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Posted in: Movies | Tagged: Dimension Films, film, kevin williamson, teaching mrs. tingle
Teaching Mrs. Tingle Director on the Film Needing to Change its Tone
Kevin Williamson reflects on his experience making the film Teaching Mrs. Tingle and explains how the film ultimately changed directions.
Article Summary
- Kevin Williamson discusses directing Teaching Mrs. Tingle after the success of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer
- The film was reworked after Columbine, shifting its tone from a dark comedy to a lighter, PG-13 story
- Williamson describes how the forced changes dulled the film's original edge and subversive intent
- Despite the edits, Helen Mirren's standout performance as Mrs. Tingle still shines in the final movie
When Teaching Mrs. Tingle was released in 1999, expectations were fairly high. Kevin Williamson, hot off the massive success of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, was stepping into the director's chair for the first time with a black comedy that leaned into the same blend of teen angst and twisted morality that had defined his earlier hits. But upon arrival, the film was met with lukewarm reviews and underwhelming box office numbers—a shift from the immense success that his previous screenplays received.
Now, in a recent conversation with Screen Rant, Williamson opened up about how the final version of the film diverged significantly from his original vision, largely due to the real-world context in which it was released.
Kevin Williamson on Making Teaching Mrs. Tingle a Lighter Movie
Teaching Mrs. Tingle, which follows a group of high school students who take their teacher hostage, was completed just as the Columbine High School shooting shook the nation. Suddenly, its sharp-edged premise was no longer seen as darkly comic, but dangerously provocative. Williamson explains, "We shot the entire film. It was a totally different movie—and then Columbine happened, and we went back in and re-shot the film, and tried to vanilla it a little bit… We sort of took the edges off of it, and we PG-13'd it. It went from a hard R to a [PG-13] movie, and it hurt to do that." He adds, "I changed the entire tone of the movie, which is not the tone I intended, but things happen."
The result was a softer, more diluted version of what Williamson originally intended—one that, according to him, lost the bite and subversive tone he had built into the script. Despite the changed direction of the film's final cut, Williamson still takes pride in parts of the movie, particularly Helen Mirren's performance in the title role. Though, in retrospect, Teaching Mrs. Tingle is another example of a production that was reshaped by a national trauma, and one that might have hit differently had it arrived in a different moment.
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