River's Edge (1986) on Netflix
Samson tells his high school friends that he killed his girlfriend Jamie, whose body lies by the river. Layne wants to cover it up; Matt is disturbed by what he sees.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.8/1023,776 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
A group of high school friends in a Northern California town spends its days together drinking, smoking marijuana and hanging around. Their friend Samson, known as John, has killed his girlfriend Jamie after she spoke about his dead mother, and has left her body in a clearing by the river. He tells the others what he did, and they come down in small groups to see whether he is telling the truth. Clarissa and Maggie treat it as a joke. Matt is disturbed. Layne, the group's unofficial leader, wants to protect Samson and get rid of the body rather than tell the authorities. Matt's twelve-year-old brother Tim also knows about the killing.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about River's Edge (1986)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Neal Jimenez based his screenplay on a real killing in Milpitas, California, in November 1981: a teenager strangled a classmate, then bragged about it and showed the body to at least 13 people, yet nobody reported it for two days. Jimenez was taking screenwriting courses at UCLA when it happened.
- Director Tim Hunter wanted John Lithgow for Feck, the murderous ex-biker. The part then went to Harry Dean Stanton, who turned it down but handed the script to his friend Dennis Hopper, who took the role.
- Corey Haim was originally cast as the young boy Tim, but caught pneumonia during the first days of filming and was replaced by Joshua John Miller.
- Tim Hunter moved the shoot to Sacramento for its river locations, but a major flood drove the crew off the American River. He ended up filming in Sunland-Tujunga above Burbank, a former tuberculosis sanatorium district he said had a land-that-time-forgot feeling.
- Daniel Roebuck turned up to audition for the brutish killer John already in character: in full costume, his hair slicked back with K-Y Jelly and a can of beer in each front pocket.
- Ione Skye had never acted when she was cast. A casting director picked her out of a photograph she happened to be in with her brother, the aspiring actor Donovan Leitch.
- Casting director Carrie Frazier said she knew Keanu Reeves was her guy the moment he walked in, mostly because of the way he held his body: untied shoes and clothes that looked like a young person growing into being a man.
