Wes Craven - Interviews

With a career spanning four decades, Wes Craven (1939-2015) bridged independent exploitation cinema and Hollywood big-budget horror. A pioneer of the modern horror cinema, Craven directed such landmark films as The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream--considered not only classics of the genre, but examples of masterful filmmaking. Producing an impressive oeuvre that mixed intellectual concerns and political ideas, Craven utilized high-tension suspense, devastating visual brutality, and dark humor to evoke a unique brand of fear. Moreover, his films draw attention to the horror of American society--namely racism, classism, and the traumas often associated with family.

This collection of twenty-nine interviews--spanning from 1980 until his final interview in 2015--traces Craven's life and career, from his upbringing in a strict religious family and his life as an academic to his years toiling in exploitation cinema. The volume a