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
The audience that would see that movie, by and large, doesn't go to see horror films, ... It was a great pleasure to make, and to see Meryl (Streep) nominated (for a best actress Oscar) for it. But most of the people I run into who loved it are surprised that I made it. When you have a name that means scares, you have to live with that.
It's kind of experiment time, ... We'll see if people get behind us, and if the picture's any good. But it has to be that people will experiment with me. If not, fine, I'll just go back to writing books or something. But I have the feeling I'm onto something.
It was a very concise, taut script, ... I simply chose not to have a standard car chase or any of that nonsense. I felt it was all about what's going on between these two characters. And the moment they're separated, I want to figure out how to get them back together again. I've actually had a lot of people thanking me for not making the movie go any longer than it had to.
That's how this (movie) felt to me, a real director- actors' piece, with two people just sitting in airplane seats. It's gripping.
If you're in a theater, people are texting, all around you. You have the little glowing screens everywhere. Think of how annoying that can be.
I'm having a reputation of being somebody who will not be crazy. Not descend to doing drugs and spending an enormous amount of money, and instead delivering a product to people. Something they can sell and recoup their money and make a profit.
I love the fact that a lot of my audience is people from the inner city. African-Americans love my films.
I have a lot of fans who are people of color. I think, if nothing else, I kind of understand that sense of being on the outside looking in, culturally.
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.
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.
We have a romantic comedy, a road picture and a period piece that I've developed over the years, ... Now we're just putting them out there for consideration (by investors).
My whole family still lives there, ... I mean, where is Cleveland anymore? They're in Cleveland Heights, Burton, Willoughby, places like that. Mostly all over the eastern suburbs.
I said, 'I don't know how to write a scary movie,' and he told me, 'Just pull all the skeletons out of your closet,' ... Over the weekend, I wrote The Last House on the Left , and those guys (in Boston) loved it. We shot it in 16 mm. It caused a firestorm of controversy, and off I went.
Without being on the set, I was very closely involved.