It’s Got ‘Creepy’ Written All Over It

The Scene: Tuesday’s premiere of Paramount’s “Kiss the Girls” on the studio lot with a lawn party afterward. The serial killer thriller--partially because it stars Morgan Freeman--has been compared to last year’s “Seven.” But not by the director. “ ‘Seven’ was about despair, hopelessness, decay and depression,” said Gary Fleder. “This is a movie that is relentlessly hopeful.”

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The Buzz: Some guests called the film “creepy,” which is probably the target response if you’re making a movie about a serial killer who imprisons young women.

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The Commercial Appeal: “This is the perfect date movie,” said guest Karen Croner. “After seeing it, no woman is going to want to go home alone.”

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Who Was There: The film’s stars, Freeman and Ashley Judd, who was with her mother, Naomi and sister, Wynonna; screenwriter David Klass; producers David Brown and Joe Wizan; plus 800 guests including Tom Arnold, Matthew Modine, J. T. Walsh, Jason Priestley, Richard Green, David Colden, John Burnham, Mike Marcus and studio execs Jonathan Dolgen, Sherry Lansing and Rob Friedman.

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Quoted: Ashley Judd on the film’s unsettling qualities--”It is really creepy. It even creeps me out. But what we have to remember is we’re animals hard-wired to experience adrenaline and other primal impulses we don’t encounter in contemporary society, unless we have a job like a fireman. This is one way we can participate in an intense, scary event.”

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Learning About Caste: “I visited the set and found out that a novelist ranks somewhere below the caterer,” said James Patterson, upon whose book the film is based. “They know why the caterer is there. They don’t know why the novelist is there.”

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Hollywood Clarified: One agent said his job consists of “talking on the phone, doing lunch and whooping when my client’s name comes on the screen. I think if I don’t whoop I get a lower commission.”

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Overheard: “I hear now that Fox owns the Dodgers, they’re going to rewrite the end of the season.”