Today, horror fanatics mourned the loss of Wes Craven, known for having created the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, The Hills Have Eyes films, and having directed the Screams, to name a few. His past collaborators and followers honored him across the Internet, with Skeet Ulrich tweeting that he was “an amazing man on set and off,” Sarah Michelle Gellar calling him one of the “kindest most gentle souls, who made great scary films,” and David Arquette making a Twitter account just to say how “deeply saddened” he was.
Especially notable was the long piece Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz writer/director Edgar Wright posted to his blog, detailing how he grew up fantasizing about Craven’s VHS covers in video shops when he was too young to watch his films, “trembling at the mere thought of what the films contained.” He then goes on to fondly recall his memories watching the films for the first time, and thinking, “That’s the kind of movie I want to make,” when he first saw Scream.
Also in horror movie news: the release of the first trailer for the new Eli Roth movie, Knock Knock, which opens a mere two weeks following his other release, The Green Inferno — and looks to fit seamlessly (perhaps too seamlessly?) into his torture porn repertoire, with Keanu Reeves playing a man whose family leaves town and who is tortured…and porned… by two women who visit his home. The one thing that doesn’t look formulaic about the film is the fact that it requires emotional ups and downs from Reeves, a stretching exercise that delivers all sorts of moments of discomfort in the trailer alone.
While American Horror Story‘s horror stories are often more campy than horrific, according to creator Ryan Murphy, they just filmed the most disturbing scene ever in the series for Hotel, the Lady Gaga-starring upcoming season of the anthology show. The scene features the “Addiction Demon,” who Murphy explains is “a representation of that and what people go through fighting addiction…It’s not done lightly or blithely. I think it’s very powerful and strong.” Meanwhile, the Ghostbusters reboot — which will presumably fit lightly and blithely into the campier-than-scary end of the “horror” genre — will feature a cameo by original Ghostbusters star Bill Murray. Speaking to Vulture, he revealed that, essentially, he decided to take a role in the film because he liked Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig so much — “They have such a jolly group,” he said.
Now, here are some scary lullabies to ween you off of all this horror news, into horrific sleep.