This weekend dealt an extremely devastating blow to horror fans, and film fans in general, with the death of genre icon Wes Craven. To be expected, every nook and cranny of the Internet overflowed with loving tributes to the filmmaker and his illustrious career, which peaked with the franchises for A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. We will probably see televised accolades over the next few weeks, and the first of those will come during the next episode of MTV’s Scream.
This is perhaps the most fitting episode for the show to honor Wes Craven, its spiritual creator, as “Revelations” serves as the Season 1 finale. According to EW, it’s not clear at this point what the tribute will consist of, but we’re certainly hoping it’s a little more substantial than just an “R.I.P” screen tacked onto the end of the credits. It doesn’t have to go beyond that, of course, but he deserves it.
Craven, along with screenwriter Kevin Williamson, created the first Scream film in 1996, following it up with three sequels, and the last of which was released in 2011. After MTV announced that they were moving forward with a small-screen take on the genre-bending serial killer mystery, horror fans definitely hoped that Craven would be involved in some significant way, and although it initially seemed like he might get behind the camera for the pilot, he inevitably just took on an executive producer role without any direct influence. But considering he’s the king of the franchise, he should get honored in a way that respects his career both with Scream and beyond. If only they would play an episode of Freddy’s Nightmares directly afterward.
Speaking of that oft-forgotten TV tie-in, Craven died just a few months after signing an overall deal with the burgeoning TV production company Universal Cable Productions, with whom he’d set up a slew of TV projects. Thankfully, the company is dedicated to moving forward with development on each of these potential series, such as Syfy’s adaptation of Daryl Gregory’s stellar supernatural novel We are All Completely Fine, Syfy’s TV version of Craven’s 1991 horror People Under the Stairs, an adaptation of Steve Niles and Christopher Mitten’s sci-fi horror comic Disciples and an extension of screenwriter Daniel Knauf’s short story “Sleepers.” Here’s how they put it in a statement, according to THR.
Wes Craven was a master artist, a gentleman and it was our pleasure to work with him. It is our intention to bring to life all the projects Wes developed at Universal Cable Productions. Thankfully these projects benefited greatly from his development and guidance since inception. They will continue In his honor and spirit.
But before any of those happen, MTV’s Scream will air “Revelations” on Tuesday at 10:00 p.m. ET. Until then…Don’t. Fall. Asleep. Wait, that’s from something else.
