Wes Craven Takes Over YouTube for Halloween!

by Marc Hustvedt on October 30th, 2008

Wes Craven has taken over YouTube. The legendary director of such films as A Nightmare on Elm Street, the Scream trilogy and Red Eye has control of the YouTube front page for Halloween as well as the Google homepage logo doodle, which is a holiday tradition going back to the early days (1999). The tradition of taking over YouTube on Halloween is a newer one which started last year when Halloween director and rocker Rob Zombie had the reigns.

We had a chance to ask Wes what he thought of the explosive growth in web video content. “I’m all for human expression, no matter how or where,” he told us. Clearly, he likes some of what he’s seeing out there. He had a chance to pick his Halloween favorites from the vast YouTube library and feature them on the front page as well as his own official channel.

We took a look at his picks and he’s chosen a mix of web series and one-off videos ranging from dark and scary to absurdly awesome. Here’s the run-down: (web series are in italics)

“The Hand” — (spoof film trailer from Studio8 based on The Eye.)
“Scary Video” — (a young Wes Craven?)
Trick or Vote — (even monsters can help get out the vote.)
“Scream Bunnies” — (30-second recap of Scream with bunnies!)
The 21 Conspiracy — (Aussie thriller web series, see Tubefilter’s coverage.)
2009: A True Story — (dark look at the near future, see Tubefilter’s coverage.)
Breach — (part of Fewdio’s horror series, see Tubefilter’s coverage.)
Luke 11:17 — (gritty psychological thriller, see Tubefilter’s coverage.)
“Day With the Devil” — (stop-motion animation meets hip hop in hell!)
“Black String Theory” — (visually stunning short film.)
“Hallowindow“ — (blows outdoor Xmas decorations away. See this years window.)
“The Butcher and the Wolf“ — (green screen fun in Madrid from the Portable Film Festival.)
“Patton Oswalt – Halloween“ — (the voice of Ratatouille muses on Halloween)