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Wes Craven: The Last House on the Left

Wes Craven: The Last House on the Left

Due to his religious upbringing, Wes Craven didn’t see a single film as a child, and only got into making horror films for the money. We caught up with the legendary horror director to talk remakes and rom-coms.

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LOVEFiLM: Where did the idea originate to remake The Last House on The Left?

Wes Craven: There’s a very specific reason with both The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left - both films were made over 30 years ago and I had come back into ownership of them. When we sold the rights, at the time, I think neither of us thought we’d still be here after 30 years [laughs]. We started talking about a remake and it seemed interesting from an artistic side to see what a young director might do with the same basic story. We also said we would only do it if we could get a director who was really, really gifted and could do it well. I think we did both and we were really happy with the results.

LF: How did you feel seeing the final cut of the film?

WC: I was a little nervous but it turned out well. When I saw what he had done, it was quite beautiful and very interestingly paced. It was phonetic with a musical score that was beautiful in all the terrifying moments. That was very exciting because it was something that I hadn’t thought of doing and yet it worked beautifully.

LF: How do you feel personally about remakes, because they are seen quite negatively within the industry?

WC: I think people should get over that. I keep saying that – Maltese Falcon was the third remake and nobody’s complaining about that. Films can be remade and they can be just as remarkable as the original, or very close to it, and be totally fresh because it’s a new person making the film. I don’t mind it at all, in some cases it’s painful, but it’s interesting. It doesn’t bother me at all and I understand it from a business sense, it’s a little bit more of a proven entity – it’s a tough business and the economy is in a tough place. I don’t mind people trying to survive as best they can.

LF: I guess it’s quite like theatre. Plays get reworked all the time…

WC: Yeah. Absolutely and I thought that. You’re the first reporter to mention that, but plays have been made over and over again, by different directors with different actors and nobody thinks twice about it – so you can look at a remake that way.

LF: There’s been a lot of talk about an American remake of Let the Right One In, but again I don’t see that as a negative thing....

WC: Absolutely. Even if it sucks I don’t care! Somebody got a shot, a lot of people got work and it’ll be interesting. I don’t mind it at all. There’s always going to be an original, there’s always going to be that stamp over it for the person who created that original piece of art – I feel like that about Last House, so there’s the original and I’m not threatened that someone else has done a terrific job also.

LF: Have you always been interested in ideas of horror?

WC: Not at all. I wasn’t even allowed to see films growing up. I was raised in a Baptist church where films were seen as evil. Nobody in our church went to see films. I think when I did start seeing films I was mostly influenced by European directors, of the sixties. Then in terms of American film makers, obviously Hitchcock and Howard Hawks.

LF: So horror wasn’t your first choice as a filmmaker then?

WC: Well frankly, there was money available from a group who wanted to do a scary movie. I had no background in it. I just went off and made something that I thought would be scary, which I think in some ways was good because I didn’t copy anybody else.

After Last House I kind of tried to develop projects which were different, but that caused a lot of negative criticism. I wrote comedies and some rom-coms but we couldn’t get any money to do anything else, so I went off and did The Hills Have Eyes, very reluctantly.

There was a point when I realised that it’s a gift to make movies in general and that if they have to be scary then so be it. There’s an immense amount that you can do with a scary movie; they can be philosophical, they can be psychological. Ultimately they can be all sorts of things.

LF: Why do you think audiences enjoy being scared?

WC: I think it’s an artificial way of experiencing a fear that you have about something real. From childhood onwards there’s a lot of things that are scary. What happens in a horror film is it puts those fears into a much simpler story; embodied in names and shapes like Freddie, and the heroine or hero are pitted against them, which the audience identify with.

The most surprising thing to me when I started making scary films was to see people coming out of the theatre laughing. It’s kind of an interesting process. That’s why people jump out of aeroplanes in parachutes. It’s a thrill and a way of knowing that you have some sort of control over it.

Helen Cowley

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