The 1997 film adaptation:
- Ability over Appearance: Word of God is that Barry was written to be a lot more physically imposing, with a Heroic Build (and to be over six feet tall). Ryan Phillippe was cast, despite being shorter and having a more slender frame, because he was able to bring the aggression and believably intimidate.
- Actor-Inspired Element: Muse Watson suggested putting pictures of Ben Willis and his daughter on the boat to "make it real".
- Actor-Shared Background: A sad example. Anne Heche lost a brother to suicide just like Missy does in the film.
- Blooper: As Julie runs towards Ray's boat, she can be heard mistakenly calling out "Freddie" instead of "Ray".
- California Doubling: According to the license plates, the movie takes place in North Carolina. The coastal scenes were filmed in Sonoma County, California. Other scenes however were filmed in Southport, which is in North Carolina. And naturally the one shot of Julie's college in Boston is of Duke University, also in North Carolina.
- Cast the Runner-Up: Jennifer Love Hewitt claimed in an interview that she was originally going to be Helen and Sarah Michelle Gellar Julie, but she protested that her mother would be sad to see her killed off so tragically, and so their roles were swapped.
- Christmas Rushed: The film was rushed into production to get it ready for Halloween 1997. Less extreme than a lot of examples, but shooting lasted ten weeks and the whole thing was ready in about six months.
- Completely Different Title: The French title is Souviens-toi... l'été dernier ("Remember... last summer").
- That's nothing compared to the Canadian-French title, Le Pacte du Silence ("The Silence Pact").
- Dawson Casting:
- Ryan Phillippe was twenty-two playing Barry. This would be more in line with the book, where Barry is a bit older than the others.
- Sarah Michelle Gellar was twenty, and Helen is 18-19. But as there's a year Time Skip, Helen's age matches Sarah's afterwards.
- Freddie Prinze Jr. was twenty-one. Again after the Time Skip, his age basically matches Ray's.
- Inverted for Jennifer Love Hewitt - who was two years younger than Julie is supposed to be. Again, this would be in line with the book, where Julie is the youngest and is about to graduate when the story happens.
- Max isn't said to be a teen, but some dialogue implies he's the same age as the friends. Johnny Galecki was twenty-one.
- Disowned Adaptation: Lois Duncan has openly stated she detests the movie, as she was appalled that they turned her suspense novel in which the only death is the hit-and-run that sets off the plot into a Slasher Movie (see In Name Only on the main page), especially in light of her own daughter, Kaitlyn Arquette, being murdered in 1989. The only silver lining she was able to find in it was that it made people seek out the book and her other writing, giving her career a second wind. Even so, it's telling that the sequel didn't credit her for the use of her (remaining) characters."As the mother of a murdered child, I don't find violent death something to squeal and giggle about."
- Dyeing for Your Art: Freddie Prinze Jr wasn't wanted for the role of Ray because he looked "too soft" and "not muscular enough". After multiple failed auditions, he bulked up and got a haircut to win the part. He and Ryan Phillippe had to work out religiously during filming and go on daily runs to get in shape.
- Enforced Method Acting:
- Muse Watson and Jennifer Love Hewitt avoided each other so the latter would be more uneasy of him in their scenes. Jennifer did however make him a gift to hang on the wall at a local pottery craft place.
- The director didn't want Jennifer Love Hewitt to see what was inside the trunk until the scene was filmed, to get a better surprise reaction. She and Johnny Galecki had been friends as children but hadn't seen each other in years and due to shoot order hadn't yet encountered each other on set. Being suddenly confronted with his 'dead body' (a body cast) covered in crabs was legitimately upsetting for her and they paused shooting to track him down on the phone to say hello after that.
- Executive Meddling: The studio wanted the film to be gorier, which Jim Gillespie didn't. Specifically for Elsa's death, they wanted it re-shot to make it more graphic. They compromised by adding a scene of Elsa's blood splashing against the window without showing the actual death.
- Follow the Leader: Kevin Williamson actually wrote this script before Scream (1996) but had trouble selling it. After the success of Scream it was immediately bought. It's assumed that Urban Legend was inspired by this one.
- Harpo Does Something Funny: Anne Heche says her experience on the film was two days' work that just required her to "be scary".
- Hostility on the Set: Years later, Freddie Prinze Jr confessed that Jim Gillespie hated him, since he wasn't his first choice for the role of Ray, and went out of his way to demean and antagonise him on the set. After one near-death experience (see below), he nearly walked off the film.
- Irony as She Is Cast: Joss Whedon has said that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created as a subversion of the helpless blonde who would inevitably be killed by the monster. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays that very character type, and did so while filming Season 2 of Buffy.
- Missing Trailer Scene: The trailer has a shot from the "What are you waiting for?" scene where Helen says "The wait is over" which isn't in the final film.
- No Stunt Double: A negative example. To save money, they sent the stunt crew home when filming a scene of Ray driving a dinghy. Jim Gillespie knew that Freddie Prinze Jr knew how to drive a speedboat, and assumed it was the same thing, and so asked him to perform the stunt himself. He fell out of the boat and nearly got killed by the outboard motor.
- Not Screened for Critics: The film was actually not given a pre-screening for the press, leading to many assuming it was "no good". They got a surprise when it shot straight to number one at the Box Office.
- Playing Against Type: It is very surprising to see Sarah Michelle Gellar - normally an Action Girl that evoked Buffy Summers in some way, or else her previous typecasting as a mean girl on All My Children (and Cruel Intentions the next year) - as a dainty beauty queen in contrast to a more obvious Final Girl.
- Pop-Culture Urban Legends: Allegedly Jennifer Love Hewitt was first cast as Helen, and Sarah Michelle Gellar as Julie but protested that her mother wouldn't like to see her get killed off - and the actresses apparently swapped roles. Other reports say that Jennifer was merely considered for Helen but got cast as Julie immediately, while Sarah was one of the last people to be cast.
- Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Sarah Michelle Gellar had her hair cut shorter, and dyed blonder, for her part in Scream 2, which was filmed around the same time; she wore hair extensions for the first half of the film, and the killer then cuts her hair (notably in the book it's based on, Helen's defining characteristic is her long hair).
- Referenced by...: In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm", the Bikini Bottomites' furor over the titular worm is briefly interrupted by an ominous-looking hook-handed fisherman who scrapes his hook against the window, combining a plot point from Jaws with the design of this film's titular villain. It turns out that this fisherman just wants to find the bathroom.
- Romance on the Set: Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. met while filming, and eventually married. Hilariously enough, Ray and Helen only interact twice in the whole film. They didn't however get together until two years after the film came out.
- Saved from Development Hell: The rights to the novel were purchased by Ray Stark in 1974.
- Star-Making Role:
- Jennifer Love Hewitt was on the rise with a role in Party of Five but the success of the first film really made her famous.
- Ryan Phillippe was only known for One Life to Live beforehand, but this put him on the map in the 90s. Cruel Intentions was even greenlit as a vehicle for him.
- Anne Heche also did quite well out of it, with many critics praising her performance. This got her lead roles in Return To Paradise and Six Days, Seven Nights.
- Throw It In!:
- The Shivers Department store was made to feature more prominently in the film after Jim Gillespie was so impressed with the location.
- The "what are you waiting for?" moment was requested by a teenage fan who had won a contest. The line however was already in the script, and Julie turning on the spot while she says it wasn't.
- When shooting the climax aboard the boat, they forgot Julie was wearing a sweater when she gets on and just a tank top by the end. They hurriedly filmed a short scene where Julie takes off the sweater as leverage to open a door below deck.
- What Could Have Been:
- Melissa Joan Hart claims she turned down a role, because she thought the movie was just "a rip-off of Scream (1996)."
- Reese Witherspoon auditioned but changed her mind and withdrew. She did however recommend her then-boyfriend Ryan Phillippe for the role of Barry.
- Jeremy Sisto was Jim Gillespie's preferred choice for Ray, but Kevin Williamson and the producers favoured Freddie Prinze Jr.
- Due to the killer's resemblance to the Gorton's Fisherman mascot, there was originally a line from one of the characters comparing him to "the fish stick guy". Jim Gillespie cut it, not wanting the joke to ruin the movie's tension.
- An alternate ending to the film would have Julie on the computer, receiving an email that said "I still know." This was later used as a preview for the sequel.
- Max's death wasn't added until re-shoots. Word of God says that it was needed to show that the killer was an actual threat to the protagonists.
- A reboot has been in the works for years, the script penned by Mike Flanagan and Jeff Howard.
- Writer Revolt: Jim Gillespie hated the original ending and deliberately shot it "as boring as possible" in the hopes it would be changed. Sure enough, test audiences deemed it anticlimactic, and it was re-shot.
- Write What You Know: Kevin Williamson made the movie take place in a fishing village and had the killer wear a fisherman's slicker, inspired by his own father (who had been a fisherman).
Lois Duncan's original novel:
- Life Imitates Art: Lois Duncan's own daughter was murdered in a drive-by shooting in 1989.
