Wes Craven discusses why he refused to watch ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ remake
For our money, the American filmmaker Wes Craven is the greatest horror director of all time. Revolutionising the horror genre not once but twice, the late horror master was a filmmaker with a stranglehold of the genre, with both an unparalleled knowledge and love for horror. Responsible for countless influential classics, including, The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, Craven’s legacy in the genre is undisputedly impressive
Helping to sculpt the genre’s popularity through the 1980s and ’90s whilst pioneering its 21st-century future, Craven became a sagacious voice for horror in the 1970s with his debut release of The Last House on the Left. Re-imagining what the general public knew as ‘horror’, his debut stripped away all the ghosts, ghouls and runner monsters to tell the story of the real-life terrors that lurked in contemporary American society.
Though Last House on the Left may be his most important film, his most famous was A Nightmare on Elm Street, with the original 1984 film sparking a brand new slasher franchise alongside other popular series, Friday the 13th and Halloween. The seventh film from the director was no easy feat to create, however, with Craven having to go to several studios before New Line Cinema picked up the project.
The film eventually became an iconic movie of the 1980s, with Craven transforming into a horror icon thanks to his own passionate efforts. This explains why, decades later, the director was so annoyed by the remake of the movie, with New Line Cinema not even consulting him on the 2010 film, which was based on Craven’s classic film and influential slasher character, Freddy Krueger.
Speaking to IGN at the time of the remake’s release, Craven stated, “it does hurt; it does because it’s such an important film for me that, unfortunately, when I signed the original contract, I gave up all rights to it and so there’s nothing I can do about it”.
Annoyed about the project as well as disinterested, Craven added at the time, “I don’t even know who’s doing it, and I’m not interested. It’s actually really painful to think about it. It’s the film of mine that I probably love the most, and which made the most money”. Addressing the effort that went into the original, he explains, “The script went around Hollywood for three years, and nobody touched it, and I went through all my life savings and everything else to pay for it, so I had to make the deal I did”.
Conversely, Craven was “much happier” with the release of the Last House on the Left remake in 2009, exclaiming, “I could kind of shepherd it towards production, and we found a really wonderful director”. Praising the work of filmmaker Dennis Iliadis, the remake was a respectable re-imagining of Craven’s work and was certainly a lot better than the 2010 remake of Nightmare on Elm Street.
Take a look at the trailer for Wes Craven’s classic original movie below, and make sure to check it out this Halloween.
