Today, Wes Craven has died. My condolences to his family and friends. They lost someone very dear and close to them. For the rest of us, we've lost a master of horror and slasher films.
I remember watching A Serpent and A Rainbow as a young boy. The fact that it featured predominantly a Haitian Culture, its mythos and history of brutality at the hand of tonton macoutes made it a must-watch for my family, who are Haitian immigrants. There is a scene where affluent WASPs are celebrating a success with a dinner party that gets rudely interrupted when one of them becomes possessed by a villain overseas. A scorpion materializes out of the mouth of another victim, and our main protagonists gets buried alive. These images helped shaped my love of thrillers and horrors. It was until much later into my adulthood that I learned that this film was directed by Mr. Wes Craven.
In so many ways, Wes has shaped and scared alot of us in this babybooming, generation-X populace. Whether it was me having to peak through my fingers to watch Freddy Krueger slash at his preys or cringing as the unsuspecting blonde walks into a dark garage in Scream, Wes left his stamp on the world. He defined horror on film.
Red Eye (2005), one of his films that didn't achieve the accolades of his previous films, was another adventure into suspense. I remember watching it in theaters on the edge of my seat. In any one else's hands, a film that took place largely in a plane with two characters sitting side by side would've devolved into parody and hokiness.
His filmography is intensive and spans decades: Last House of the Left, The Hills have Eyes, Cursed, They, Dracula 2000, and many more. I personally own the movie They, because its concept was fascinating. It was an interesting story about the demons of our past "marking" us and how they come to collect us. The social worker part of me saw this as PTSD.
So it's with sadness we say goodbye to this genius, but his legacy will continue to give us chills.
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