Wes Craven is one of the great horror movie directors of all time, having created one of the most iconic movie monsters ever to grace the silver screen: Freddy Krueger. Before A Nightmare on Elm Street, however, Craven had already made a name for himself with the films The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes. But it really was A Nightmare on Elm Street and its sequels (only one of which Craven directed – Wes Craven’s New Nightmare) that shot him to fame in the world of horror films, and since then his name has been synonymous with the genre. Some of his other memorable films include The Serpent and the Rainbow, Swamp Thing, Vampire in Brooklyn, Red Eye and the Scream quadrilogy. Oddly enough, he also tried his hand at non-horror fare with the Meryl Streep movie Music of the Heart…but the less said about that, the better. He turns 72 today.