Violence visionary

>>Horror maverick Wes Craven on torture,
Ingmar Bergman and the new remake
of The Hills Have Eyes 2

by MATTHEW HAYS

Wes Craven holds a singular place in American film culture. Yes, other directors have made an impact on the horror genre, but Craven has helmed several horror movies that have turned into massive franchises, including The Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. He has also complained about his success, suggesting that he has become a prisoner of the genre.

Now Craven has co-written and co-produced the remake of the 1985 sequel The Hills Have Eyes 2, coming but one year after the remake of his landmark 1977 original. (Notably, Quentin Tarantino called last year’s Hills remake one of his favourite films of 2006.) Has it been weird for Craven to hand the keys of his movies over to other directors?

“I think many steps in making a film are difficult,” he says, on the phone from his L.A. office. “You’re taking your material and handing it over to a talented filmmaker. It’s like letting your kids go off to school. It’s part of the ageing process.”

Craven is aware of the shifts in horror over the years. His directorial debut, The Last House on the Left (1972), set a new standard for gruesome violence. In fact, the feature was a loose remake of Ingmar Bergman’s Virgin Spring (1960), which won an Oscar for best-foreign- language film. Craven’s film had two teen girls brutally raped and murdered in explicit detail; the thugs who do the crime then inadvertently end up seeking shelter with the parents of one of the slain girls. When the parents figure out who they’re hosting, they take revenge.

Which prompts the question: given the current state of the horror genre, in which blood and gore have replaced good, old-fashioned suspense, does Craven ever lament what he did with Last House?

“Yes, there’s a lot of violence in today’s horror movies. You’ve got to remember though, that at any given moment, 80 per cent of what you see in any given genre isn’t very good and is going to be forgotten. Saw set a new standard for cruelty— but there was also suspense in that movie. I couldn’t stop watching it once I started, though I haven’t seen the sequels.

“You know, there was a host of people who thought Last House was despicable. And still do, no doubt. What we did was to depict a kind of personal violence, as opposed to circus violence. Some hate it, others think it’s a legitimate expression.”

GENRE GIANT: Craven

SCREENING TORTURE

Craven says the kind of excessive violence in films like Saw and Hostel is a natural expression of what’s happening in America right now. “I read in The New York Times today that they’ve secured a confession from a terrorist at Guantanamo. He claims to have sawed off the head of a journalist, as well as masterminding much of 9/11 itself. How can any of this be trusted? How much torture was involved? Our government is systematically torturing people, or having them shipped off to countries where torture is okay. We’ve been breaking the Geneva Conventions with so-called vigorous interrogations. Torture itself is an extremely disturbing concept. I think these horrors are simply finding their ways into horror movies. It’s a manifestation of where we are politically.

“That was certainly something I was getting at with Last House on the Left. Here was a civilized doctor, but because his daughter has been killed by horrid people, he becomes a killer himself. It’s about what he’s turned into by their acts. Ultimately, both sides descend into hell together.” (Craven laughs when I ask if Bergman has ever seen Last House: “I think he’s too dignified.”)

As for his own place within the genre, Craven says he feels less trapped within horror these days. “That feeling is not there to the extent that it used to be. I stole a spoon from the mess hall and I’ve been digging my way out, a centimetre a year. Music of the Heart was a big step forward, but I think the studios still felt all I could do was graphic horror. Red Eye pushed me forward a lot. But I think people still expect me to end up having someone get their head chopped off in my films.”

But Craven will always defend the right of filmmakers to depict their imaginations in their entirety. He and other filmmakers successfully fought the mass marketing and sales of a DVD player that would be programmed to censor films as they played. “They were actually ready to put this thing on the market—some family values company in Utah was going to have films cut by the actual DVD player. We used copyright laws to stop it.”

THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2 OPENS
FRIDAY, MARCH 23

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