With a career behind him that includes such groundbreaking classics as The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream it goes without saying that writer/director/producer/all round genius Wes Craven deserves a room in any Horror Hall of Fame all to himself. Now, with 2009’s remake of his shocking Last House debut, Craven is poised to revisit the sort of down and dirty exploitation that he made his name tackling. Directed by promising up-and-comer Dennis Iliadis, the new Last House is released in the UK on June 12th and Calum Waddell caught up with Craven – who acts as a producer on the 2009 re-imagining - for the following exclusive chat.

What is it that has drawn you to revisiting your earlier, and much grittier, work such as The Hills Have Eyes and now The Last House on the Left? Do you feel the characters and stories still bear relevance today?

Well what fascinated me in both The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes was the humanity of the killers. I was interested in the part of them that was human and fallible and which allowed them to be appalled by their own acts.

I also liked how, in the case of Last House, the villains were intimidated to go into a home that was more sophisticated and civilised than they what were used to being in. As a result they have to act in a way that was very foreign to them – and I found that very fascinating in the remake too. I liked the uneasiness and how these people act as if they can dress in suits and suddenly be “normal”. There was also the pain inherent in the Last House villains – the pain of them understanding that they have grown up and become something despicable and brutal.

In the first Last House there is the moment, after the killing of the two girls, where they take out their suitcase and change their clothes by the side of the lake. That is because they are in shock at what they have done. I still think that is a really important moment in the movie because it is something we all need to recognise – we can all identify with having woken up one morning after doing or saying something that was really shocking. Not on that level of course but, even nationally. I mean, if you look at the last eight years in the United States many of us feel that this country has done things that none of us believed it was capable of doing.

It is interesting that you have touched on politics because now America has elected a president that the world really likes. However, it would appear, on the surface at least, that a new Last House would have been more apt a year or two ago…

Well, I’ll try not to get too political but I think that what has happened over the last eight years in the United States still needs to be commented on. I think that the Bush era will have a resonance for many years here. I think we will be protesting not at what is but what was and I think that is important. I mean, we are not making protest films so much as commenting on issues that have been raised during that time… and the issue of torture was definitely one of them.

Right, and you saw that in Hostel and its ilk didn’t you?

In a way, yes, but even if one is not making a political statement about it - and it is arguable whether or not Hostel or Saw were protesting - they were definitely dealing with the subject matter in such a way that the audience had to wrestle with it. And I think many of the things raised in these movies were deeply subconscious issues of “Could I torture? Should I torture? Could I endure torture? And where does this fit into my psyche?” I think those things were relevant although I believe we have now run that course.

One of the most iconic things about the original Last House is the haunting, sombre score by David Hess but in the remake you don’t use any of it. Why is this?

Well, we got John Murphy who scored 28 Days Later and we felt very fortunate to get him. He did a magnificent job and it is totally different from David Hess’s score. David’s score was actually largely influenced by Steve Chapin, Harry Chapin’s younger brother – he did all of the orchestrations and added a banjo feel to it. But I agree; that old soundtrack was really iconoclastic and it really played against what was happening on the screen.

However, Dennis Iliadis went in a different direction – maybe a bit more classic but certainly not in a traditional horror manner. There are no stings or sounds to make you jump or anything. Instead it is beautifully orchestral.

Did you ever consider directing the new Last House yourself?

No. I think that with the original movie I proved that I could make a horror film that was interesting philosophically and artistically but I never thought about going back to it. I was actually quite happy to leave that sort of thing behind after The Hills Have Eyes (laughs).

But, in the same process, Eric Clapton is never going to go back to Cream – you grow up and you move on. I think as you get older you get gentler but I think these films are still necessary, you know? There are some unrelenting, unremitting elements to movies like The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes and I think, in the case of the originals, you can definitely see my thoughts and person in them.

Finally, just as you changed the genre with Last House, you also launched the postmodern horror film with Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Care to tell us how that idea came to you?

Well, the idea actually goes all the way back to Greek theatre. They said that if you did not tell stories about horrific things, which were invisible, then the horrific things themselves, if they were not given name and shape and something we could grapple with, would have more power.

So the idea that the Freddy films had been stopped was very interesting to me because whatever Freddy stood for was then free to move about and cause all kinds of chaos…

The Last House on the Left is released in UK Cinemas on 12 June 2009.