I've seen a lot of horror movies in my life, but few titles on this lengthy list possess the intelligence and social awareness that anything directed by Wes Craven does. The only other so-called "master of horror" who even compares or possibly trumps Craven is George Romero, and that's only because, amidst the intelligencia, Romero's zombie movies have somehow secured considerable respect for their startling social commentary, whereas Craven, whose work tends to be much more subtle and metaphorical, doesn't enjoy significant respect outside the horror genre. It's a tragedy, one beget by a culture that chooses to ignore, pretend away, or bury their fears -- the very shortcoming Craven's seminal classic A Nightmare on Elm Street sought to call Americans out on. A few weeks ago, the legendary director showed up at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California to offer up a live commentary to a 25th anniversary screening of Elm Street, not unlike the DVD commentary true fans of a movie like to tear through. The difference, aside from this being live, is that Craven allowed the audience to shout questions to him throughout the screening. Here's a little taste of what he had to say about the movie, its enduring legacy, and the upcoming Platinum Dunes remake in which Jackie Earle Haley, whom you might have just caught as Rorschach in Watchmen, will be replacing Robert Englund as dreamland serial killer, Freddie Krueger.

On the point of the movie (in case you thought it was just about the gore) ...

Craven found his inspiration for Elm Street, or at least the movie's fear of dreams, in a newspaper article that described a young boy who wouldn't sleep. He was terrified of it, and his parents did everything they could to knock him out, including sleeping pills. When the kid finally did conk out, he died. The next day, they found a coffee pot still on in his closet where he had hidden it, such were the lengths he was willing to go to not close his eyes.

Craven took this nugget of an idea that he found so tragic, the fact that this kid knew he would die if he slept, and turned it into a larger horror mystery about a neighborhood that had a lot more than skeletons in its closets. "It all has to do with being conscious of what's going on [in the world]," Craven said before adding, "Not like the last eight years." This metaphor is carried out right up into the climax where our teenaged female heroine, Nancy (Heather Langenkamp), must drag Freddie -- the nightmare nobody wants to admit has been killing the movie's teenagers -- into the real world. Or, as Craven put it, "dragging the ugly truth into the light of day." Why? Well, Craven explains, "You can't monitor yourself [individually or as a country] if you don't know you're capable of evil as well as good." This is what gets me about Craven: he always approaches his horror projects as some way to offer up observations about the state of America, but insists upon doing it without swinging a sledgehammer.

A few thoughts on getting completely hosed by New Line ...

Broke at the time that New Line prez Bob Shaye took on the project, Craven says he signed the contract trusting he'd be protected. Woops. He lost all rights to his creation and, consequently, made nothing off the sequels or merchandising until, years later, Shaye -- as Craven puts it -- softened and, in an effort to right a wrong, invited Craven to reinvent the franchise with New Nightmare. The move also recovered for him some percentage of his character, though Craven remained vague as to how much. Not enough apparently to make up for the decade in which Freddie Krueger was the most popular Halloween mask on the market. It's horrible to think about, especially since Craven knows, no matter what he does for the rest of his life, "Creator of Freddie Krueger" will appear on his gravestone.

About that remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street ...

Platinum Dunes, Michael Bay's surprisingly effective horror remake purveyors, are producing the new Elm Street for 2010 with Haley as Krueger and some dude nobody outside of the music-video world and his mother has heard of, Samuel Bayer, directing. From what I hear, the coolest twist is that Krueger, a child molester who was killed by young parents prior to the original movie, might have actually been falsely accused by the children of said young parents and, consequently, his carnage will possibly be vengeance-driven in a more direct way. Craven wasn't able to speak about any of this, though, since whatever cut he got of the Krueger character with New Nightmare doesn't get him more than a "characters by" credit on the new picture. You think they would have at least brought him back as a producer to consult, right?

On the casting of Johnny Depp in his first role of any kind ...

Depp, it turns out, was in town with his band and an actor friend of his who auditioned for Elm Street asked Craven to see Depp just to give Depp a taste of the Hollywood life. Craven was impressed despite the fact that Depp wasn't the all-American kid he was looking for. Then his 14-year-old daughter saw Depp and said, "Daaad," in that voice that made it clear a lot of young girls would fall in love with the future heartthrob. Depp was cast, and the rest is history. Does this mean we can hold Craven's daughter to blame for the two Pirates of the Caribbean sequels?

For all those out there who like to badmouth horror ...

"Well, it's a violent world," Craven says. "All you have to do is open a newspaper. Nature is violent. It's resident in our sub-consciousness." Craven even goes on to suggest nightmares are "hardwired into our DNA to deal with the chaos" of the world around us. "The issue is, how do you deal with [such violence]? The films are never telling people to go out and do this or that, but deal with it." Apparently Craven thinks we live in a country where people like to accept responsibility for the world they live in.

And one for the road ...

If you rewatch Elm Street on this its 25th anniversary, pay attention, Craven says, to the scene where Nancy's mother tells the story about how she and others killed Freddie Krueger for being a child molester. She reaches into her basement wood-burning furnace and pulls out one of Krueger's famous knife-fingered gloves, still in great condition, apparently demonstrating that said furnace had not been turned on in the past 17 years to heat the house. Hmm.

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us