Wes Craven, a master of horror cinema and the king of the slasher genre best known for creating the Freddy Krueger and “Scream” franchises, died on Sunday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 76. Wes lost a long battle with brain cancer, according to a statement from his family. IMDB
Mr. Craven’s most famous villain was Freddy Krueger, who haunted the nightmares of high school students in “A Nightmare on Elm Street” series and became one of the top killers in horror movie history. His other horror film achievements include “The Hills Have Eyes,” “The Serpent and the Rainbow,” “The People Under the Stairs”, and most notably “Scream.” Scream was inspired by his love for the movie“Halloween,” and went on to spawn three sequels.
Wesley Earl Craven was born Aug. 2, 1939, in Cleveland to Paul and Caroline Craven. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton and a master’s in philosophy from John Hopkins University and was a professor in Pennsylvania and New York for a short time. But his biggest achievement was bringing his creativity and horror mastery to the big screen. He was once quoted in saying “Horror movies have to show us something that hasn’t been shown before so that the audience is completely taken aback. You see, it’s not just that people want to be scared; people are scared.”