Wes Craven (1939-2015) Tribute List

Film director Wes Craven, who died on August 30, 2015 at the age of 76, was a master of the horror genre. Craven frightened audiences for decades, most notably with the A Nightmare on Elm Street series and the Scream films. He also made conventional thrillers like Red Eye and the Meryl Streep inspirational teacher story Music of My Heart, which he said was the only one of his films that his mother ever saw.

As the following quotes demonstrate, Wes Craven was a vocal defender of his specific art form. Here are eleven vocabulary words from a man whose images kept us up nights.
11 words 92 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. temper
    make more acceptable or suitable by adding something else
    A lot of life is dealing with your curse, dealing with the cards you were given that aren't so nice. Does it make you into a monster, or can you temper it in some way, or accept it and go in some other direction?
  2. psyche
    that which is responsible for one's thoughts and feelings
    "It's like boot camp for the psyche. In real life, human beings are packaged in the flimsiest of packages, threatened by real and sometimes horrifying dangers...But the narrative form puts these fears into a manageable series of events. It gives us a way of thinking rationally about our fears."
  3. goad
    urge with or as if with a prod
    In retrospect, it's usually pretty easy to look at horror movies and see the influences of the time. And I think right now...creative people are almost being goaded to look at things in the strongest way possible. If you look at the Academy Awards [movies], those are films about real issues. I think everybody is saying, 'We have to talk about the nitty-gritty stuff here.' It's not the time for confections.
  4. confection
    a food rich in sugar
    In retrospect, it's usually pretty easy to look at horror movies and see the influences of the time. And I think right now...creative people are almost being goaded to look at things in the strongest way possible. If you look at the Academy Awards [movies], those are films about real issues. I think everybody is saying, 'We have to talk about the nitty-gritty stuff here.' It's not the time for confections.
  5. matrix
    an enclosure within which something originates or develops
    There is rage in my films, but it's a complete matrix. Sone could be directed at my father, a scary figure.
  6. exploitative
    tending to exploit or make use of
    Drew Barrymore told me a story of a boy who tortured his...I think it was his dog, with a lighter and it set it on fire and she burst into tears. And being the exploitative bastard that I am as a director, I said "do you mind if we use that?" So every time on the set if I wanted her to cry, I'd say "the boy has the lighter" or something like that, and she'd burst into tears and be just frantic.
  7. frantic
    marked by uncontrolled excitement or emotion
    Drew Barrymore told me a story of a boy who tortured his...I think it was his dog, with a lighter and it set it on fire and she burst into tears. And being the exploitative bastard that I am as a director, I said "do you mind if we use that?" So every time on the set if I wanted her to cry, I'd say "the boy has the lighter" or something like that, and she'd burst into tears and be just frantic.
  8. conviction
    an unshakable belief in something without need for proof
    So then it's a matter of, do you want to make movies? Yeah. Then you're going to make scary movies. So it was like, how do I make the best scary movies I can, movies I would like to see? I never went out of my way to make a single one. I don't particularly like them. My conviction is that I can do any kind of film.
  9. repose
    lie when dead
    ... a collection of masks, depicting historical figures in life and what I like to call the eternal repose.
  10. oppressive
    weighing heavily on the senses or spirit
    For me with all this stuff, both the horror films and thrillers like this, the most interesting thing is what goes on inside people's heads, ... The rest is just the setting. She is sort of trapped in her seat, with this guy a few inches apart watching her facial expressions for clues about what she is going to do and it is just so oppressive. Even when he lets her go to the bathroom she doesn't get long to unwind.
  11. inoculation
    taking a vaccine as a precaution against a disease
    Horror films somehow come and confront the dark, incomprehensibleside of humanity... They're very much like an inoculation against a deeper and darker and more frightening reality.
Created on Sun Aug 30 23:43:34 EDT 2015 (updated Mon Aug 31 15:37:21 EDT 2015)

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