RIP Wes Craven: We lost not only a Master of horror but one of its guardians as well.

So unfortunately Wes Craven passed away a few days ago. I wanted to say something at the time but the truth was I was just too shocked to really know what to say. So I sat back and looked on as the heartfelt statements came out from so many of the people he had worked with. I could write a piece about his films celebrating his achievements but this has been done by so many, I also touched on this kind of thing when I posted a belated birthday wishes blog post. I also considered writing a piece about Wes Craven's new nightmare and the way it blended fiction and reality in a way that had never been done before but then my friend showed me an amazing article on this and I figured it had been done justice so then I wrote this.

Lots of people will have been upset by his passing because they grew up with his films, had seen him at various events and read about the man behind the films. Some comfort can be taken from the official statement released by his family which read: “It is with deep sadness we inform you that Wes Craven passed away at 1PM on Sunday, August 30 after battling brain cancer. He was 76 years old. Craven was surrounded by love, in the presence of his family at his Los Angeles home.'' Now while none of us really wanted him to die yet at least he was with his family and at home as peaceful as possible.

Lots of people know that Wes Craven was a writer and director they will have seen some or maybe all of the movies he was involved in but he was also in my opinion a great spokesperson for horror films.The horror film as a type of media sometimes seems to struggle to gain the recognition it deserves, it seldom seems to be adequately celebrated during the awards ceremonies in my opinion and this was something Wes Craven recognised “There was something really profound with the whole treatment of horror in culture at that time, which was, it was something kind of disgusting. Proper people didn't associate with it,”

A lot of people seemed at least at one stage to look at horror directors as hacks who were circling the gutter of society who were churning out this kind of thing because they perhaps didn't understand the complexities of more supposedly high brow forms of movie related art and yet Craven had an undergraduate degree in English and Psychology and a master's degree in Philosophy and Writing and he had been a teacher of both English and the humanities.He was able to use his skills to intelligently explain horrors place in the world and how it had always been there and he could defend it from this basis as can be seen in the following quote “I had been a college teacher. I had taught Greek mythology. I had taught The Iliad and The Odyssey, Greek tragic drama, and it’s all very bloody.''
While various government related busy bodies were trying to argue that horror films were pure garbage that served no purpose other than to warp and twist children Craven saw things in a much different way and while others might have lacked the words to fight back Craven was able to beautifully argue his point. “Stories and narratives are one of the most powerful things in humanity. They’re devices for dealing with the chaotic danger of existence.”

Wes Craven didn't just make his films and then shrug when people complained about them and there content, nor did he get mad and stamp and scream instead he met the complaints head of and argued his case beautifully.So yes I want to join in with others in celebrating the life and the films of Wes Craven but I also want to celebrate him as a role model.

Wes Craven was a writer, a director, a story teller but he was also a fine example to anyone who wants to fight there corner with intelligence and class. He is also a good example of someone chasing there dreams no matter what it takes. He left his teaching job behind, his stable contract and regular pay check in order to pursue the path he really wanted to take and how poorer would the world of horror be if he hadn't.

Goodbye Wes Craven thank you for the films and for the stories but most of all thank you for the example you set both in how to follow your dreams but also in how to argue for your cause in a diplomatic and heartfelt way.

Horror Discusion: Is Nightmare on elmstreet 2 Freddy's Revenge a Gay movie?

So is Nightmare on elmstreet 2 Freddy's Revenge a Gay movie?

First before discussing this I want to make a few things clear. One I have always really enjoyed this film, I am not using the term gay to try and tarnish the film nor am I trying to claim that being gay is in any way wrong.

Well I first saw A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge when I was honestly not really old enough to see it certification wise. So when I watched it I didn't pick up on some of the things other people have mentioned about it, and the only real thing I thought about the central character being a male was that it was a refreshing change of pace compared to all the slasher flicks filled with various female scream queens. Even thinking back about it the things I remembered the most were Freddy's nails scratching the top of the bus, his lines like ''you've got the body I've got the brain.'' The thing is I always watched the nightmare films for Freddy.

So latter when people started saying that the film was full of homoerotic subtext this claim flew straight over my head. I did a little digging and from what I can understand David Chaskin the screenplay writer deliberately wrote homo-erotic subtexts in to the screenplay however the films Director Jack Sholder was completely unaware of this. The male lead Mark Patton who was cast was actually a homosexual but again it seems like this was unknown to the director at the time. The film definitely seems to feel like the director followed the screenplay without ever stopping and thinking ''wait a minute is this a little bit different for a horror film'' who knows maybe he just thought the differences would make it stand out one way or another. I can certainly see why a lot of people would ask questions about things like the main male lead screaming like a girl, was this a way of trying to make him seem gay or was the intention merely to make him seem like a scared child who was no match for a monster like Freddy?

I have seen the fact that the lead dances around in his bedroom to cheesy music wearing glasses and a silly hat used as something used to try and push the gay subtext idea, people have said that a straight teenager would never do this. This in my opinion is a stupid argument to make, after all we all do things in the privacy of our own room that might seem a little silly or goofy, acting an idiot and singing into your own mirror or bouncing on your bed in you underpants is hardly limited to one gender or sexuality. Yet there are subtle things I have noticed which make me believe that more than just one person was trying to feed little bits of  homo-erotic subtext or window dressing in to this film. When Jessie and Lisa are tidying his room there is a little sort of easter egg of sorts where she picks up a green jumper and a red jumper together and puts them up on a high shelf, but if you notice she puts them on top of a board game, a game called Probe. Now you could argue that they just grabbed any old game to put in his room but this is not a game I ever saw all over the place, in fact I don't think I have ever seen a real copy with my own eyes, in fact I had to look it up on the internet to make sure it was real.

Now the film is full of very homo-erotic moment Jesse entering what can best be described as a largely gay bdsm bar, his coach being tied up in the showers and his bare ass being whipped with towels before he is killed. The way Jesse's mum pleads with him to talk to her about it and the way Jesse says he doesn't want to, it all seems to just smack of someone who is unsure of the way they feel, it could very easily be seen as some kind of stand in for his uncertainty about his own sexuality.I could go on and on and break this film down scene by scene but a small blog post is probably not the place to do it.

Writers will often offer the advice to other would be writers write about what you know. I do wonder if the screenplay writer David Chaskin was either gay or was at least at one point unsure about his own sexuality or maybe he knew someone who was. Did he basically write a story about a guy feeling confused about his feelings and his possible sexuality and then work the character of Freddy in to it, using him as a tool to further deal with these issues in a somewhat hidden way? I have looked for interviews with the writer in an attempt to investigate this but can not find anything.

I think it would be impossible to deny that the screenplay for Freddy's revenge wasn't very heavily filled with homo-erotic subtext and through what can probably be best called ignorance on the part of the director this heavily bleeds in to the film itself. To call it merely a piece of homo-erotica though would be to undersell it, it is also in my opinion a brilliant horror film which deals with so much more.

It is also very amusing though to listen to some of the lines that actually made it into this film references to Freddy being inside of him and wanting to take him again, you do wonder how the director could watch the filmed scenes and just not click or at times even laugh.

Is Freddy's Revenge a gay movie?  Yes and No. It is a horror movie and I remember something John Carpenter said about horror films/stories they focus on one of two things the evil out there or the evil inside, maybe he wasnt quiet right though maybe it is not the evil it is the fear of what is out there or the fear of what is inside. I think this movie tries to deal with the fear and confusion a young person might feel about there own sexuality by repackaging it into something less heavy in much the same way classic shows like Star Trek try to deal with issues such as racism and politics by covering them in a heavy coating of science fiction I believe that Freddys revenge tries to deal with the issue of sexuality by covering it in horror so that you can either pay attention to the subtext or can ignore it and simply enjoy the film for some mindless fun it provides