rogue involved to take a look at what we did,” explained Craven. “But now we have Universal and Relativity in the mix, and we just found out two weeks ago that not one person has even looked at the first cut yet even though it’s been done for almost two months.”
“So, we’re now just starting to try to get some potential release dates out of them. The dates we’re looking at range from Halloween of this year up through January 2011. But we just don’t have a firm date yet,” Craven added.
For now, to get your Craven fix, you can check out the two videos below from the Q&A at the Aero Theater.
In the first video Craven talks about The People Under The Stairs, remakes, and even teases a bit about his involvement with Scream 4, saying that he’s currently revisiting his first Scream film to brush up a bit.
The second video features some provocative stories from Craven about The Serpent and The Rainbow, including how he was threatened with death while in Haiti and how one of his writers literally went insane while working on the script.
Special thanks to Brian Dreads for shooting and editing the video on behalf of Dread Central.
Wes Craven – Q&A
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Wes Craven – The Serpent and the Rainbow
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