Excl: Craven talks 25/8

Our intrepid reporter JimmyO caught up with the one and only Wes Craven just recently, who gave him the 411 on 25/8, Craven’s new tale of horror that seems to hearken back to his NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET days. (With maybe a helping of SHOCKER.)

Read on to discover which past collaborator Craven is working with again, as well as just what this crazy thing is really about. I’m going to give you the entire bulk of what the man said – I don’t want to leave anything out for y’all!

It’s the story of seven kids who are all born on the same night. And it turns out that they each have the soul of one of the personalities of a schizophrenic from sixteen years before. One of the personalities of a schizophrenic, unknown to the man who was killing people, and hiding in this man and he’s discovered. Chaos breaks out and this man ends up dead. And sixteen years later the kids are… every year they celebrate the night where the serial killer was unveiled and hunted down. And it’s sort of figuring out the mystery of what their origins are and which one of them is the killer. It’s kind of fun. It takes place in a high school, in a whole day and [we have] this wonderful cast of seven virtually unknown kids and this really great kid who’s in the lead role. It’s fun. It’s not like somebody chasing you around the block with a knife all the time. People treat this kid like he’s almost a retard, you know, but he’s not, he’s just innocent. It’s the getting of wisdom and the loss of his innocence that makes him into the leading man. You know, becoming a man in a very interesting way.

I’m very excited about it. It’s turning out great and Marco Beltrami just signed on [to do the score]. And we’ve been working together since SCREAM. So it just feels really, really good. And it’s unlike anything I’ve seen. To me, if I like it and I feel like I’m not doing anything that I’ve seen before, that’s always a good sign… It’s nice to be back in the saddle as a writer.