Teen Thrillers

Sorry the 2nd post is later this week; I didn't manage to get it finished yesterday. :)

 

For ages (at least a year!) I've had the idea to do a post about my Top 10 thriller films but I just haven't felt inspired for some reason. So for now, I thought I'd write a shorter post about some teen thrillers (which happen to all be from the 90s) instead! :)

Although they may not technically be classed as teen films, I've called this post Teen Thrillers because the main characters are teenagers. Since a couple of these are based on true stories, they could also be included in a true movies post!

Unless otherwise stated, the videos are trailers.

Poison Ivy (1992)

Lonely teenager Sylvie (played by Sara Gilbert, best known for the 90s American sitcom Roseanne, which was revived in 2018) meets Ivy (Drew Barrymore) and becomes friends with her. 

The two girls are very different, both personality wise- Sylvie is quiet and shy, whereas Ivy is extroverted and flirty- and with their home lives- Sylvie comes from a more privileged background than Ivy and lives in a big house with her parents. But they form a connection and quickly grow close.

However, once Sylvie invites Ivy into her home, things change and she comes to regret her decision. Sylvie's parents are having marriage problems, in part due to the fact that her mother's illness confines her to her bedroom and she is isolated. Ivy becomes fixated on Sylvie's dad Darryl (Tom Skerritt) and it seems that she wants to be closer to the family than Sylvie could have imagined...

 

Poison Ivy has 3 sequels- Poison Ivy II: Lily (1996), Poison Ivy 3: The New Seduction (1997) and Poison Ivy : The Secret Society (2008), which starred Alyssa Milano, Jamie Pressley and Miriam McDonald (who I've also seen as Dawn in the true movie She's Too Young) respectively.   I've seen the first sequel but I'm not sure about the second one.

You can also see a clip from the film on Scream Factory's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dopL0rLUJeE 

 

Watch the trailers for the sequels at the links below:

Poison Ivy II: Lily: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqi793k9M0o 

Poison Ivy: The New Seduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aff53ckj62I 

Poison Ivy 4: The Secret Society (not really a trailer but more of an opening scene, as people have commented!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlWW50TPTuc

 

The Crush (1993)

When 28-year-old journalist Nick Eliot (played by British actor Cary Elwes) moves into the guest house of the Forrester family, he gets more than he bargained for! The Forresters have a 14-year-old daughter called Adrian (a teenage Alicia Silverstone) who seems very friendly. But she's into older men- Nick in particular. She wants to be more than friends with him and won't let anything stand in her way.   

 

Note: The film is based on the real-life experience of screenwriter and director Alan Shapiro and he originally used the girl's actual name. When it was edited for TV, Alicia's character's name was changed from Darian to Adrian because Alan was being sued by the real-life Darian. This trailer was made before the name was changed.

It's been a long time since I've seen this, but I enjoyed it at the time. It seems kind of shocking to me now that Adrian was only 14. (I probably first watched it as a teenager, lol.) However, we know these things happen and as mentioned, it's based on real life.

Alicia was around 16 when she filmed this. It was made just before hit comedy Clueless, in which she played the main character Cher. She was also good in The Babysitter (see below).

 

Watch a clip from The Crush here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqi793k9M0o

 

The Babysitter (1995)

Note: Spoilers below.

Teenage babysitter Jennifer (played by Alicia) arrives at the home of the Tuckers, to look after their 3 children while they go out for the evening. As the night goes on, events spiral out of control when Jennifer's boyfriend Jack (Jeremy London, whose twin Jason is also an actor) is pushed into going to the Tucker's house by old friend Mark (Nicky Katt).

Jack is frustrated because he and Jennifer haven't had sex yet and Mark (who has his own motives) plays on this, encouraging him to sleep with her. Harry Tucker (the late J.T. Walsh) also develops an obsession with her.

 

 

Another trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGNjF3YXmoo

 

This is a good film but also disturbing. I think nowadays it would be seen as inappropriate and come in for a lot of criticism. It's basically about how 3 males (or 4 if you include the slightly more innocent Tucker boy!) fixate on a young, teenage girl and how they project their fantasies onto her. I find the attempted rape scene towards the end quite shocking, the way it escalates into that and then the ending.

 

Twisted Desire (1996) 

Teen girl Jennifer (played by Melissa Joan Hart, best known for American fantasy/comedy series Sabrina, The Teenage Witch) has a difficult relationship with her parents. When she meets Nick (Jeremy Jordan) at a gas (petrol) station, the two quickly become close and start a relationship.

Nick has a criminal past and Jennifer's parents William (played by Daniel Baldwin, one of the Baldwin brothers) and Susan (Isabella Hoffman) aren't fans of him. They forbid Jennifer to see him. But she isn't prepared to put up with that and decides to convince Nick to kill them...

 

The trailer isn't so good because I think it's a VHS transfer.

You can watch the whole movie here (at least for now, it may get removed!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s9SAEh7SUE

 

Random fact 1: Daniel Balwin and Isabella Hoffman (who played Jennifer's parents) were a couple in real life at the time and have a son Atticus, who is also an actor.

Random fact 2: Daniel later appeared in John Carpenter's Vampires (1998) one of my Top 10 vampire films!

This film is also based on true events, the 1990 murders of Jennifer Wiseman's parents in Virginia, USA by her boyfriend Douglas Christopher Thomas. Jennifer was 14 at the time and Douglas was 17. He was executed in 2000, aged 26. Back then people in America could still be executed for crimes that they had committed when they were minors/ juveniles.

Side note: I remember that this issue was highlighted in the film Too Young to Die? starring Juliette Lewis, Michael Tucker and Brad Pitt. That was a thought-provoking movie.

Jennifer was charged as a juvenile and sentenced to prison until she was 21 (the maximum sentence). She was released in 1997. I watched an episode of a crime show last year that was either about this case, or a similar one.

Read about the real-life case here: https://www.upi.com/Archives/2000/01/11/Killer-of-girlfriends-parents-executed/1262947566800/

 

Hope you liked the post! :) I haven't written many film posts in recent years (no particular reason why). My last one was a year ago (not counting Bollywood  or general entertainment posts). Maybe I should do more this year. 

Film fan? Check out more posts here: 

My Top 10 Films: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2013/04/my-top-10-films.html

Bollywood/Hollywood Thrillers: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2017/09/bollywoodhollywood-thrillers.html 

True Movies Round-up: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/03/true-movies-round-up.html

 Newer True Movies: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/04/newer-true-movies.html