(Though the two recently filed for divorce after 13 years of marriage, both say they will remain a film-making team.) But her start as an actress, when she came to Los Angeles from Detroit in 1977, hardly foretold her career's real promise. Shea's confidence is understandable, considering that she learned directing by the seat of her pants and has made five movies in five years with her partner, Mr. I just know that if I really love it, there's going to be a market for it." I told them I can only make movies for myself. I'm out to prove it's possible to make a film that's really artistic, that's an honest expression that comes from me and that can still be commercial. Shea, a slender woman with a mane of red hair, says: "I always told New Line it was going to be different from what they thought. The rest found it beneath consideration." "At an early screening of 'Poison Ivy,' half the audience thought it should be seen and talked about it. They have a consistent and coherent sensibility, and I thought it would make sense to show her work as a body." He acknowledges that his opinion is not universally shared. "Her movies touch something deep in the psyche. "Katt's work is distinctive for its style, rhythm, the progression of its narrative," says Larry Kardish, a curator of film at the museum. "Poison Ivy " had its New York premiere at the museum last Thursday, capping a four-day program of Ms. Next the Museum of Modern Art got into the act. "People were asking: 'Why did you show this violence against women? Why did you show this man seducing a minor? Isn't that child abuse?' " "Katt was really under attack," recounts Mary Brennan, a curator of the Seattle festival. Shea was bombarded with hostile quesitions at the postfilm Q. Later in January, at the Seattle International Festival of Women Directors, where it was also shown, most of the audience was furious that a female director would create something as politically incorrect as "Poison Ivy" was perceived to be. Viewers at Sundance were either enraptured or insulted, and "Poison Ivy" became one of the most controversial films at the festival. Then it started to take on a life of its own. The film was barely completed in time for the Sundance Film Festival in January. They're very talented and very creative." Ruben, who adds, "We loved working with the New Line people. "They fought us every step of the way," says Mr.
The script went through three drafts there were four separate endings, and there was reportedly plenty of sturm und drang on the set. Shea for the first time had the means to indulge her vision: telling a sensational story in a personal, idiosyncratic idiom.
Corman, the films all did well at the box office costing less than $500,000 on average, they made between $5 million and $10 million each.) With a budget for "Poison Ivy" of $3 million and well-known leads - Drew Barrymore, Tom Skerritt, Cheryl Ladd and Sara Gilbert (a regular on "Roseanne") - Ms. The production values were erratic, and the sound was terrible but many critics detected an outrageously offbeat sensibility. Three of those films - "Stripped to Kill," "Dance of the Damned" and "Stripped to Kill II" - were set in topless bars and featured prolonged, erotic dance sequences as well as imaginatively grotesque violence. Corman's Concorde Pictures - should have tipped off New Line to the ruckus that lay in store. Shea's four previous films - all released by Mr. Shea and the film's producer, Andy Ruben), the only thing "garden variety" about "Poison Ivy" is its name.Ī cursory look at Ms. With a Gothic plot that touches on murder, incest, lesbianism, alcoholism and suicide, a sophisticated look and literate script (written by Ms.
What the studio got instead was a bombshell that caused an uproar at two film festivals, had its New York premiere at the Museum of Modern Art and provoked reactions that range from "laughingly bad" to "brilliant and powerfully disturbing." In Katt Shea's hands, "Poison Ivy," which opens on Friday, has turned into the story of a sexy, manipulative 15-year-old who insinuates herself into a troubled family and wreaks havoc. Shea was a "teen-age 'Fatal Attraction,' " according to Sara Risher, the president of production. A basic idea had been brought to New Line by the independent producers Melissa Goddard and Peter Morgan, and what the film company wanted from Ms. New Line was aiming for a garden-variety exploitation picture with teen-age appeal when it hired Katt Shea, a 35-year-old Roger Corman alumna, to direct a film about the friendship between two girls and how it goes bad. From "Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles" to "Nightmare on Elm Street" to "House Party," the studio has generally zeroed in on a specific audience and tailored its film accordingly. New Line Cinema has become a hugely successful independent film company by knowing what it wants and going after it.
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