Recently we did a Top 7 list featuring the greatest films by Joe Dante. Dante is indeed horror royalty, and today, in celebration of the Scream Factory release of The People Under the Stairs on Blu-ray, we revisit the greatest films of another legendary director: Wes Craven.
As a horror movie maker, Craven is nearly unmatched. His list of credits as a writer/director/producer includes a slew of horror classics that go beyond memorable with many of them reaching legendary status. His movies contain some of the most recognizable characters in the history of the genre, and his impact on horror cannot be overstated.
So, with one of Craven’s classics, The People Under the Stairs, finally making its Blu-ray debut, we look back and present you with the Top 9 Wes Craven Films.
The Last House on the Left (1972)
Keep repeating: “It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie.” But The Last House on the Left turned out to be so much more than that. Originally carrying titles like Sex Crime of the Century and Krug and Company, it wasn’t until producers settled on the title of The Last House on the Left when the film’s popularity really took off. Wes Craven’s directorial debut, Last House was shot for $87,000 in New York and Connecticut and went on to enjoy a very successful box office run. But that was just the start. Being censored and banned in many countries, with the UK being especially stodgy about it, the legend of Last House would continue to grow over the years, making it must-see horror, and once it was re-released on video and then dubbed a “video nasty” by the UK, the popularity simply continued to skyrocket. It is indeed a fitting directorial debut for a man who would go on to have such an incredible horror career
The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
It’s often hard, really hard, for a filmmaker to replicate the success of his first film if he truly knocks it out of the park. Craven delivered The Last House on the Left with his first attempt, so it would have to be something really special if he was to maintain the momentum he built. Say hello to The Hills Have Eyes. Based on the Sawney Bean legend (if you’re not familiar with it, look it up; it’s a story worth knowing), The Hills Have Eyes was spawned from a script (also written by Craven) entitled Blood Relations: The Sun War. The film garnered an X rating but still had a decent showing at the box office. And, just like Last House, Hills continued to grow in popularity and also became a cult classic. With two films under his belt as writer/director, Craven had created two horror films that would live as favorites in the heart of fans of the genre for decades.
Swamp Thing (1982)
Craven made a handful of movies after Hills, including Deadly Blessing, which featured Sharon Stone, but it was five years later, in 1982, when another of his more memorable creations would arise. He wrote and directed Swamp Thing based on the DC Comics character, and the flick featured Ray Wise and Adrienne Barbeau. The film has everything a good sci-fi action-horror movie should have… a science experiment gone awry, government intervention, a dangerous bio-engineering formula, and an evil scientist. Although it didn’t contain the grit and realism of either Last House or Hills, Swamp Thing was an unabashed good time movie. Although sometimes lost amongst among Craven’s long list of outstanding accomplishments, it cannot be denied that Swamp Thing certainly holds its place as a film that is entertaining and one that has stood the test of time.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Two years after Swamp Thing, Craven unleashed the film that would undoubted go down as his most memorable work. Introducing us to a supernatural murdered child killer that haunted teenagers in their dreams, Craven’s stunning and powerfully frightening A Nightmare on Elm Street raised the bar for horror to an entirely new level. Featuring Robert Englund in the role that would make him a horror icon, A Nightmare on Elm Street presented the dilemma of what would you do if you were stalked by a murderer in your dreams. Freddy Krueger would go on to become a household name, and the Nightmare franchise became a juggernaut and basically single-handedly launched New Line Cinema. Spawning a slew of sequels, a television series, novels, a comic book, and an eventual (albeit unfortunate) reboot, A Nightmare on Elm Street took its rightful place beside such movies as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Friday the 13th, and Halloween as horror royalty. Grossing nearly half a billion dollars at the box office, the Nightmare franchise (when adjusted for inflation) ranks only behind the Friday the 13th series as the most lucrative horror franchise of all time. Nine, ten, never sleep again.
The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)
Following Elm Street, Craven went a little off the rails, directing less than beloved films The Hills Have Eyes 2 and Deadly Friend, but hey, even Babe Ruth didn’t knock it out of the park every time. Now inarguably cemented as a cornerstone of horror, Craven rebounded, teamed with Bill Pullman, and brought us The Serpent and the Rainbow. The movie was filled with fantastic imagery, a movie marketer’s dream, and was reasonably successful at the box office. The Serpent and the Rainbow is based on the book of the same name by Wade Davis, in which he describes his experiences in Haiti trying to uncover truths about the zombie legend and the voodoo and drugs associated with them. Certainly a departure from what he had done previously, Serpent was an example of Craven spreading his wings and showing us something entirely new.
Shocker (1989)
Immediately following up The Serpent and the Rainbow came a new, potentially franchise spawning film from Craven. Shocker was originally intended to be a brand new horror series with its antagonist, the heinous Horace Pinker, taking his place amongst the great slashers that were ruling the day in the late ’80s. But for some reason Shocker didn’t electrify audiences (sorry, had to), and Pinker would have just this one shot to bring the pain. Needing a baker’s dozen of submissions to the MPAA to receive an R instead of an X rating, Shocker was indeed brutal. And the most fun parts were the many cameos that alert viewers could catch, including Alice Cooper guitarist Kane Roberts, Eric Singer from KISS, Heather Langenkamp, John Tesh, and Dr. Timothy Leary. The film carried an awesome ’80s metal soundtrack that featured Megadeth, Dangerous Toys, and supergroup The Dudes of Wrath made up of Paul Stanley (KISS) and producer Desmond Child on vocals, Vivian Campbell and Guy Mann-Dude on guitar, with Rudy Sarzo (Whitesnake) playing bass and the incomparable Tommy Lee (Motley Crue) on the drums. The aforementioned Roberts and Michael Anthony of Van Halen provided backup vocals. The Dudes of Wrath played the movie’s title song, and the Shocker soundtrack was released as an album.
The People Under the Stairs (1991)
It’s only fitting that the film we are celebrating today takes its rightful place on this list honoring the great Wes Craven. It’s creepy, and Sean Whalen is unforgettable in his breakout role of Roach, which launched an incredible career for the unmistakable actor. The People Under the Stairs contains some subjects we found in earlier works by Craven. Both cannibalism and incestuous relationships play a large role in The People Under the Stairs, as they did in The Hills Have Eyes, and Whalen would go on to have a monster career just like Dee Wallace did after her appearance in Hills. Craven not only makes great movies, he makes iconic and incredibly memorable characters that fans are magnetized to and don’t soon forget. In The People Under the Stairs, he did it once again.
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)
As fabulous as Freddy Krueger was, by the early ’90s he had kind of run his course. The intensity of the first (and even second) films had given way to comedy, and Krueger went from being a thing of nightmares to a kind of anti-hero fans rooted for instead of feared. However, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare gave the franchise exactly what it needed: an injection of terror. Originally carrying the working title A Nightmare on Elm Street 7: The Ascension, the name was fittingly changed to reflect the fact that this movie was not necessarily an extension of the Krueger story as we knew it, but a whole new metafilm imagining of the legend. Instead of dreams overtaking reality, it was film that overtook reality, and an entirely new nightmare arose. Krueger got a bit of a makeover, and (although it was obviously still our beloved Robert Englund behind the character) Freddy Krueger is credited as “Himself” in the end credits. Nice touch.
Scream (1996)
Twenty-six years after Craven shocked the world with The Last House on the Left, he reinvigorated a stalled horror genre with Scream in the mid-’90s. Mainstream horror had become stagnant with a slew of overdone sequels (sorry, Nightmare and Friday and Halloween, but a breath of fresh air was needed). And just when horror fans thought that they’d never see something fresh and thrilling at the movie theater again, Craven dropped Scream on the world. Although Scream maintained many of the aspects we’d come to expect from horror, it had a fantastic additional element to it, parody. It poked a little good-natured fun at the genre but was still a fantastic slasher film in its own right. A great combination of parody and quality. Introducing us to Ghostface, another character that would become a mainstay of horror, Scream would go on to an absolute monster run at the box office and spawned a number of successful sequels. Currently, the Scream franchise has earned over $600 million worldwide and has a television series on the air at MTV.
Bonus Entry! Red Eye (2005)
That’s right, Dreadies! Today’s list is buy nine entries, and get one for free! The highest-grossing Wes Craven film that didn’t have the word Scream in the title was, by far, Red Eye, which brought in nearly $100 million at the box office. With Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy playing outstanding parts, this action/thriller scored big. Loved by critics and fans for its fast-paced thrills, Rolling Stone called it “…the best action film of 2005.” That’s high praise considering War of the Worlds, Sin City, King Kong, and Batman Begins were all released in that same year. McAdams and Murphy perform spot-on, and Craven manages to bring together their work and some really slick action that allowed the director to prove that even more than three decades after his first film was released, he was still more than capable of keeping an audience on the edge of their seats.