10 Wes Craven Movies You Probably Haven't Seen

Summary

While Wes Craven is best known for popular franchises like
A Nightmare on Elm Street
and
Scream
, he has a wide range of lesser-known films worth exploring.
Craven’s TV movies like
Chiller
and
Invitation to Hell
may not be as well-known, but offer unique and interesting stories.
Experimental films like
Deadly Friend
and
The Serpent and the Rainbow
showcase Craven’s versatility and creativity.

While probably best known for launching the Scream franchise and directing the first four movies in that series, writer-producer-director Wes Craven has more than 25 films under his belt – and most of them aren’t instantly-recognizable classics. In fact, most viewers probably aren’t familiar with a large chunk of Craven’s body of work, even though some of his smaller-scale films are really quite good.

A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Hills Have Eyes are other familiar Wes Craven movies, and the latter (along with The Last House on the Left) proved popular enough to be remade several decades after their original release, with Craven serving as the producer on both of those remakes. Fame isn’t everything, though, and his range of movies is expansive – with some lesser-known picks that range from unmissable to unwatchable.

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10 Chiller (1985)

A Made-For-TV Supernatural Slasher

Just one year after the commercial and critical success of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Craven turned his attention to the small screen. On May 22, 1985, made-for-television horror movie Wes Craven’s Chiller premiered on CBS. Following Michael Beck as Miles Creighton, a man who is cryogenically frozen for 10 years, Chiller explores the Creighton’s bodily revival – only he’s missing his soul. While titling a chiller film Chiller is certainly a bold take, the reasons that this has descended into obscurity aren’t just because of its TV movie nature.

Chiller draws on a number of silver screen inspiration, with the most obvious being Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal 1960 horror Psycho. Not only physically chilly, Miles’s missing soul in this movie makes him cold and uncaring on his emotional side as well. Without a huge amount of plot, with comparatively uncreative style when placed among other movies in Craven’s extensive canon of works, and without the boost of a theatrical release budget, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Chiller isn’t particularly fondly remembered.

9 Deadly Blessing (1981)

Sharon Stone’s First Major Movie Role

Craven’s fourth feature, Deadly Blessing, stars Maren Jensen, Sharon Stone, and Ernest Borgnine. It follows a widow who becomes entangled with a mysterious and sinister religious community after her husband’s death, and in typical Wes Craven style, features strange occurrences and murders that hint towards a number of supernatural forces at play. Deadly Blessing’s obscurity is partly down to its release at a time when the market was littered with slasher films, making it difficult for individual titles to stand out.

The movie’s mixed reviews and middling box office performance didn’t help it gain a lasting reputation. Borgnine was nominated for a Razzie award for his performance in Deadly Blessing, which points towards the unsuccessful production given his 1955 Oscar win for Marty. Compared to Craven’s later works, Deadly Blessing doesn’t exactly stand out, and the film’s lack of availability for audiences is another contributor to why it’s not talked about more often. However, for fans of Craven’s work, it offers a glimpse into his early evolving style and storytelling techniques.

8 Invitation to Hell (1984)

A Direct-To-TV Horror Film The Same Year As A Nightmare On Elm Street

A Nightmare on Elm Street wasn’t Craven’s only 1984 production, with the direct-to-TV Invitation to Hell airing a few months before Nightmare hit theaters. The TV movie stars Robert Urich, Joanna Cassidy, and Susan Lucci, and follows the Winslow family, who move to a suburban neighborhood in Southern California but soon find themselves pressured to join a mysterious and exclusive country club – the Steaming Springs. Despite its sinister and supernatural undertones, Invitation to Hell isn’t as engaging as other Craven films.

As with Chiller, its status as a TV movie limited its exposure, and didn’t ensure the film would have the same longevity as theatrically-released movies. Additionally, the film’s plot, while intriguing, was competing at a time where horror films were highly popular among movie theater audiences, and there were far better examples on offer. Invitation to Hell is an interesting piece for fans of Wes Craven and 1980s horror, and while viewers won’t be as gripped by it as by some of Craven’s other works, it offers a unique blend of supernatural and suburban terror.

Additionally, the film’s plot, while intriguing, was competing at a time where horror films were highly popular among movie theater audiences, and there were far better examples on offer.

7 Swamp Thing (1982)

One Of The First Horror Superhero Movies

With James Mangold’s take on the DC character due to form part of the first chapter of the relaunched DC Universe following a hit rebooted series in 2019, the first time Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson’s comic creation appeared on screen was in the Wes Craven film, simply entitled Swamp Thing. Starring Ray Wise as Dr. Alec Holland, a scientist working on a bio-restorative formula in the swamps who eventually becomes the titular character, Swamp Thing was campy and action-heavy, a departure from Craven’s more horror-oriented style.

Despite its intriguing premise, comic book draw, and Craven’s direction, Swamp Thing hasn’t achieved the same level of fame as some of his other works. This is partly down to its genre-blending nature, combining elements of horror, science fiction, and the superhero genre, which may not have appealed to a broad audience in 1982. It didn’t have a huge budget, which means that the effects-heavy sequences haven’t aged as well as other films of the time. However, it was a success when the video came out, and gained a cult following in the months after its release. Maybe one to check out.

6 Stranger in Our House (aka Summer of Fear, 1978)

Linda Blair & Wes Craven Team Up In Horror

Just a year after his big theatrical break with The Hills Have Eyes, Craven released his first made-for-television movie, Stranger in Our House. Confusingly retitled Summer of Fear (after the Lois Duncan novel on which it was based) for its subsequent theatrical release, the film follows Rachel Bryant (played by Linda Blair), a teenage girl whose life is turned upside down when her cousin Julia (Lee Purcell) moves in after a family tragedy. As weird events unfold, Rachel suspects that Julia might be practicing witchcraft.

Despite Blair having made her name in horror staple The Exorcist, Stranger in Our House hasn’t achieved the same widespread recognition, garnering mixed reviews at the time and without the cinematic spectacle that some of Craven’s theatrically released movies were able to enjoy. With a surprisingly slow pace for its 99-minute runtime, it’s no wonder this film didn’t live up to the highs of some of Craven’s classics.

5 The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1985)

A Fine Sequel Hit With Behind-The-Scenes Issues

Eight years after the roaring success that was The Hills Have Eyes, Wes Craven returned to the Nevada desert for the sequel. Robert Houston returned as Bobby Carter, while a number of actors from the first movie were shown in archive footage for the opening sequence, in which Bobby and his psychiatrist go over that film’s events. Much like the initial installment, the plot revolves around a family of cannibals in the desert – this time going after a group of bikers.

Unfortunately, the production was stifled by budget issues – it had been filmed in 1983, but production stopped early due to lack of funds. It was only after the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street that the studio pushed Craven to complete the film using existing footage, resulting in a disjointed narrative (which is why footage from the first movie was reused. Not one of Craven’s finest works, the film is a workable sequel, sadly bludgeoned by behind-the-scenes issues.

4 Deadly Friend (1986)

Schlock Sci-Fi At Its Best

Stepping into the world of sci-fi, Deadly Friend was initially supposed to be a thriller mostly free of blood and graphic violence. Test audiences, however, were keen to see more of the gore which Craven had proved himself an expert in with his earlier films. Scripts were rewritten, reshoots were ordered and swiftly carried out, and a lot changed in post-production. The premise is that Paul, a teenage prodigy played by Matthew Laborteaux, implants a robotic microchip into his friend Samantha’s (Kristy Swanson) brain after she is pronounced brain dead.

Samantha ends up going on a murderous rampage, and much of the focus on character development that had been intended prior to reshoots was gone, edited away in favor of more graphic violence and horror elements after negative test screenings. This resulted in a disjointed narrative that didn’t fully satisfy fans of either genre. Dividing critics and fans, Deadly Friend remains perhaps one of Craven’s most experimental films, and is a curiosity among his oeuvre.

3 The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

One Of Bill Pullman’s Best Movies

Inspired by Wade Davis’s book of the same name, The Serpent and the Rainbow centers around Dennis Alan (played by Bill Pullman), an anthropologist from Harvard who travels to Haiti to investigate Haitian Vodou rituals. In the original non-fiction book, Davis explained how there was a voodoo ritual that is believed to turn people into zombies – the perfect inspiration for a filmmaker like Wes Craven. Blending politics, horror, and introducing ethnographic elements, this film did fairly well upon release.

However, as is typical for a Craven movie, production issues were ever-present, with filming having to be moved from Haiti to the Dominican Republic after fears about the civil and political issues facing Haiti at the time. Despite the film’s cultural depth, aspects feel disjointed and less impactful compared to Craven’s other films. Furthermore, the complex narrative and themes of colonialism and exploitation might not have gone down well with an audience expecting a classic Wes Craven blood-fueled horror, which is perhaps why it hasn’t stuck as well in viewers’ memories.

2 Night Visions (1990)

Wes Craven’s Last Made-For-TV Movie

The final made-for-TV movie that Craven directed came off the back of the relatively successful Shocker and starred James Remar, Loryn Locklin, and Penny Johnson Jerald. It follows Sergeant Thomas Mackey, a Los Angeles detective, who teams up with Dr Sally Powers, a criminal psychology graduate with psychic abilities, to investigate and track down a murderer known as the “Spread-Eagle Killer”. Unfortunately, with predictable twists and a limited TV audience, Night Visions has been largely forgotten.

Night Visions first broadcast on November 30, 1990, on NBC, and it’s no surprise that it very swiftly became overlooked in favor of Craven’s next project, The People Under the Stairs (soon to be remade by Jordan Peele), which was released in theaters to great acclaim. As with many TV movies, Night Visions struggled with a modest budget and undesirable special effects but was further riddled with an incoherent plot that frequently lacked depth. While it’s great that Craven was keen to experiment with genre (this film is a blend between crime and supernatural horror), it’s a shame that these experiments didn’t always live up to their potential.

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1 Mind Ripper (aka The Hills Have Eyes III, 1995)

Wes Craven Produced The Film With His Son

Some people don’t even consider Mind Ripper a Wes Craven movie. He didn’t write or direct it, but it was marketed around the world under several different titles, including “The Hills Have Eyes III” and “Wes Craven Presents Mind Ripper”. In reality, the movie was co-written by Jonathan Craven, Wes’s son, and the pair of them co-produced it. Unlike the previous installments in the Hills Have Eyes franchise, Mind Ripper’s plot doesn’t focus on cannibals, and despite initially being intended as a direct sequel, it doesn’t really have anything to with either of the previous movies – other than being set in an atmospheric desert.

Instead, the story revolves around government scientists conducting reanimation experiments in an underground facility in this unspecified desert location. Their goal is to create a superhuman, but the experiment goes horribly wrong, unleashing a monstrous creature. Cue Wes Craven-style bloody, gory horror. Mind Ripper is a surprisingly enjoyable ride, even if it does borrow heavily from other, better horror films of the era when it comes to thematic relevance and some of the set pieces. Despite not feeling remotely like a sequel to Craven’s previous duology, “The Hills Have Eyes III” is a must-watch for fans of ‘90s horror.

Recent Films Directed By Wes Craven

Year	Title
2000	Scream 3
2005	Cursed
2005	Red Eye
2006	Paris, je t’aime
2010	My Soul to Take
2011	Scream 4

10 Wes Craven Movies You Probably Haven’t Seen