Critically acclaimed director Wes Craven has passed away from brain cancer, the Hollywood Reporter reports.
Craven was internationally recognized as one of the founding fathers of modern horror films. He was the brains behind such films as Scream, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the remakes of The Hills Have Eyes. The film A Nightmare on Elm Street spawned a number of similarly themed sequel films, comics, and video games.
Wes Craven’s Scream was so successful that after its debut in 1996, the renewed interest in teen horror films was directly attributed to him. The film, as well as its second counterpart, grossed $100 million domestically. Craven directed the entire saga of Scream films, the most recent being Scream 4 in 2011.
Craven had this to say regarding his revival of horror, “If I have to do the rest of the films in the [horror] genre, no problem. If I’m going to be a caged bird, I’ll sing the best song I can.