Farewell to Wes – Guest Blog: Mike Mendez
Steve Barton
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So I’m not sure who I owe my scarred psyche to, my father or Wes Craven. As a child, my dear old dad loved the cinema. Not only for the entertainment value, but also for the massive savings on child care. One child’s movie matinee ticket was good for a whole day of theater hopping or revisiting movies you liked and maybe wanted to see again. So when I was 4 years old — I repeat, 4 f’ng years old!!! — my father took me to a new family film called “The Hills Have Eyes.” So one of my earliest memories, literally, is of a dude squeezing a canary and drinking its blood.
As I write this, this is kind of blowing my mind, mainly that the department of child welfare was never called. I’d love to say that was my introduction to horror, but there may have been a Dollar Tuesday showing of “Cannibal Holocaust” when I was an infant for all I know. Either way, I can honestly say that image of the canary being killed really fucked me up. Pets are very relatable to a child’s mind, so he was able to get in there and truly horrify me. That image really haunted me. Still does. So that was my introduction to Wes Craven. Literally one of my first memories.
Mr. Craven and myself would cross paths again 7 years later, when an 11-year-old me entered my local Pasadena theater to see a new film called “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” Now, I was a horror nerd pretty early on in my life, so I was well versed with Michael Meyers, Jason Voorhees and the like, but you know what I was not ready for? Mr. Freddy Motherf’ng Krueger! Holy crap, I think cinephiles all have those moments that could be only described as a religious experience. I had entered the Church of Horror Cinema, Wes Craven was my new Pastor. I flipped for that film, both as an audience member and as a fledgling filmmaker. The creativity, the terror, the blood and most notably the characters. These were kids you actually gave a shit about being terrorized by a new magnetic yet repulsive screen villain. I was hooked. When Nancy booby traps the house and the first time that sledgehammer slams down on Freddy! Wow! I wanted to leap out of my chair and scream. Still probably one of my top 5 most joyous cinematic moments.
That movie-going experience not only solidified my love for the genre, but I was a true Freddy Krueger fan and of course of his creator Wes Craven. From that point on, I’d follow Mr. Craven’s exploits through the pages of Fangoria Magazine. Keeping up with “The Serpent & the Rainbow” and his newest creation, Horace Pinker in “Shocker.” I was so excited for “Shocker,” I had waited months to see it, hoping to have that same experience, those same thrills I did on that first Elm Street experience. Well, sadly, that didn’t work out too well for me, but I was still a huge fan of Wes Craven. So much so that I was over the moon when I got advance test screening passes to see his newest film, “The People Under the Stairs.” Now, for some reason, I’m under the impression that this is not a well regarded film by most, which surprises me because I love it! That is one batshit crazy movie and it played great in that test screening. Once again I was all nutty for Wes Craven, and as an added bonus I got to meet him the lobby. The good thing about being a horror nerd in a test audience is that no one recognized him, so I was able to walk up to him, shake his hand and tell him what a fan I was of his and of his new film. He was kind and appreciative of the compliments. It was a really good way to meet him. Years later in that same lobby under the same circumstances, I met him again, this time for “New Nightmare,” where he was just as kind and gracious.
As the years passed and I traveled deeper into my own filmmaking endeavors, I would keep up with all Wes Craven projects and support them all. For some short-sighted reason I thought the best of Wes Craven was behind him, until I went to my local Burbank multiplex one Friday night in 1996, where I saw a reinvigorated Wes whip a sold-out crowd into a frenzy with a new little ditty called “Scream.” Once again, wow! Another unforgettable movie-going experience. I heard sounds in a theater that I had not heard in years and rarely with that sort of intensity. People were SCREAMING, and it was beautiful. Wes had redefined the genre yet again.
So that’s how Wes influenced my formative years and influenced me creatively as a filmmaker, which is a pretty huge impact to have already. Wes impacted me on a deeper level as well though, also as filmmaker but in a different way.
In 2002 my good friend Dave Parker and myself made a documentary for Showtime called “Masters of Horror.” It was an absolute dream job; we were getting paid to sit down and interview our heroes. John Carpenter, George Romero, John Landis, Rick Baker, etc., etc,. and of course at the top of the list was one of the true Masters, Wes Craven. He was kind enough to give us an afternoon and really just shoot the shit for well over 2 hours. I have to say he was one of the best storytellers I’ve ever met. So sharp, funny and insightful. His “Serpent & the Rainbow” stories were mind-blowing. I honestly could have sat there for hours listening to him.
That’s where I saw a really different side of Wes. I knew him as a Fangoria and horror icon, he was a legend, but that afternoon I got to meet the filmmaker and the man. That day is where he talked, not about the successes, but about his struggles. The dark times, the moments in between the victories. He opened up about the times where he couldn’t get his next project off the ground yet had a family to support or being fired from a studio film or going through a divorce and all the dark shit that happens in life sometimes. It was grim but powerful stuff that will always stay with me. Sometimes we only see our heroes in the spotlight; it seems to us like their lives are great and perfect. We don’t see the uphill battle and struggle that all filmmakers must face, the rejection, the bad reviews. He talked about how it wasn’t till “Scream” that he felt it wasn’t a struggle anymore. He talked about how the critics don’t take you seriously when you do genre films and how he was referred to as a schlockmeister the majority of his life, but he said there was hope, he said, “But… if you just stick around long enough, people start changing what they say about you and you start getting called a Master of Horror.” So I think about that a lot.
There are times I feel all is lost and that I can’t go on because I can’t get hired or a project set up and I’m done in this business, but then I remember that the people I admire had to face these struggles too and managed to get through and keep moving on. All the pain or rejection that we feel are so unique to us has been felt before by others and conquered. That is oddly comforting because they did it, they kept going, they didn’t give up. Wes went on and succeeded and earned each and every one of those victories. So in the end what I really want to do is raise a glass and say, “To Wes! Thank you for not giving up, thank you for enduring and carrying on because your dreams became our nightmares. You scared us, shocked us and made us scream like we never have before. Your perseverance earned you the title Master of Horror many times over. Thank you for raising the bar of horror. There has never been nor will ever be anyone quite like you. You may be gone, but your creations will be here forever.”
Thanks for all the screams, Wes!
— Mike Mendez
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
