Wes Craven: Horror Movie Master Dies Aged 76

Writer-director Wes Craven - famous for the Nightmare On Elm Street and Scream films - has died at the age of 76 after suffering brain cancer.

He died at his home in Hollywood, his family said.

"It is with deep sadness we inform you that Wes Craven passed away at 1pm on Sunday, August 30, after battling brain cancer," his family said in a statement.

"Craven was surrounded by love, in the presence of his family, at his home in Los Angeles."

Tributes have poured in for the film director, writer and producer.

Actress Courteney Cox, who starred in Craven's 1996 film Scream and appeared in the franchise's sequels, wrote on Twitter: "Today the world lost a great man, my friend and mentor, Wes Craven.

"My heart goes out to his family."

Actress Rose McGowan, who also featured in the first Scream, tweeted: "Shedding tears now. A giant has left us."

Wesley Earl Craven was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on 2 August 1939.

Although he earned a master's degree in philosophy and writing from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, and briefly taught as a college professor, his start in movies was in pornography, where he worked under a pseudonym.

His mark on Hollywood came in 1972 with his first film The Last House On The Left, a horror film about a group of teenage girls who are abducted and taken into the woods.

He reinvented the horror genre in 1984 with A Nightmare On Elm Street, which he wrote and directed, and starred a then-unknown Johnny Depp.

Craven told Vulture Magazine last year that the reason Depp got the role was because of his daughter and her friend.

"I took the headshots of the actors I was considering for the role of Heather's boyfriend, Glen," he said.

"I put them out on the kitchen table and asked the girls 'Who would you pick?'

"They immediately pointed at Johnny. I said 'Are you serious?' He looked like he needed a bath. They both said 'He's beautiful'."

The success of the film about teenagers who are stalked in their dreams spawned a franchise of films.

The franchise's razor-fingered villain Freddy Krueger, played by Robert Englund, is considered an icon of the genre.

The concept came from his own youth in Cleveland, where he lived next to a cemetery on an Elm Street, Craven said.

He gained further notoriety in 1996 after directing Scream and its three sequels.

Craven made a departure from the genre in 2005 with Red Eye, an airline thriller that starred Rachel McAdams.

Besides his work in horror films, Craven also directed the drama Music Of The Heart, which earned Meryl Streep an Oscar nomination.

He is survived by his wife, producer Iya Labunka, a son, a daughter and a stepdaughter.