Wes Craven Teamed Up With the Star of 'The Exorcist' in This Witchy Horror

Wes Craven is one of the all-time masters of horror. Although he sadly passed away in 2015, he left behind a four-decade-plus filmography to remember him by. If you're a fan of the genre, you've probably seen his big masterpieces like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, but his career goes way beyond those iconic films. In 1978, right as his career was really beginning to take off, Craven collaborated with horror's "it" girl of the decade, Linda Blair. The young actress had created one of the most terrifying characters a few years earlier as the possessed Regan in The Exorcist, and now the two would come together to make a TV movie which would come out on NBC in 1978. Titled Summer of Fear (also known as Stranger in Our House), this honestly isn't one of Craven's best movies, but it's an important one. He may not have had the career he did without it.

What Is 'Summer of Fear' About?

Wes Craven wasn't a nobody when he made Summer of Fear. Far from it. He was already well established in the genre thanks to The Last House on the Left in 1972 and The Hills Have Eyes in 1977. Both of those films he not only directed but wrote himself. Summer of Fear would be different. Not only was the screenplay written by someone else, but it wasn't based on Craven's idea. Instead, it was an adaptation of Lois Duncan's novel of the same name. Another of Duncan's books, I Know What You Did Last Summer, would also become a much more popular movie two decades later.

Summer of Fear opens with a husband and wife dying in a car crash when their car goes off a cliff. The scene shows something else going on as well, so we can tell this wasn't your normal accident. The couple leave behind a now orphaned teenage daughter, Julia (Lee Purcell), who is taken in by her aunt and uncle, Tom and Leslie (Jeremy Slate and Leslie Bryant), who have three kids of their own, including a daughter around the same age as Julia, Rachel (Blair). However, instead of this being a drama about a girl mourning the loss of her family, it's instead a story filled with horror as Rachel discovers that there is something seriously wrong with Julia. She might even be a witch.

Wes Craven Made Many Movies That Were Much Better Than 'Summer of Fear'

If you've never seen Summer of Fear, it's understandable. It didn't have a big theatrical release, but was a TV movie that came out on Halloween night 1978 on NBC. It is notable for being a collaboration between Craven and Blair, and is one of the earliest roles for Fran Drescher, who plays Blair's best friend, but the film itself has many issues.

Craven was known for making shocking, graphically violent movies. The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes are as dark as it gets. Summer of Fear plays out like a young adult horror movie, one that's not scary or all that compelling most of the time, but is instead centered around teenage drama with some witchcraft thrown in. The writing and acting leaves a lot to be desired, and it comes across very much like a dated TV movie, but it's still worth a watch to see Blair in a role outside The Exorcist (she was coming off the abysmal The Exorcist II: The Heretic the year before), and to watch Craven's growth as a filmmaker.

'Summer of Fear' Taught Wes Craven the Skills He Needed To Have a Legendary Career

Wes Craven is restrained by the rules of network TV censorship in Summer of Fear. He feels more like a name for hire, rather than a creator of art in this one. Many horror directors have these types of movies on their resume. In 1978, John Carpenter made an NBC TV movie as well, Someone's Watching Me, but at least he got to write that one too.

No one is going to say that Summer of Fear is one of Craven's better movies, but it is one of his most important. This is the movie where he got to study the Hollywood way of filmmaking. In the book Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy: The Making of Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street by Thommy Hutson, Craven spoke about Summer of Fear. He said that was his first television movie, adding, "I had come out to California to do some work on minor stuff and got invited to do that. I think that was my first time working with a Hollywood star of sorts, Linda Blair. First time working in thirty-five millimeter, first time using a crane, a dolly, so it was a great education for me."

Craven's previous films had been more guerrilla filmmaking, but now he was in California and learning how to be a professional. He was educated in how to shoot a movie with the right equipment, which he didn't have access to previously. He got to work with a big name star, and all the pros and cons that come with that, which would prepare him for the decades to come of working with both rising and elite actors. Everything that came after may have never happened without Summer of Fear.

Summer of Fear is available to watch on Philo in the U.S.

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