Wes Craven
Wes Craven
Wesley Earl "Wes" Cravenwas a prolific and influential American film director, writer, producer, and actor known for his pioneering work in the genre of horror films, particularly slasher films. Due to the success and cultural impact of his works in the horror film genre Craven has been called the "Master of Horror"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth2 August 1939
CityCleveland, OH
CountryUnited States of America
When I was a kid, I was taken to something called Telenews in Cleveland by my best friend's father. My own father was gone by the time I was 5, I think, but this man would take us to Telenews at the end of World War II, and we'd watch all these newsreels. I'd seen real stuff. That kind of stuck in my mind.
I've found that if you have two films that don't perform well it doesn't matter that you've had a bunch of successful ones. The phone stops ringing, and after Deadly Blessing and Swamp Thing that's what happened.
I'm writing a film called 'Bug.' It's an original script, and it's not about killer insects. It's a thriller set in a high school. The bug of the title refers to a surveillance device.
If you think it, the camera will see it.
People who are kind of at the cutting edge of life and survival, and being near the nitty-gritty, like my films, and I like that.
I believe the cinema is one of our principal forms of art. It is an incredibly powerful way to tell uplifting stories that can move people to cry with joy and inspire them to reach for the stars.
The first monster you have to scare the audience with is yourself.
As long as you keep the audience on the edge of their seats, either scare them or keep them guessing, you can put anything in there that you want.
I came to terms with living mostly in a world of horror pictures or genre pictures. I have had a few chances to get outside and do something different, like Paris, Je T'Aime or Music Of The Heart, but mostly it's been my lot. And to have created, with a few shocking films, an awareness or a perception of me as somebody dangerous and scary - that can be sold, but trying to sell me for some other kind of picture, like Music Of The Heart, was very difficult.
All of us have our individual curses, something that we are uncomfortable with and something that we have to deal with, like me making horror films, perhaps.
The first monster that an audience has to be scared of is the filmmaker. They have to feel in the presence of someone not confined by the normal rules of propriety and decency.
I think the important thing about staying creative and staying sharp and original is not to look back too much.
The experience of going to a theater and seeing a movie with a lot of people is still part of the transformational power of the film, and it's equivalent to the old shaman telling a story by the campfire to a bunch of people. That is a remarkable thing, if you scream and everyone else in the audience screams, you realize that your fears are not just within yourself, they're in other people as well, and that's strangely releasing.
A lot of life is dealing with your curse, dealing with the cards you were given that aren't so nice. Does it make you into a monster, or can you temper it in some way, or accept it and go in some other direction?