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Wes Craven will always be a hugely important figure in my life. What John Lennon, John F. Kennedy, Neil Armstrong, Albert Einstein and Michael Jordan are to normal people– that’s what Wes Craven meant to me when I was 10-years-old.

I was lucky enough to have come of age in the era of SCREAM. Were it not for that film’s ubiquity I would not be the rabid film fan I am today. I would have never faced down Freddy Krueger’s back catalogue of bad dreams, shuddered at the depravity of Krug and company, traversed the desert wasteland of Jupiter, Pluto, and the other planetoid cannibals of the hills, or marveled at the sublime, silly sweetness of Swamp Thing. To put it lightly, SCREAM was a gateway drug into Wes Craven’s filmography, which inevitably brought me deep into the rabbit hole of the horror genre as a whole.

Through his films I learned that horror movies could be about ANYTHING and that the best ones were always about SOMETHING. That’s what made them so goddamned scary. ELM STREET, SCREAM, HILLS, THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS, LAST HOUSE– these were movies about the horrifying things bubbling just under the surface of suburban life.

The kind of horror Craven tapped into wasn’t just happening onscreen with dream killers and voodoo cults. It happened in real life everyday on a far more mundane and disturbing playing field. Even as a youngster I was able to connect the dots Craven was drawing; he made movies about humanity overcoming its greatest evil… itself.

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around these concepts in one way or another ever since. The guy wasn’t just a horror movie maker– he was a celluloid philosopher whose teachings have been lighting the flames of my imagination for as far back as I can remember. He’s important a thinker as America will ever produce.

I really can’t tell you what a surprising blow his death has been for me, especially given the fact I never even knew the guy personally. And yet, through his work I’ve always felt a deep connection. I don’t wanna get too far into hero worship– that would be insulting to those who did know and love him in real life. All I can say is that it feels terrible to lose a man who leaves such a positive and inspiring mark on his fans. God knows I’m not speaking for myself on this front…

I have no doubt his movies will be prescient for long after the flood of Wes Craven obituaries have drained from the front pages of movie news websites. That’s not the sign of a master of horror– it’s the sign of a master filmmaker and artist period.

RIP Wes Craven. The world is a far better place for having had you in it. Thanks for being my John Lennon.

Psychomania opening song and sequence,