Wes Craven is 70 today -- let's look back in horror at 13 of his films

Wes Craven was born 70 years ago today in Cleveland (ah, so that explains it) and few filmmakers have impacted a sector of cinema in recent decades as dramatically as he has in the horror genre. Here are trailers for 13 films directed by Craven (he also wrote a half dozen of them) and in them you can see some common threads -- pretty young women, bickering victims, isolation and tension, implacable danger and a dash of the fantastic that never veers too far from the gritty real world.

 

 

It's a great year already for Craven with the March release of the remake of "The Last House on the Left" (although it didn't fare as well with critics and fans as the jolting original) and the in-the-works reboot of "A Nightmare on Elm Street," which wrapped in Chicago recently and is now in post-production. Scrub all you like, but those blood stains just don't go away, and neither does industry-survivor Craven.

-- Geoff Boucher

RECENT AND RELATED

Maggot vomit? Yes, Sam Raimi dragged his star through hell

Wes Craven discusses the American "inheritance of violence"

"A Nightmare on Elm Street" claws its way back to screen

Jackie Earle Haley will be the new Freddy Krueger

"Re-Animator" star injects new life into his career with "Nevermore..." 

"Exorcist" director William Friedkin: The 13 movies that scare me 

Guillermo del Toro on "The Strain" and "Frankenstein" (oh and "Hobbit," too)