With a Speight of horror remakes finding their way onto the big screen this year, it seems fewer and fewer classics of the genre remain unsullied. As one of the foremost horror filmmakers of his generation, Wes Craven has seen many of his more celebrated films contemporised in recent years, first with 2006’s The Hills Have Eyes and its inevitable sequel (itself a remake of sorts), and now his genre defining tome, The Last House on the Left. Rather than sit back and watch his work get hacked up, however, Craven has taken a more prominent role in the remaking of the latter, as producer. It is a career turn which he has certainly not taken lightly, but it is also clearly somewhat of a sore subject. Now Craven is keen on setting the record straight on reproducing the film that he cut his filmmaking fangs on 37 years ago.
LWLies: You take a producer credit for the remake of The Last House on the Left, but how involved were you throughout the entire filmmaking process?
Craven: I was involved a lot. My feeling about remakes is that I don’t want to be standing over the director’s shoulder, but I worked with Dennis Lliadis, the director, on the script and we communicated everyday. If there was anything that needed doing, any battles to be fought, I would do what I could. I wasn’t there so much during the editing process, but I was always there if they needed me.
LWLies: There has been something of a recent trend with directors remaking their own films. David Cronenberg is reportedly remaking The Fly and there are now rumours connecting Ridley Scott to an Alien remake. Yet you have avoided this so far, even though a lot of your best known work has been, or is in the process of being, remade. Is it strange seeing someone remake something so personal to you?
Craven: It is, yes, but often I have no choice in the matter. With the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise for example the script was brought off me in the 80s, so I have no ownership whatsoever. Now I could shoot myself for doing that but I was completely penniless and had no choice at the time.
LWLies: And what about something like the Scream series, which came at a point in your career when you were pretty much a house hold name in horror?
Craven: With the Scream franchise I was really just a director for hire. I guess it’s strange the way it turned out because I’ve become so identified with the films, but it was not a film that I wrote so again I had no ownership.
LWLies: So fans shouldn’t hold out for a new Wes Craven Scream film, or the completion, as it were, of your Nightmare on Elm Street trilogy?
Craven: With Nightmare on Elm Street I haven’t even had a phone call on the remake, it seems they just want to go it alone and see how it turns out. I have had talks with Bob Weinstein though about a Scream 4, because I know he’s actively developing it. So there’s a possibility there, but as far as I know there is no final script at the moment.
LWLies: How does it feel having no control over a remake, seeing someone like Jackie Earl Haley get cast as Freddie Kruger? Surely there will only ever be one Freddie, right?
Craven: It’s funny; I haven’t gone out of my way to keep up with that film because it’s painful seeing something that was so personally my own being taken over by other people. I try not to think about it too much, but it’s just one of those things. It’s business, I guess. But to be honest I’d rather not think about it.
LWLies: Let’s look forward then, can you talk a bit about your new film, 25/8?
Craven: In America there’s an expression working 24/7, so it’s a play on that. If you want to do battle with the devil you have to fight him 25/8, basically. I think the title might well change though.
LWLies: It’s just a working title for now?
Craven: Yes, it’s basically a working title, but we’re going into final next week so we’re well towards finishing it. It should be coming out sometime in the spring.
LWLies: And what is it about?
Craven: Well it’s a story about seven kids born on the same night 16 years before, and on that same night a serial killer dies. He is a schizophrenic with seven personalities and one of them is evil, and the legend is that the souls of each of his seven personalities went into these children. Once a year they have a day that is dedicated to the killer’s ghost possibly being able to come back and get them, and the film takes place on the day that it actually happens. It’s an interesting film, very original, I think. I describe it as Stand by Me with knives. It has elements for kids; there are parts of it that are very funny, but then there are parts of it that are terrifying.
LWLies: So it’s more of a hybrid then?
Craven: Exactly.
LWLies: And is it something you have written?
Craven: Yes. It’s been four years since I directed a film and I haven’t written anything completely by myself for few years either. Not since my segment in Paris, je t’aime, Père-Lachaise.
LWLies: That segment is interesting because it’s not what a lot of people would have expected from you. It’s a very beautiful and romantic short. What were your motivations behind it, what made you do something so different?
Craven: Well the producer literally said you can write whatever you want, and so I thought, ‘okay, let’s do a funny romantic comedy.’ But I’m a director and I feel like I can direct anything well, so occasionally you get a chance to do something outside the genre and you do it. But I think by and large I will continue to make genre movies, it’s what my name has come to stand for.
LWLies: The thought of Wes Craven doing a feature length rom-com is a pretty tantalising stuff though. Never say never?
Craven: I wouldn’t say no to a comedy, but what I’ve done in my career is tried to introduce human moments and comedy into horror, it’s ended up being quite an interesting mix.
LWLies: Are you working on anything else at the moment?
Craven: Not really, I haven’t had much time to do anything else. I am starting to take meetings about my next film though, as I mentioned with Bob Weinstein.
LWLies: So ‘Wes Craven’s Scream 4’ is definitely a possibility?
Craven: I would say there’s a good chance. I have other options, but I’ll be having talks in the next few weeks about a script and I’ll make my decision based on that. It’s just starting to become a reality now though.
LWLies: As someone who has achieved so much and overseen so many changes in horror and cinema as a medium, what keeps you going? What keeps your hunger alive as a writer and a filmmaker at 70?
Craven: I just want to keep doing things that I still find fascinating. The two questions I ask myself are, ‘have I seen this before?’ and if not, ‘would I go see this?’ 25/8 for instance was an idea I had never seen before, but it is also something I would personally want to go to the cinema and watch. There’s just something so exciting about doing something fresh and working with so many talented people, it’s very life sustaining.
The Last House on the Left is released on DVD October 19 and will be reviewed online.
