River's Edge (1987)

The most frightening thing isn't always a crime itself, but the way no one seems to care. Tim Hunter's "River's Edge," written by Neal Jimenez, is a haunting film made even more unsettling by the fact that it was inspired by a real case, the 1981 killing of a teenage girl in Milpitas, California. In a dreary small town, troubled teen Samson (Daniel Roebuck) kills his girlfriend, Jamie, for no apparent reason, then leaves her body by the river and brings his friends to see it as proof. They look, they talk, but no one seems able to feel anything. At its heart, it's a study of young people so numbed by drugs, absent parents and a sense of looming doom that even death fails to move them. A young Keanu Reeves is surprisingly assured as Matt, the one member of the group with a shred of conscience left, and his quiet performance holds the film together even as Crispin Glover and Dennis Hopper go as wild as they can. Glover nearly steals the show as Layne, the group's jittery, speed-fueled leader, whose nervous giggles undercut his tough-guy posturing and whose line readings are both frightening and darkly funny, as when he complains that helping hide the body should at least earn him a beer. Hopper plays Feck, a reclusive former biker with a dark past of his own, and Ione Skye co-stars. It isn't a pleasant film, but it's a gripping one, and it won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature.