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How would you evaluate his horror filmography?

posted 6 months ago by [deleted]
3 replies | jump to latest

A master of horror? Overrated? A 1-2-3(?) hit wonder?

The Last House on the Left is a sleazy ripoff of Ingmar Bergmann's The Virgin Spring (1960), also from what I remember this movie is tonally retarded. Needless to say The Virgin Spring is the superior movie. I'd also say the 2009 remake is better than this.

The Hills Have Eyes is a pretty good movie but got absolutely decimated by the 2006 remake, that movie was far superior to Craven's original.

Summer of Fear, Deadly Blessing, Swamp Thing, Deadly Friend, Shocker... largely mediocre cheese. Some of those movies have some merits but nothing that notable.

The Serpent and the Rainbow. Pretty good.

The People Under the Stairs. One of his best, a fun movie.

Cursed is a cheesefest, not the worst movie ever but it's not great, though it has to be said the Weinstein's shit all over it, seriously read up about the production. You have to give Craven a pass for this one.

A Nightmare on Elm Street. Great movie albeit a bit cheesy. Honestly I'd take parts 3, 4 and FvJ over this with regards to ANOES movies.

New Nightmare. Interesting idea, decent execution. As mentioned above though I don't think it's among the best of the ANOES franchise.

Scream 1-4. This is probably his strongest work. 4 good or better slasher movies. In saying that I think Scream 5 & 6 are easily equal to 3 & 4 (even if I'd maybe take 3 over 5 & 6 due to nostalgia).

[–] [deleted] 6 months ago

I haven't seen Vampire in Brooklyn nor The Hills Have Eyes 2... I'm not sure I want to either, given their reputations.

All in all his filmography isn't that outstanding. A handful of great horror movies, a handful of very good ones... then a bunch of cheese.

Craven ranked.

Great movies;
1. Scream
2. Scream 2
3. A Nightmare on Elm Street
4. The People Under the Stairs

Very good movies;
5. Scream 3
6. Scream 4
7. The Hills Have Eyes
8. New Nightmare

Good movies;
9. The Serpent and the Rainbow

Can't be bothered even ranking the rest!

[–] SemiAnimus (2781) 6 months ago

He is probably the most palatable of the the veteran masters of horror, and most of his horror catalog has some mass appeal to audiences with diverse tastes outside of the horror genre. Compared to the likes of George Romero, who is essentially a low talent hack that got lucky 50 years ago with his zombie concept, Craven seems deserving of his legacy.

[–] [deleted] 6 months ago

One thing I will say in favor of Craven is that he seemed to never 'lose it' like many other celebrated horror directors.

A lot of people look to the likes of Carpenter, Romero, Hooper, Argento, Cronenberg and consider them to be masters in their prime who eventually lost their way. I think Craven's filmography is uneven, he'd release a poor movie, then a good one, rinse and repeat. He was a bit all over the place, never really having a long hot streak or a long poor one.

I think the fact he didn't have a core group of frequent collaborators working with him didn't help matters. For example Carpenter was fortunate to have a great photographer like Dean Cundey working with him for a lot of his early movies, along with regularly casting a beloved actor like Kurt Russell. Not to mention Carpenter's music talent with his OSTs helping elevate his work (the credit here is all Carpenter's to be fair).

Then when you look at someone like Cronenberg who collaborated time and time again with photographer Mark Irwin, editor Ronald Sanders and composer Howard Shore.

If Craven could have locked down a talented team to work with over and over again he'd maybe have had greater consistency.