I Saw What You Did (1965)

It's common for film critics to bemoan the lack of originality in today's cinema, consistently grumbling over the latest horror remake or sequel that is due for release. Why things can't things be like the good old days? The problem with this attitude is two fold:

1) It completely romanticizes old Hollywood. Sure, a lot of great movies were made during the studio system, but for every great movie Hollywood churned out there were just as many clunkers. So, for every Gone With the Winds there were just as many Return of Dr. Xs.

2) It ignores the fact that the Hollywood of today is EXACTLY like the Hollywood of yesterday. Hollywood has always been about the profit. If one film is extremely successful, then it's only a matter of time before the other studios release a film exactly like it. When Easy Rider became an unexpected hit in 1969, the studios followed suit by making movies in a similar vain. In the 40s, two of Universals biggest money makers were the Monster films and Abbott and Costello series. MGM made a lot of great films in the 30s, but made countless Andy Hardy films as well. To quote Billy Joel, "the good old days weren't always good and tomorrow is not as bad as it seems."

In 1960 Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho hit the cinemas and proved to be a huge commercial hit. Hitchcock took a relatively obscure horror novel (by Robert Bloch) and, with a fairly low budget, turned it into a gold mine. It was only a matter of time before other filmmakers jumped on the bandwagon and produced their own Psycho, complete with relatively predictable twist endings. It is staggering just how many derivatives of Psycho were made throughout the 60s; Hammer studios would produce films like Paranoiac, Nightmare, and Scream of Fear, a young Francis Ford Coppola would direct Dementia 13 for his mentor Roger Corman, and William Castle got in the act by making THREE Psycho-like films.

William Castle is probably best known for the outrageous gimmicks he used to promote his horror films. His best known gimmick is probably Percepto-vision used for the movie The Tingler. Percepto consisted of attaching buzzers underneath select seats in the theater and setting them off during the film's climax (in which Vincent Price implores the audience to scream for their lives). Another gimmick was Emergo, which essentially was a plastic skeleton attached to a wire that floated over the heads of the audience during the climax of House on Haunted Hill. 

I Saw What You Did was William Castle's third attempt at mimicking Hitchcock, his two previous attempts were Homicidal and Strait Jacket, both of which hinge on a twist ending regarding the killer's REAL identity. Castle tries to pull a sleight of hand like Hitchcock did with Psycho, but ultimately fails, because the twist is fairly predictable in both films. I Saw What You Did is probably the most successful out of the three films, because it's the least gimmicky. The film follows two mischievous teenage girls, Libby and Kit, who amuse themselves by prank calling random numbers and whispering the phrase, "I know who you are and I saw what you did."  Unfortunately, one of their recipients, Steve Marak, has just murdered his wife. Libby mistakenly thinks that Steve is playing along with the prank and starts to grow curious as to what he actually looks like. The girls decide to drive by his home to have a look. Their plan is thwarted by Steve's next door neighbor (and would be lover), Amy, who thinks that Steve is having an affair with Libby. The girls beg Amy not to say anything, fearing that they will get in trouble with Libby's parents (who are at party) for leaving the house. Amy, out of spite, takes Libby's ID. The girls drive home dejected. Amy is aware that Steve has murdered his wife and plans to use this information to blackmail him into marrying her. Fat chance! Steve, not one to be caged, offs Amy and discovers Libby's ID. He then drives to Libby's house to confront her. Uh-oh!

I Saw What You Did "borrows" two distinct elements from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho:

1. The killing of a star name fairly early in the proceedings: In Psycho, it was a genuinely shocking to see Janet Leigh killed off in the middle of the film. It was simply unheard of at the time to kill off a star name so early in the proceedings and naturally the audience had no idea how to react. William Castle takes a page from Hitchcock's book and bumps off Joan Crawford's character, Amy Nelson, with nearly a half hour remaining in the film. However, Crawford's death isn't nearly as shocking and disorienting as Janet Leigh's, because Amy is a supporting character and a fairly unsympathetic one at that. When she thinks Steve is having an affair with Libby, she becomes extremely jealous and possessive, to the point of blackmailing Steve into marrying her.

2. The shower scene: The shower scene is the most famous set piece in Psycho, so it's not surprising that Castle would ape it in his own movie, but with a twist. Steve is taking a shower when his wife starts to yell at him, he has had enough, pulls her in and stabs her to death. It is the Psycho shower scene done in reverse. The stabbing is shot in a similar fashion to the one in Psycho; shots of blood going down the drain, close ups of the woman's face, etc.

After Steve has murdered his wife, he attempts to cover up the crime by burying her in the woods. This is very similar to how Norman Bates tried to cover up Marion's murder, by dumping her car (with her body in the trunk) in the swamp. Castle milks these scenes to great effect, Steve is constantly on the verge of being discovered. At one point Steve hears a rustle in the woods and realizes a dog is coming his way. The gig is up, or so Steve thinks, but at the last possible second the dog's owner calls it back to the car.

I Saw What You Did is pretty jarring at times due to how tonally inconsistent it is. The scenes with the girls are done in a fairly light hearted manner with upbeat music playing on the soundtrack. These scenes would be more at home in a TV sitcom like Gidget than in a horror film. The scenes with Steve and Amy are extremely intense with your typical "spooky" horror/suspense music playing in the background. The fatal flaw of the film (other than plagiarizing Hitchcock) is that it hinges on characters behaving in the stupidest manner possible. Libby MUST know what Steve looks like, so she drives down to his house, gets caught snooping on his lawn by Amy, and in the process gives Steve the information he needs (her ID that Amy has taken) to track her down. Amy, out of fear of losing to Steve to much a younger woman, tries to blackmail him into marrying her, which, given the fact that he has just murdered his wife for her constant nagging, isn't exactly a bright idea. If Steve wasn't going to allow himself to be tied down to a constant nagger, then why would he allow himself to be held prisoner to a potential blackmailer. It's enough to make you smack your forehead in complete disbelief. On the other hand, at least the girls are played by actual teenagers (instead of the twenty something that often populate high school horror films) and behave as such. John Ireland makes for a compelling villain as well, he's absolutely cold and frigid to the world around him, and shows no remorse for the crimes he has committed. However, he only lashes out at the world when he feels he is being boxed in; his first murder was one of passion, the second was for self preservation. The confrontation between Steve and Libby (and Libby's younger sister Tess) at the end is extremely well done; at one point he tosses a knife as Tess when she screams out a warning to Libby. Castle really pumps up the atmospherics; the outside of the Mannering house is shrouded in fog, while Tess hides in the woods from her pursuer.
I Saw What You Did certainly pales in comparison to Psycho, but it's fairly entertaining in its own silly way.

Credits
Cast: Joan Crawford (Amy Nelson), John Ireland (Steve Marak), Andi Garrett (Libby Mannering), Sara Lane (Kit Austin), Sharyl Locke (Tess Mannering), Leif Erickson (Dave Mannering), Patricia Breslin (Ellie Mannering), John Archer (John Austin).

Director: William Castle
Screenplay: William P. McGivern
Running Time: 82 min.