The World Just Got A Little Less Scary... R.I.P. West Craven 1939-2015

Well, that's just depressing.

The man that helped put the scary, back into scary movies passed away today.

But Wes Craven leaves behind a legacy that is both impressive by the impact he was able to muster in just under 30 films.

It seems like he had worked on a lot more, but Craven put his all into everything he did, usually writing, directing and producing each feature.

Depending on when you started watching scary films will likely center on where you first were introduced to Craven's work.

The 1970s, he began with The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes.

I always saw those video boxes, but never saw the movies. I still don't think I've ever seen them, but they were some cool titles for movies.

Nope, I ran into Craven's work in 1984 when he unleashed arguably his greatest creation into pop culture: Freddy Krueger.

Now, I doubt Craven (or anyone for that matter) expected Freddy to take on the status that he would, but A Nightmare on Elm Street was scary as all get out when it was released, and it still holds up today. It also cemented Robert Englund as a horror movie icon for the ages.

My only complaint was the cheesy special effects shot at the end of the film, but that doesn't mar an otherwise exceptionally scary and slick horror film. Craven mastered the technique of suckering the audience in, and then we realized that the character was dreaming, or they were dreaming they were dreaming. With Craven and Freddy, we couldn't be sure!

He closed out the 80s with a movie that I saw once, and absolutely refused to ever watch again because of how creepy it was: The Serpent and the Rainbow.

:: shudder ::

Then the 90s came, and horror films were dying out, when Craven reinvigorated the genre by playing with all the conventions and tropes of the horror film, and turning them slightly askew with the movie Scream. Much like Freddy before him, now Craven had a new pop culture character with Ghost Face, and a franchise was born.

So successful was the Scream franchise, the Wayans brothers created a franchise of their own with Scary Movie which parodied the Scream (and all other horror films).

But even Wes Craven was able to prove that he wasn't a one trick pony. He directed Music of the Heart which earned Meryl Streep one of her 8 million Academy Award nominations.

Not a bad legacy to leave behind.

RIP Wes Craven.

Thanks for all the nightmares and goosebumps!