Wes Craven, a horror filmmaker who could create nightmares out of any genre, has died. The creator of the A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream franchises was 76.

Craven died Sunday, following a battle with brain cancer, notes The Hollywood Reporter. His death was also confirmed on his official Twitter page.

The director was at the forefront of a horror revival in the early 1970s, starting off with the original 1972 version of The Last House on the Left. His other early films include The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and Deadly Blessing (1981). In 1982, he was tasked with directing Swamp Thing (1982), which has gone down as a cult movie.

But in 1984, when he directed three movies, he really cemented his status as a genius of the genre with A Nightmare on Elm Street. With that film, he created one of scariest characters to grace the screen, Freddy Krueger.

During the rest of the decade, he directed episodes of the Twilight Zone revival and 1989’s Shocker. While things slowed down in the early ‘90s, he returned like the characters in his own films with 1995’s Scream, introducing a whole new generation of filmgoers to his kind of horror.

Craven ended up directing all four Scream movies, up to 2011’s Scream 4, which was his final film. He also served as an executive producer on MTV’s Scream series, giving the project his seal of approval.

He also approved other remakes and sequels of his works by producing them. He was a producer on The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left remakes.

In the middle of his Scream successes in the ‘90s, Craven finally got a chance to direct a non-genre film. In 1999, he directed Meryl Streep to an Oscar nomination in Music of the Heart.

Craven was not planning on retiring any time soon. He just wrote a part of The Weinstein company’s upcoming Ten Commandments miniseries and was going to direct it. He also executive produced Nick Simon’s upcoming The Girl in the Photographs, notes THR.

The director is survived by his wife, Iya Labunka, and two children from his first marriage.

image courtesy of Victor Rivera/INFphoto.com