ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ

Wes Craven emerged in the early 70s as one of the pioneers of modern horror. His debut The Last House On The Left was a big hit in the US, but later fell foul of the UK's video nastie ban. He went on to make intelligent, hard-hitting horror films such as the original Hills Have Eyes. In the 80s, he unleashed serial-killer Freddy Krueger onto the cinema-going public, and in the 90s, his Scream trilogy lead the pack of post-ironic horror movies.

Wes wore the producer's hat on the remake of his 80s sequel The Hills Have Eyes 2, which he co-wrote with his son Jonathan.

Could writing Hills 2 with your son Jonathan ever be described as a bonding experience?

I think it was. In a very unacceptable way. I don't think the two of us had ever been so close for that long. It was a great time and not long after he'd had his first child, so it was two fathers and two writers and I think we both came away from it with something positive.

2005's thriller Red Eye was a departure from the horror genre, is there anything else you want to try?

I've always said I'd love to do a drama, or a romantic comedy. It's proved to be virtually impossible, with very few exceptions. If you see the name Wes Craven, it's very hard to convince people that it'd be a good name to attach to a drama or a comedy. And at 20 or 30 million dollars a movie I can't blame them. But I do have some ideas and scripts that are doing the rounds that are dramas and comedies, so we'll see where it goes.

Is horror the best start for young filmmakers?

I'm not sure I agree with that. In some instances it can be a trap if you do more than one. But I'm not sure why that is. But it's not always the case. Peter Jackson went onto do the Lord Of The Rings, and Sam Raimi has done the Spider-Man movies and A Simple Plan. But it is possible, I feel that I've done it, and even John Carpenter did a few films that aren't strictly horror.

The thing about a horror film in general is that it can be very impactful for a very low budget. It doesn't have to involve a great many people and you can work well in a very small enclosed set, like the cabin in the woods. People always say that the director of a film embodies the contents of a film, so if they see a violent film they assume that the director is of that bent. I've had that my whole career and that can be dangerous if you want to do something different. But if you do too many horror films it can be quite limiting. Or, you can say, 'you know what, the horror genre is a great genre and I'm going to make some great horror films.'

Someone on our message boards recently asked if anything doesn't get past the censors these days. What do you think about today's ultra-violent films?

Yeah, it seems to be that more or less anything goes at the moment. I don't know what's going on at the MPA, but they've had some criticism. I don't know if it's fair or not. But personally, I would never try to make something horrible look cool. That's not the job of the genre. I don't want to glorify anything. Everything seems to go in cycles. Somebody pushes the limits until somebody gets pissed off. And it's either the censors or the audience. Hopefully we can do our own censorship. I don't feel I need to do that though.

There's a lot of torture knocking about these days it seems...

I've always thought that horror movies reflect the times, and certainly in the 70s I think we were making movies very much with Vietnam in mind. And today I think that you can't make horror films without thinking about what our countries are currently involved with in the Middle East and in other parts of the world.

I think it's an aspect on the war on terrorism - certainly in my country, and for sure in other countries. I've certainly read of British and Israeli torture, and some countries make no secret of it whatsoever. It's horrendous and upsetting, but for an American, it's astonishing to me that they've admitted that that's what goes on and that's what is necessary.

The Hills Have Eyes 2 opens in UK cinemas on Wednesday 28th March 2007.