Hello Enthusiacs I am the Lord of Shadow and today I bring you sad tidings. Wes Craven, the master of horror, has passed away. He died in his home after a long battle with brain cancer, he was 76. He is survived by his wife, producer and former Disney Studios vice president Iya Labunka.

Wes Craven often pulled from his real life when creating horror. For example the Elm street franchise was born based on a cemetery of Elm’s street in Cleveland. Nightmare on Elm’s street is without question his most famous creation.

Released in 1984 A Nightmare on Elms street follows the battle between teenagers and the dream stalker Freddy Kruegar. It was this film that earned him the moniker the master of horror, and even today it holds up as a fantastic horror film.

It had four follow ups between 84 and 89 and unlike many franchises they retained their quality at least in my opinion. It was one of the film franchises that reinvented the horror genre. In fact it was this franchise that lead him to another series of films.

Scream was Craven taking the genre he help reinvent and turning it on it’s ear. It was a tongue and cheek look at several horror tropes that had been a mainstay in the genre since the days of Nightmare on Elm’s street. This must like Elm Street this was also well received and had several sequels.

Now delving back into his filmography we find his first feature film. The last house on the left. He not only directed it but edited and wrote it. This could be seen as his Evil Dead. It was released in 1974, which was a rape revenge film and generated quite a lot of controversy in it’s day as it was quite graphic. However it also made a lot of money. This gave way to his next feature which he wrote and directed. The Hills have Eyes released in 1977.

This lead him to the Nightmare franchise. Craven not only directed many classics but he also wrote many of them himself. This extended to Nightmare of Elm Street 3 as well as Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.

Now to say his only talent was directing or writing screenplays. In 1999 he wrote his first novel. “The Fountain Society. Craven again pushed the genre boundaries with the 2005 psychological thriller Red Eye, and in 2006, he wrote and directed a romantic comedy homage to Oscar Wilde Paris Je T’aime. Craven then produced remakes of The Hills Have Eyes in 2006 and The Last House on the Left in 2009.

His most recent written and directed film, My Soul to Take in 2010, marked his first collaboration with Labunka, who also produced Scream 4.

Craven had recently signed an overall television deal with Universal Cable Productions and had a number of projects in development, including The People Under the Stairs with Syfy Networks, Disciples with UCP, We Are All Completely Fine with Syfy/UCP, and Sleepers with Federation Entertainment.

He also was executive producing the new Scream series for MTV. The season finale of the series will pay tribute to the writer/director, an MTV spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.

Craven had recently written and was to direct the Thou Shalt Not Kill segment for The Weinstein Co.’s Ten Commandments miniseries for WGN America. And he is listed as an executive producer of The Girl in the Photographs, a horror thriller directed by his protege, Nick Simon, that will premiere at the Toronto Film Festival next month.

He even briefly taught English at Westminster College and was a humanities professor at Clarkson College, where he served as a disc jockey for the campus radio station.

As you can see Wes Craven was a remarkable talent and his field will never be the same for his passing. We have lost one of the cornerstones of the horror genre and it is truly a day to mourn.

Thank you for your time and I leave you to your own.

Rest in Peace Wes Craven and thank you for the scares.