All Rise...

Don't let him fool you. Judge Patrick Naugle can't see anything.

The Charge

William Castle warns you: This is a motion picture about Uxoricide!

The Case

Universal's I Saw What You Did came late in the career of director William Castle. Castle was an extraordinarily prolific B-movie filmmaker who crafted spine tingling horror on very low budget, including films like 13 Ghosts and The House on Haunted Hill. Castle's films were also well known for their gimmicks: from smell-o-vision to 3D glasses to vibrating devices underneath theatergoers' seats ("Percepto!"), Castle was a pure showman who knew how to wring dollars out of even the cheapest of gags. In 1965 Castle directed I Saw What You Did, a thriller whose biggest claim to fame was starring aging Hollywood icon Joan Crawford. Castle stated that theaters would be installed with seat belts for moviegoers who would be "scared out of their seats," though the gimmick never came to pass.

The set up for this one is rather simple: two mischievous teenagers, Libby (Andi Garrett) and Kit (Sara Lane, The Trail of Billy Jack), are left alone for the evening as one of the girl's parents heads out for a night on the town. The two teens decide to make random prank phone calls (remember, this was in the days before caller ID), informing whomever picks up that "I saw what you did, and I know who you are". It's all fun and games until the girls reach Steve Marak (John Ireland, Waxwork II: Lost in Time), who has just recently murdered his wife and buried her body in the woods. Fearing that the phone call means he's been found out, Steve agrees over the phone to meet the girls so he can make sure they don't tell anyone about the murder. At the same time Steve finds himself blackmailed into potential nuptials by Amy (John Crawford, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?), who threatens to go to the police about the murder if he doesn't agree to marry her.

This is hardly a revelatory thriller. Fifty years later and Castle's I Saw What You Did isn't the least bit scary or frightening. In fact, it's hard to place this movie under the title of "horror" since anything remotely terrifying either happens off screen or edited in such a way that nothing is ever shown. The film's premise is as basic as they come—a prank phone call goes awry and two girls are pursued by a crazed killer. Much of it focuses on the girls making their phone calls, and it seems to take an eternity to get to the fateful call to Mr. Marak. When they do finally reach the killer he's such a non-threat that it's hard to believe Castle thought audiences would be scared; John Ireland looks like your best friend's dad and never reaches the manic heights needed to make his character frightening.

The cast is fine if unremarkable; the biggest draw for movie fans will be Joan Crawford as the killer's neighbor/potential love interest. Crawford saunters through the film looking almost embarrassed to be seen in a William Castle movie (you can almost hear an echo of her yelling at the cast and crew, "I was once a STAR, goddamn it!"). Crawford looks haggard and tired, which actually works in her character's favor. The rest of the cast is hardly worth mentioning. The two teenage girls, Garett and Lane, do a lot of giggling and banter, all to little effect. For a horror movie, there seems to be an endless supply of teenage chatter.

The film is severely undercut by composer Van Alexander's wholly inappropriate music score. Sounding more at home in an episode of The Brady Bunch or Gilligan's Island than a feature length horror movie, Alexander's score almost never fits in with the action going on around it. Cutesy and bouncy, the only thing this score made me afraid of was the possibility that Mike Brady may appear at any moment and give viewers a lecture. It's like the final nail in the film's coffin. William Castle made some fun schlocky horror movies, but this isn't one of them.

I Saw What You Did (Blu-ray) is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen in 1080p high definition. This black and white Universal title, licensed to Scream Factory, is in only passable shape. The main issue is the amount of grain and imperfections in the image; I Saw What You Did is one of Scream Factory's lesser looking titles. That being said, the image is generally crisp with solid blacks and bright whites. The soundtrack is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 Mono in English. Bonus features include a photo gallery and a theatrical trailer.

I'm not going to say that I Saw What You Did is terrible—it's certainly palatable enough Friday night feature—but, as a horror movie, it's a complete and utter failure. Any tension is sucked away by the almost laughable music score and (mile spoiler alert) Joan Crawford bows out halfway through the film, leaving audiences with a rather limp third act. If you are a fan of this film, Scream Factory's usual strengths aren't on display here—the transfer isn't great, the audio is decent, and extra features are almost non-existent.

The Verdict

I Saw What You Did and I can't say I liked it very much.

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