Editing Wes Craven (section)

=== Style and themes ===
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|quote=Ideas that come out of families which are fractured or disturbed in some way are the most profoundly terrifying things to me. And I've always felt that I was on solid ground when I was making movies about families. The first real terrors happen to us in the first five years of our lives and that's where we are—in the middle of our family. Quite often, for children, the most terrifying things are adults, and unfortunately often it's the parents themselves that are the most frightening.
|source=—Craven on the theme of family in his works<ref>{{cite news |last=Newton |first=Steve |title=Terror titan Wes Craven on the horrors of family and being cast in the role of the scary guy |newspaper=[[The Georgia Straight]] |date=7 Nov 1991}}</ref>
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Craven's works tend to explore [[Dysfunctional family|the breakdown of family structures]], the nature of dreams and reality, and often feature black humor and satirical elements.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book|last=Robb|first=Brian J.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/40150665|title=Screams & Nightmares: The Films of Wes Craven|date=1998|publisher=Overlook Press|isbn=0-87951-918-5|edition=|location=Woodstock, N.Y.|pages=14|oclc=40150665}}</ref> Ostensibly civilized families succumb to and exercise violence in ''The Last House on the Left'' and ''The Hills Have Eyes''. ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'', ''Shocker'', and the ''Scream'' films address the process of addressing family trauma.<ref name=":2" />

Several of Craven's films are characterized by abusive familial relationships such as ''The Hills Have Eyes'', ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'', ''The People Under the Stairs'', and others. Families in denial are a common thread throughout his movies, an idea Craven openly discussed:

{{Blockquote|text=The family is the best microcosm to work with… It's very much where most of our strong emotions or gut feelings come from… I grew up in a white working class family that was very religious. There was an enormous amount of secrecy in the general commerce of our getting along... If there was an argument, it was immediately denied. If there was a feeling, it was repressed… I began to see that as a nation we were doing the same things.<ref>[[John Kenneth Muir|Muir, John Kenneth]] (1998). ''Wes Craven: The Art of Horror''. Jefferson, South Carolina: McFarland & Co. {{ISBN|0-7864-0576-7}}. p. 5.</ref>}}

The blurring of the barrier between dreams and reality, sometimes called "rubber-reality", is a staple of Craven's style.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Muir|first=John Kenneth|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/66655309|title=Wes Craven: The Art of Horror|date=2004|publisher=McFarland|isbn=0-7864-1923-7|location=Jefferson, NC|pages=114|oclc=66655309}}</ref> ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'', for example, dealt with the consequences of dreams in real life.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.empireonline.com/features/guide-to-Wes-Craven| title=Wes Craven: Film By Film| date=17 September 2015| work=Empire Magazine |access-date=17 September 2015}}</ref> ''The Serpent and the Rainbow'' and ''Shocker'' portray protagonists who cannot distinguish between nightmarish visions and reality. Following ''New Nightmare'', Craven increasingly explored metafictional elements in his films. ''New Nightmare'' has actress [[Heather Langenkamp]] play herself as she's haunted by the villain of the film in which she once starred.<ref name="CNN">{{cite news| url=http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/30/entertainment/wes-craven-horror-movie-director-death/| title=Wes Craven, horror movie director, dies at age 76| work=CNN| access-date=August 30, 2015}}</ref> At one point in the film, the audience sees on Craven's word processor a script he's written, which includes the conversation he just had with Langenkamp—as if the script were<!-- subjunctive --> being written as the action unfolds.

In ''Scream'', the characters frequently reference horror films similar to their situations and at one point [[List of Scream (film series) characters#Billy Loomis|Billy Loomis]] tells his girlfriend that life is just a big movie.  This concept was emphasized in the sequels as copycat stalkers re-enact the events of a new film about the Woodsboro killings (Woodsboro being the fictional town where ''Scream'' is set) occurring in ''Scream''.<ref name="biography" />