Wes Craven, Whose Slasher Films Terrified Millions, Dies at 76
By KENNETH ROSEN and ERIK PIEPENBURG

Wes Craven, a master of horror cinema and a proponent of the slasher genre who was best known for creating the “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Scream” franchises, died on Sunday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 76.

The cause was brain cancer, his family said.

Perhaps Mr. Craven’s most famous creation was the serial killer Freddy Krueger, played by Robert Englund, who, with his razor-blade glove, haunted the dreams of high school students in “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984) and its sequels. Krueger became one of the best-known villains in horror movie history, often mentioned alongside Michael Myers of the “Halloween” franchise and Jason Voorhees of the “Friday the 13th” films.

The first “Nightmare on Elm Street” cost $1.8 million to make and grossed about $25 million.

It also spawned six sequels, although Mr. Craven directed only the last one, “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” (1994). Much as dreams had overlapped with reality in the other “Nightmare” movies and in Craven films like “The Hills Have Eyes” (1977), “The Serpent and the Rainbow” (1988) and “The People Under the Stairs” (1991), “New Nightmare” blurred the line between fiction and reality: Mr. Craven played himself, and the film was set in a world where the “Nightmare” movies existed but where Freddy Krueger was also a real person menacing the actress Heather Langenkamp, a star of the original movie.

Mr. Craven began making films after briefly teaching English at Westminster College in Pennsylvania. Early in his career he directed, wrote and edited pornographic movies.

In 1972 he directed his first feature film, “Last House on the Left,” which he also wrote. Although it was a low-budget, extremely violent horror movie and marketed as such, it was inspired by “The Virgin Spring,” Ingmar Bergman’s Oscar-winning 1960 film about a father’s bloody revenge for the rape and murder of his daughter, and some critics saw it as a commentary on the Vietnam War.

A nightmare sequence in “Last House on the Left” was partly what inspired “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”

“Last House on the Left” was a hit, and so was Mr. Craven’s next film, “The Hills Have Eyes,” which centered on a group of savages out to kill a family stranded in the desert.

In recent years “Last House on the Left,” “The Hills Have Eyes” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street” have all been successfully remade, although Mr. Craven did not direct the remakes.

Mr. Craven’s career had been relatively quiet until 1996, when the first “Scream” film was released. In addition to reviving his fortunes, it helped redefine horror movies by introducing a self-aware, at times self-mocking sensibility. Written by Kevin Williamson, who would go on to create television series including “Dawson’s Creek” and “The Vampire Diaries,” it featured characters who have seen enough horror movies to know the clichés of the genre — although some of them end up being killed anyway.

The success of “Scream” led to three sequels, all of them directed by Mr. Craven, and an MTV series, which made its debut in June, of which Mr. Craven was an executive producer.

Mr. Craven did occasionally veer from bloodshed and mayhem, most notably in 1999, when he directed the drama “Music of the Heart,” written by Pamela Gray and based on the true story of Roberta Guaspari, who became celebrated for teaching violin to underprivileged children in Harlem. Meryl Streep, who played Ms. Guaspari, was nominated for an Oscar for her performance.

More recently, Mr. Craven was nearing the completion of a five-issue comic book series about zombies, werewolves and vampires, “Coming of Rage,” which he wrote with Steve Niles.

Wesley Earl Craven was born on Aug. 2, 1939, in Cleveland to Paul and Caroline Craven. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College in Illinois and a master’s in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University. He was a professor in Pennsylvania and New York for a short time.

He is survived by his wife, Iya Labunka; a sister, Carol Buhrow; a son, Jonathan; a daughter, Jessica; and a stepdaughter, Nina Tarnawksy.

In David Konow’s book “Reel Terror: The Scary, Bloody, Gory, Hundred-Year History of Classic Horror Films” (2012), Mr. Craven was quoted explaining his theory about horror movies: that they have to get under moviegoers’ skin in unexpected ways.

“Horror movies have to show us something that hasn’t been shown before so that the audience is completely taken aback,” he said. “You see, it’s not just that people want to be scared; people are scared.”

「驚聲尖叫」恐怖教父癌逝 享年76歲

以「夜半鬼上床」、「驚聲尖叫」等系列影片成名的好萊塢恐怖電影導演魏斯克瑞文，8月30日因為腦癌病逝於洛杉磯家中，享年76歲。

堪稱「恐怖教父」的魏斯克瑞文於1939年8月3日出生在俄亥俄州克里夫蘭，5歲喪父的他在保守嚴謹的基督教家庭長大。擁有心理學碩士學位的魏斯克瑞文，曾在學校教英文與人類學，並以音效剪接師進入電影業。1972年他自編自導第一部電影「殺人不分左右」，引起影壇注意，該片後來還在2009年翻拍為「左邊最後那棟房子」。

1984年魏斯克瑞文自編自導「半夜鬼上床」（A Nightmare on Elm Street），由於他曾住在紐約州小鎮墓園附近的街道就叫「Elm Street」，因此把街道名稱當片名，創造出這部美國影史的經典恐怖電影。「半夜鬼上床」在美國一推出就造成轟動，尤其片中主角變態夢中殺手、鬼王佛萊迪（Freddy Krueger）的陰險狡詐又帶黑色幽默的形象更是深植恐怖片影迷心中。由於「半夜鬼上床」大受歡迎，後來續集一拍再拍，成為系列電影。

進入1990年代，魏斯克瑞文又以「驚聲尖叫」系列再度名利雙收。儘管魏斯克瑞文擅長打造類型電影，但1996年推出的「驚聲尖叫」以顛覆YA、恐怖類型電影為噱頭，小兵立大功，讓影迷又愛又怕。「驚聲尖叫」系列的成功，讓魏斯克瑞文有機會執導生平唯一一部非類型電影「心靈真愛」，該片女主角梅莉史翠普也因此入圍奧斯卡。

魏斯克瑞文執導的最後一部電影是2011年的「驚聲尖叫4」，他的過世讓許多受他影響的電影人紛紛發文致意，「奪魂鋸」與「玩命關頭7」導演溫子仁也在推特表示由衷惋惜、深深哀悼，稱他是「我最大的啟蒙者之一」。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/movies/wes-craven-a-master-of-slasher-horror-films-dies-at-76.html

2015-09-01．聯合報．C4．星blog．項貽斐