In his most famous series Nightmare On Elm Street he questioned the nature of reality and unsettled audiences with his story of a psychotic who invades his victims’ nightmares.

His Scream films were also a commentary on the formulas of the very genre in which he made his name.

Craven tried to break out of the horror field with other kinds of films but ultimately it will be his ability to scare us in new and intriguing ways that he will be best remembered for.

Cravan was a realist about his role, saying directors can’t really call themselves artists, since they really work in a business more than anything. He suggested he would like the word “filmmaker” as his epitaph.

“I think I would like that on my gravestone ... Along with ‘whatever you do, don’t fall asleep’,” he said.

TROUBLED CHILDHOOD

Craven was born Wesley Earl Craven in Cleveland Ohio in 1939, his parents were strict Baptists. As a boy he was forbidden to dance, play certain games and go to movies. His parents’ marriage failed and his father died when he was five. He later said: “By my fifth birthday I had been exposed to a lot of anger and death.”

After high school he got out of Cleveland, going to Wheaton College in Illinois. There he studied psychology and English, becoming interested in dreams and writing a research paper on the subject. In 1962 while at Wheaton he saw his first film, To Kill A Mockingbird.

Gaining a BA at Wheaton, he went on to John Hopkins University in Baltimore, taking a masters degree in philosophy. From there he became a teacher, marrying his first wife, Bonnie Broecker, in 1964. They would have two children Jonathan and Jessica, but the marriage ended in 1969.

HORROR BREAKTHROUGH

Craven was looking for a creative outlet. Failing to get a novel published, unhappy with teaching and having enjoyed helping students make a film, he left Baltimore for New York to try to break into film in 1969.

He joined a commune and made money driving cabs while learning about film editing and finally got his break in film on the quirky philosophical comedy You’ve Got To Walk It Like You Talk It Or You’ll Lose That Beat, released in 1971. Praised for his work on that film he went on to softcore “art” porn projects before making his breakout horror film The Last House On The Left (1972). Based on an Ingmar Bergmann film Jungfrukallan (The Virgin Spring) it is a violent film about rape and revenge that was heavily censored or banned in some countries. The controversy nearly ended Craven’s career.

Craven went back to that genre with his next film The Hills Have Eyes (1977). About a family of deranged cannibal killers who live in the hills of Nevada, it drew inspiration from the story of the Bean clan from 16th-century Scotland. The Bean clan (Alexander “Sawney” Bean) his wife and their descendants, many said the product of incest, lived in a cave in Scotland heading out at night to waylay the unwary. They were said to have not only lived on the money and other goods they stole but also feasting on body parts of victims.

BIRTH OF FREDDY

Despite the success of that film a couple of failures (including Swamp Thing) again nearly ruined his career. He had to borrow money from a friend to pay a tax bill but was then able to find money to make a film he was writing that used dreams as a major theme. That film, Nightmare On Elm Street, was released in 1984, starring Robert Englund as the murderous blade-fingered Freddy Kruger who enters dreams and attacks young people. It made Craven famous.

It spawned several sequels, as did his 1996 film Scream, in which he played with the formulas and stock character that most horror films stick to.

There were rare forays into genres other than horror, such as his 1999 film Music Of The Heart, about Roberta Guaspari (played by Meryl Streep) who founded a music school in Harlem.

In his final years he fought brain cancer but finally fell asleep forever on Sunday at his home in Los Angeles.