At some point in 1997 was the last time I’ve seen Jim Gillespie’s dreadful horror ripoff I Know What You Did Last Summer, a film that has itself been ripped off in some way or another time and again. And while the upcoming thriller Depravity has enough talent behind it to save it from being anywhere similar to that brand of routine drivel, I was still reminded of it, and that’s half of the battle.
Even more easy comparisons could be made about a pretty and popular leading lady, but I’ll leave the similarities alone. Deadline reports actress Katharine McPhee is attached to star in Depravity, which will be the directorial debut for Paul Tamasy, who was the screenwriter for such disparate movies as The Fighter and Air Bud. The script was written by best-selling author Dennis Lehane, whose novels Gone Baby Gone and Mystic River were adapted into critically acclaimed films.
Depravity follows a group of roommates who accidentally kill a man that they think is a thrill killer. The act “sends the group into a world unhinged from any moral compass, one in which they may be forced to confront not only the evil around them but the evil within them as well.” Usually I like to summarize a film’s plotline, but that sounded like it was written with such earnestness that I can hardly attempt to mess it up. McPhee will play a twentysomething-year-old scapegoat for the group. Doesn’t sound like a huge role, or a very complicated movie, but we’ll see.
After a few years of appearing in films such as Shark Night 3D and Peace, Love & Misunderstanding, McPhee hit the spotlight in the NBC musical drama Smash, which was cancelled earlier this year. Lehane, meanwhile, wrote the short story and screenplay for Michel Roskam’s crime drama Animal Rescue, which is set to hit theaters next year.
