DIRECTOR
Wes Craven
- Known for
- A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
29 archived facts 3 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
Wes Craven is a director and screenwriter best known for A Nightmare on Elm Street.
All facts (29)
- #001
Wes Craven's vision for Freddy Krueger came from a childhood memory. When he was 10 years old, he looked out the window of the apartment building he lived in and saw a drunk man dressed like Freddy staring directly at him, remaining at the window for several minutes. It frightened him, and he later decided this would be Freddy's appearance.
- #002
The story of ''A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)'' was based on a news report about a group of young people who died in their sleep during terrifying nightmares, despite having no health problems and no specific cause of death being identified.
- #003
He nearly turned down the chance to direct the successful Scream (1996) because the opening scene with Drew Barrymore reminded him too vividly of the climax of his first film, The Last House on the Left (1972).
- #004
He was a passionate birdwatcher.
- #005
He had an extremely dysfunctional relationship with his parents; he was raised mainly by his strict, overly religious mother, who never allowed him to watch his own films, and he never had a close relationship with his distant, violent father. His mother's judgmental influence made him so afraid of talking to a girl that he did not do so until he started college, and led him to marry, in his view, someone very young, and likely contributed to the angry, bleak themes of his first films.
- #006
He spent the early years of his career making pornographic films under fake names.
- #007
It is said that he named his cinematic horror creation Freddy Krueger in memory of a boy who bullied him in high school.
- #008
He was chosen to direct Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), but was replaced by star Christopher Reeve due to creative differences.
- #009
Freddy Krueger's appearance (particularly his dirty clothes and hat) was inspired by a derelict Craven saw looking at him through his window one day when he was 10 years old.
- #010
His father died when he was four years old.
- #011
He was one of the few directors famous mostly for the horror genre who never directed or wrote a Stephen King film.
- #012
He did not become interested in filmmaking until his mid-twenties.
- #013
His first hit was 'The Hills Have Eyes' in 1977.
- #014
He was determined to direct a remake of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting, but stepped back to direct Scream.
- #015
He was a disc jockey at the campus radio station of Clarkson College, where he was a professor of humanities.
- #016
He co-wrote the screenplay for Pulse (2006) with Vince Gilligan. The screenplay was based on Kiyoshi Kurosawa's original Japanese horror film. Craven and Gilligan wrote the final draft of the Miramax/Dimension Films project in the fall of 2002. Production of the film was to begin on October 1, 2002, in Los Angeles. In July 2003, Dimension president Bob Weinstein announced that Pulse (2006) would never be produced because it was too similar to The Ring (2002).
- #017
In 1986, Wes directed seven episodes of 'The Twilight Zone', and in one of them he made his first acting appearance.
- #018
Before he began making films, Wes Craven worked as a teacher and a university professor.
- #019
Wes Craven began his career in the film industry working as a sound editor.
- #020
Wes Craven started out as a news reporter, then became an assistant editor for Sean Cunningham, who later directed Friday the 13th, and Cunningham gave Craven the chance to write and direct his first film, The Last House on the Left, in 1972.
- #021
Wes Craven directed a documentary about former President Bill Clinton. Craven and his film crew followed Clinton for three hours up to the White House just days before he left office (January 2001).
- #022
Wes Craven wrote a newspaper article for The New York Times titled "Retirement: Scarier Than Freddy Krueger" about his current downtime away from set.
- #023
Wes Craven donated a ten-minute personal phone call auction and two premiere tickets for his next film, Pulse (2006), to the Planned Parenthood/Dream Catchers Foundation charity. He also donated the original mask from Scream (1996) along with other original props. The auction began on June 19, 2002, and the prop auction on June 29, 2002.
- #024
In 1976, Wes Craven acted in the project "Tales That Will Tear Your Heart Out," made under the guidance of his friend Roy Frumkes, who was then teaching at a state university. Shortly after filming, the raw stock was accidentally re-exposed by another student, so both days of footage were lost.
- #025
Variety's Italian Production Chart of July 9, 1980 announced that filming on "Marimba," to be directed by Wes Craven, starring Dirk Benedict, Tim McIntire and Chris Mitchum, and shot in the United States for Columbia, would begin on August 18, 1980. There is no evidence the film was ever completed or released.
- #026
Wes Craven's former son-in-law is the composer Michael Maccini.
- #027
Wes Craven was of English and German descent.
- #028
Wes Craven was the father of Jonathan Craven and Jessica Craven.
- #029
Wes Craven intended to direct a film adaptation of his own novel Fountain Society for ImageMovers.
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