The Man Who Lived In The Last House On Elm Street! R.I.P. Wes Craven

As a teenager growing up in the 70's, there were only 3 TV networks, No game consoles or computers to even play games on.   Besides school, pre-drivers license meant getting on your bike and cruising the neighborhood or going to a buddy's house to hang out and listen to the radio or trade comic books.

As I got in my mid-teens I progressed from comic books to more exiting things.  Magazines like "Creepy", "Vampirella" (who I have a tattoo of and my biggest favorite, 'fanzines'.  My absolute fave was "Famous Monsters Of Filmland".  I loved Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Great actors and great monsters.  But then a magazine called "Fangoria" came out around 1980 or so.  It had the more B-Movie, gory side of horror films.  One Director I became entranced with was Wes Craven, who passed away Yesterday from brain cancer.  "Fangoria" came out around the time VCR's were starting to creep into households across America.  So I could read about Legendary Wes Craven movies like "Last House On The Left" and "The Hills Have Eyes".  These movies kicked up the violence and exploitation factor considerably.  Wes Craven was now an acclaimed "Drive-In-B Movie" star of a director. much like his mentor Roger Corman.  The huge break through with Wes came in 1984.  I had been reading in "Fangoria" about this movie "Nightmare On Elm Street".

I figured it would never come to town, and I'd have to wait awhile for it to get to VHS.  I was wrong.  Bill Yancey who owned the Ross Theater near Boeke and Washington showed it, and of course I went.  Not many people were at the showing I went to, but I bet they all heard about it from reading "Fangoria".  The movie was really scary, and it sort of re0invented some aspects of the horror genre which was still stuck in the "madman with a knife" mode.   Many sequels of "Nightmare" were made.  Most sucked and Wes had little to do with them, aside from perhaps producing and getting the credit of "Based on Characters.created by Wes Craven" credit.  In the subsequent years Wes tried other genres, like comedy a la Eddie Murphy in "Vampire In Brooklyn".  Little success if any came from the late 80's until the mid 90's when Wes released the first in the "Scream series".

Much gorier than his previous movies and featuring bigger name stars "Scream" did the opposite of what the "Nightmare" movies did.  It de-constructed horror by explaining the tride and true plots of slasher films as we watch the actors fall right into those scenarios.  Wes was a genius of horror, even with movies like "The Serpent and the Rainbow".  He had a profound effect on horror movies, and will never forget the characters he made"  R.I.P Wes Craven   .