Is Wes Craven Still Relevant?
One of my favorite horror movies of all time is Wes Craven’s A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Not only does it mess with your mind with it’s meticulous way of weaving in and out of dreamworlds without really telling you, but it marked the birth of my favorite movie maniac: Freddy Krueger. Twelve years later the man re-invented the slasher genre he helped create with SCREAM, opening the floodgates for the re-birth of horror as know it. But over the last decade and with shite like MY SOUL TO TAKE inching towards theaters Craven seems to have lost his magic touch, which begs the question: is Wes Craven relevant to the horror genre anymore?
The man’s downfall could almost be pinpointed to when he decided to step outside the horror genre with MUSIC OF THE HEART, about a violinist (I think–I never saw that shit) back in 1999. After that he nailed the coffin in his own franchise with SCREAM 3, a film that’s almost unwatchable now and by far the worse of the series (to date). Even the lackluster SCREAM 2 was better than that drivel. Jump ahead 5 years(!) later to the much anticipated werewolf masterpiece CURSED.
Wait, did I say masterpiece? What I meant was utter dogshit. CURSED was Craven’s attempt at something that could have been good, but failed miserably, and will only be remembered in the future as that one shitty werewolf movie that starred Jesse Eisenberg before he became a star. I know what everyone says: Craven didn’t make the movie, the studio made the movie. He hates that movie just about as much as everyone else does, and I’ll give him points for coming clean and saying so, but riddle me this: would it surprise you if the tagline simply read “From the director of VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN and SCREAM 3”?
I’ll give credit where credit’s due and say that Craven’s follow-up (released the same year) RED EYE was a pretty decent little thriller, and one that showed the world he can do more than just horror if he wanted to. But that was five years ago and the man hasn’t done shit since except…. produce. He produced the Project Greenlight effort FEAST, and the remakes of two of his most well-known flicks: THE HILLS HAVE EYES and THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT.
For a guy who’s been a more successful producer over the last decade than director, you’d figure he’d give up directing all together, no? His directorial efforts were sort of blah for the most part and yet the movie’s he’s produced have all been solid horror flicks. At this rate, he’ll be known as the dude who produces awesome horror flicks, not makes them. That is, until this week, when his long overdue teen slasher flick MY SOUL TO TAKE (previously 25/8) hits theaters everywhere and is thus the basis for my heavy drinking in my first place.
Why drown my sorrows in Miller High Life over MY SOUL TO TAKE? Because it looks like a rip-off of his much-celebrated NIGHTMARE, because it looks like all the other teen-centric horror shitfests that have puked their way into theaters the whole time he’s been napping at the director’s chair and producing instead. And let’s not forget this piece is in 3D for reasons I still can’t fathom as nothing about it screams 3D to me. And with a track record like CURSED and SCREAM 3 as the last few films under the dude’s belt, why does anyone give a f*ck whether it’s from “the director of SCREAM” or not?
Speaking of SCREAM, let’s not forget that Craven decided he does want to be known as a director and is currently working on SCREAM 4, the long-overdue and equally unnecessary sequel to the series with hopes of re-fueling a new franchise altogether. Does anyone really care that another SCREAM movie is on its way? Are audiences demanding that Hollywood dip back into a franchise that was hot over a decade ago? And most importantly, will Craven be able to pull off more than his usual ass-sucking when he sits behind the camera and in the director’s chair?
Maybe it’s the booze talkin’, but there’s not a single ounce of anticipation for either MY SOUL TO TAKE or SCREAM 4, and I think a bit of that has to do with Craven, but also because (MY SOUL TO TAKE, at least) looks like utter and complete garbage save for its R rating. Craven rocked the hiz-ouse of horror in the 80s and 90s, but like many of his counterparts (John Carpenter and George A. Romero), has gone way of the shittastic in the 2000s. Is he relevant in horror anymore? I can’t take away what the man gave the genre nor do I want to, but is he a relevant film director in the here and now? No. Should he stop completely and stick to producing? Yes. Maybe instead of trying to reinvent the genre all over again, the guy should simply reinvent himself, hang up his directing shorts, and accept that he’s a producer now… and not a director.