Wes Craven biography

The best nightmare

August 2, 1939
August 30, 2015
Few Directors have become so popular in so short a time span as Wes Craven, aka Westley Earl Craven. Undisputed king of horror, that has made a comic and grotesque vein of personal brand, this acrobatic juggler camerawork was born on 2 August 1939 in Cleveland, Ohio. Raised in a strict Baptist family, as a teenager starts to attend college but due to a disease that affects the spine is forced to interrupt his studies for a year but, despite these physical difficulties, he managed to graduate in literature and philosophy in 1963 at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Its beginnings are a little embarrassing, since, in order to keep a camera in hand and stop making the most varied work (for a few years ago the teacher but to pay for the material is found to make even the taxi driver), is willing to x-rated film shoot; but thanks to these engagements you he still makes the bones. His real attraction though is for the horror genre and so here he is in 1972 directing and mount his first film, the macabre and creepy "the last House on the left", which already reveals a hand. Between 1975 and 1980 followed other titles marked by his strong personality, like "the hills have eyes" (big box office hit).
In 1981 runs two other films: "deadly blessing" and "swamp thing", a tribute to the public's desire to consume ever more abstruse subjects. But the stroke of genius of Craven is to have invented the bizarre as terrifying character of Freddy Krueger, star of the hit series "Nightmare" that Craven has invented a new genre of horror films (although in reality from his hand came out only the first and last title of the sestina, which includes the series). Thanks to Freddy Krueger, the protagonist of the film, Wes wins the Avoriaz Festival, the jury prize and the award for best actress. Among the films in the years ' 80 and early ' 90 from Craven include "you had to be dead" (1986), "State of Shock" (1989), "The Black House" (1991), "Vampire in Brooklyn" (1995) and "Scream," his thirteenth movie that got a phenomenal success both in the USA and Europe (the film also won the MTV award for best film of 1996).
His later films were the second (starring the actress Courtney Cox) and the third installment of the trilogy of "Scream" and "music of the heart" with Meryl Streep, premiered at the Venice Film Festival of 1999 in which the Director was confronted with a kind of unusual for him, the drama. His latest film "Dracula's legacy-the fascination of evil", of which Craven is also Executive producer, was released in theaters in 2000. With regard to television Craven has collaborated in the creation of the series "Nightmare Cafe", and directed the telefilms "Night Visions" and "A Stranger in Our House". He edited also directed seven episodes of the Twilight Zone in 1980. Long time sufferer of brain cancer, dies in Los Angeles at the age of 76 years, the August 30, 2015. Despite the disease Wes Craven was working on new projects.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.