Wes Craven’s Scariest Movies Ranked

Wes Craven’s Scariest Movies, Ranked

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With a mix of dark humor and violence, Wes Craven’s scariest movies range from meta slashers like Scream to cult classics like The Hills Have Eyes.

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Wes Craven’s Scariest Movies Ranked

Often referred to as the Master of Horror, writer-director Wes Craven is responsible for creating some of the most iconic and terrifying horror movies and characters of all time. With nearly 50 years between his first and final movies, the legendary filmmaker’s work spans a variety of subcategories within the horror genre.

Initially making a name for himself with brutal exploitation horror movies such as The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, Craven later became best known for his slasher films like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. While many of his movies prominently feature dark humor, Craven’s scariest films find a way to tap into universal fears or experiences such as flying, being buried alive, or even falling asleep.

10 Deadly Friend

Wes Craven’s Scariest Movies Ranked

The 1986 sci-fi horror film Deadly Friend is about a teenage boy who tries to bring his friend back to life after she is declared brain dead. He implants a computer chip in her brain but the decision proves to have deadly consequences as she goes on a killing spree.

There is a lot of B-movie entertainment value as the movie finds ways to kill characters in the film, such as Samantha throwing a basketball through Elvira’s head. More shlocky than scary, the film is fun but nearly as scary as the director’s other films.

9 The People Under The Stairs

Wes Craven’s Scariest Movies Ranked

The horror comedy film The People Under the Stairs follows a poor young boy, nicknamed Fool, as he breaks into a wealthy couple’s home in search of money, but discovers that the couple has kidnapped a group of children who have turned to cannibalism for survival.

The film is darkly subversive, using shocking story elements and striking visuals to bring to life an allegory about class and economic status. The film has its moments and is certainly funny but it is more disturbing than it is scary.

8 Red Eye

Wes Craven’s Scariest Movies Ranked

The psychological thriller Red Eye centers around a hotel manager who, during a flight, becomes unwittingly caught up in a domestic terrorist’s plans to assassinate the Secretary of Homeland Security who is staying at her hotel.

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The film is an excellent airplane thriller that makes great use of its setting, using the inescapability of a plane in flight to create a sense of helplessness and claustrophobia as Lisa is in the air with a terrorist. It is not quite as gruesome or unsettling as Craven’s scariest work, but it is an effective and well-crafted suspense film with a memorably explosive climax.

7 The Serpent And The Rainbow

Wes Craven’s Scariest Movies Ranked

Inspired by true events, The Serpent and the Rainbow follows an American anthropologist as he travels to Haiti in search of a drug used in Vodou to turn people into zombies but quickly finds himself as an unwelcomed visitor in the country.

The Serpent and the Rainbow is one of Wes Craven’s most underrated movies as it plays upon the terrifying phobia of being buried alive. In addition, it takes the subject of black magic seriously, which makes the zombies featured in the film all the more terrifying. It is a disturbing movie that will stick in the audience’s mind long after the credits roll.

6 A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

Wes Craven’s Scariest Movies Ranked

Often considered to be one of the best horror sequels, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors sees Nancy return to the franchise as a therapist intern at a psychiatric hospital who tries to help a group of patients fight back against Freddy Krueger.

Nancy is one of Wes Craven’s strongest female characters, making her death in the movie deeply unsettling. The movie builds up hope that the patients have found a way back as a group, only to dash that hope and strike the audience with the terrifying hopelessness of trying to resist Freddy.

5 The Last House On The Left

Wes Craven’s Scariest Movies Ranked

Craven made his directorial debut with 1972’s The Last House on the Left, a brutal horror movie about a family of fugitives who torture a young woman before fleeing to a nearby house, where they encounter the woman’s vengeful parents.

Graphic and unrelenting, The Last House on the Left can be incredibly difficult to watch at times. Its realistic and intense depictions of violence and assault are disturbing and uncomfortable. The groundedness and realism make it a terrifying and often unpleasant viewing experience.

4 The Hills Have Eyes

Wes Craven’s Scariest Movies Ranked

Craven followed up the success of The Last House on the Left with another cult classic, The Hills Have Eyes. In the movie, after a family becomes stranded in the desert, they find themselves under attack from a vicious family of cannibals.

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Drawing on the trope of the protagonists making one wrong turn and finding themselves stalked by backwoods villains, the movie plays a common fear. Craven skillful uses the horrifying story as an allegory about morality as the central family slowly descends into violence and savagery. The film features the violence and unrelenting brutality that audiences expect from a Craven film.

3 Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

Wes Craven’s Scariest Movies Ranked

After six A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, the franchise had grown stale and Freddy had become increasingly comedic. However, Craven found a clever and meta way to reinvent the character with Wes Carven’s New Nightmare, which sees an ancient supernatural entity take the form of Freddy in order to terrorize the cast and crew of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Because of the brilliant concept, Freddy is far more menacing and sinister than he is in the other sequels, easily making the movie the scariest film in the franchise since the original. A memorably chilling scene doesn’t involve Krueger at all; instead, it’s Freddy’s infamous razor blade glove that takes center stage as it comes to life on its own and stars attacking the protagonist.

2 Scream

Wes Craven’s Scariest Movies Ranked

After utilizing a meta approach in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Craven perfected the meta-horror movie with Scream. The movie follows a group of teens who try to survive being terrorized by a masked killer by observing the rules of horror movies.

While the movie is undoubtedly funny and self-aware, it is always thoroughly tense and scary. The film benefits from the creation of Ghostface, one of the creepiest killers in a Wes Craven movie. His unsettling voice, brutal violence, and sinister personality make the movie tremendously chilling.

1 A Nightmare On Elm Street

The slasher film A Nightmare on Elm Street follows a group of teenagers as they try to figure out how to stay awake long enough to stop a murderer who is killing teens in their dreams.

Few things are as universal as the human need for sleep, which makes the decision to weaponize that need against the characters so brilliant. The dream setting also allows the movie to deliver wildly imaginative kills that make the film unique. Viewers may be able to avoid the desert after seeing The Hills Have Eyes or avoid flying after watching Red Eye, but there is no avoiding sleeping. The combination of universal relatability, one-of-a-kind kill scenes, and an unforgettable villain make A Nightmare on Elm Street Wes Craven’s scariest film.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/wes-cravens-scariest-movies-ranked/

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