ReFocus: The Films of Wes Craven

Calum Waddell is a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, where he also received his PhD. His previous work includes The Style of Sleaze, The American Exploitation Film (2018), Images of Apartheid: Filmmaking on the Fringe in the Old South Africa (2021), South African Horror Cinema (2025), and the edited collection The Films of Wes Craven (2023). He has occasionally worked on producing bonus content and documentary work for Blu-ray labels and documented the “gory glory” days of grindhouse cinema with his feature-length nostalgia-trip 42nd Street Memories (2015).

• List of FiguresNotes on ContributorsIntroduction - Calum WaddellPart I: The Early Wes Craven1. In Search of Pandora Experimentia - Brian R. Hauser2. Censorship in Liberal Times? The Legacy of Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left in Germany - Holger Briel3. The Hills Have Eyes as Folk Horror: a Discursive Approach - Mikel J. Koven4. “Why Are You Doing This!?” Flashbacks in Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes Part II - Will DodsonPart II: Freddy Krueger and Beyond5. The American Nightmare Continued: Individualism, Feminism, and Freddy Krueger - Sinead Edmonds6. The “Nightmare” on Elm Street: The Failure and Responsibility of Those in Authority - Penny Crofts and Honni van Rijswijk7. Controlling the Souls in the Machine: Wes Craven Directs for the 1985 Twilight Zone Revival - Matthew Sorrento8. From Friends to Monsters: The Horrors of Technology, Friendship, and the Monsters Next Door in Wes Craven’s Deadly Friend - Norberto Gomez, Jr.Part III: “Craven” in the Mainstream – The “Hollywood” Nightmares of Wes Craven9. Self-fulfilling Prophecies and Metaphysical Chastisement in The Serpent and The Rainbow - James Kloda10. Death is Not the End: Electric Dreams and Mass Media Manipulation in Wes Craven’s Shocker - Melody Blackmore11. The People Under the Stairs at the Intersection of Black Horror and Children’s Horror - Catherine Lester12. “I’m a whole other thing”: The People Under the Stairs and Systemic Racism in the Reagan/Bush Era - Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.13. A Nightmare on Video: The Terrors of Home Viewership in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare - Max Bledstein14. Not Quite Blacula: Locating Vampire in Brooklyn - Richard SheppardPart IV Lineage and Legacies15. The Unlikely Urban Undertaking: Music of the Heart and its Curious Craven Consistencies - Calum Waddell16. “Blessed Be America for Letting us Dominate and Pray the Lord Our Soul to Keep.” Wes Craven’s Legacy in The Purge and The Purge: Anarchy - Erika Tiburcio Moreno17. “How Meta Can You Get?” Scream 4 and Wes Craven’s Final Nightmares - Calum WaddellFilmographyBibliographyIndex

ReFocus: The Films ofWes Craven has an excellent editor in Waddell, an authority on horror and grindhouse cinema, whose stated goal is to prompt readers and viewers to look beyond the A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream series, and recognize Wes as a “nearly unrivaled influence within the genre” as well as an “essential American filmmaker.” Through close readings of Wes’s minor works—as well as two new essays about the original Nightmare on Elm Street—ReFocus makes a strong case for Wes as an auteur.