He left his father Freddy – BBC

77, died founder of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Scream”, directed and produced by Wes Craven. The cause of death was brain cancer.

Early Years Future classic horror films, on the one hand, wrapped in a mystery, but on the other – explain much in the history of the man who turned the very foundations of the genre of horror. Craven was born in 1939 in a family of strict Cleveland Baptist and study after school went to a Christian University, where he received degrees in literature, philosophy and psychology. After graduation, he taught for a while, but soon abandoned the hopeless profession for cinema – the first directorial experiences Craven, reportedly made as a director of pornographic films. However, he then worked under the pseudonym, so find the first wizard does not seem feasible.

The first film, which brought fame to the young director, became released in 1972, “The Last House on the Left».

The film received the most diverse recognition – in the United States, for example, the “last house” almost awarded the highest rating of censorship X, and in the UK it was banned altogether for 30 years. However, there are important not so much to violent scenes of rape and murderers, but the fact that inspired Craven based on the Swedish folk ballad “The Virgin Spring” Ingmar Bergman. In other words, this picture has fully manifested the characteristic directorial handwriting that finally just 12 years and led the horror genre ghetto straight from the mainstream.

It happened, of course, thanks to released in rent in 1984, the first film of the clawed maniac in a striped sweater “Nightmare on Elm Street».

The director knew exactly: to make a great and terrible film, it is not enough to be ugly. Like any other genre, horror should be based not only on the phantasms, but also to present the idea, which in the case of “Nightmare” were meticulous study of the phenomenon of sleep paralysis, which is rumored to have spent Craven, ready to shoot. It remained only to think of a suitable villain – the spirit burned with a mad sadist smile – the light was instant classics, among other things, to give the audience Johnny Depp, who played in his first film role.

The same is true, by the way, and Sharon Stone – her first appearance on the screen was held in kreyvenovskom “Deadly Blessing,” where she played the victim of sinister cultists.

Since the “Nightmare” almost every film director becomes an event, but the next revolution in the genre had to wait another 12 years. In 1996, two years after the seventh film about Krueger, the screens out “Scream.” The story of a murderer with a large knife in white mask was written by Kevin Williamson, who was pulled out of obscurity Craven, struck ingenuity scenario. Originally conceived as a trilogy “Scream” shows that not only the horror can be funny, but still remain fearful despite the nudity and a detailed analysis of all the mechanisms of the genre. The heroes of the film, pursued a maniac, were fans of horror movies and knew all the cliches of the genre which is developed that did not prevent them to die quickly and often silly – so is the laughter of the viewer is literally stuck in my throat, instantly replaced by dread.

Having completed the first trilogy “Scream” in 2000, Craven returned to the town of Woodsboro double.

In 2011, he published the fourth part of the franchise , which was to launch a new trilogy. That did not happen, but in an incredibly funny movie was a place for caustic mockery of the fact that in today has become “terrible” genre. Continuation of work on a new trilogy was postponed due to the fact that Craven took up producing for MTV series that carries the plot of the first “Scream” in our days. Director died just hours before the broadcast of the last episode of the first season.