The director moved from Roger Corman’s B-movie trenches to searing portraits of teen rebellion and urban decay—with one foot always in the underground.
Jonathan Kaplan, the director who brought us Isaac Hayes as a bounty hunter and launched Matt Dillon into Gen X iconhood, has died at the age of 77. According to his daughter Molly Kaplan, the filmmaker passed away Friday at his Los Angeles home due to advanced liver cancer.
Though later known for mainstream hits like The Accused and his Emmy-nominated work on ER, Kaplan first made his mark in the 1970s with a streak of low-budget films that would grow into cult cornerstones. Whether directing Isaac Hayes through a bullet-riddled Los Angeles in Truck Turner or giving disaffected teenagers the screen’s most honest portrayal of suburban unrest in Over the Edge, Kaplan’s early work remains his most vital—and most volatile.
From Corman’s School of Mayhem
Born in Paris in 1947 to industry parents—composer Sol Kaplan and actress Frances Heflin—Kaplan was raised amid Hollywood royalty (his uncle was Oscar winner Van Heflin), but his directing career was forged in the Roger Corman trenches. After studying film at NYU under Martin Scorsese, he was handpicked by Corman for a debut gig that would set the tone: Night Call Nurses (1972), a sexploitation flick as chaotic as its title implies.
But Kaplan stood out. He was fast, economical, and surprisingly sharp with actors. Corman tapped him again for The Student Teachers and The Slams before giving him a sleeper hit in Truck Turner (1974).
Truck Turner: Funk, Firefights, and Full-Tilt Blaxploitation
In Truck Turner, Kaplan elevated what could’ve been a throwaway revenge flick into something vibrant. Starring soul legend Isaac Hayes as a bounty hunter with a bullet for every problem, the film married gritty shootouts with funky bravado. It was violent, ridiculous, and unshakably cool—with a soundtrack composed by Hayes himself that still bangs. Nichelle Nichols (yes, Uhura from Star Trek) showed up as a foul-mouthed madam in one of the wildest pivots in ’70s cult casting.
For fans of the genre, Truck Turner remains a gold standard of exploitation done right: absurd in all the right ways, but made with genuine craft.
Over the Edge: The Youth Are Not Alright
Kaplan’s crowning achievement in the 1970s came just before the decade ended—with Over the Edge (1979), a scalding teen rebellion drama that flopped on release but found new life through cable and VHS. Shot in real housing developments in Colorado and featuring then-unknown Matt Dillon in his screen debut, the film dramatized the simmering violence of bored suburban kids left to rot in prefabricated communities.
Inspired by a real-life juvenile crime wave in California, Over the Edge rejected Hollywood polish in favor of messy, bracing realism. Kaplan cast mostly non-actors, capturing the tension and boredom of adolescence with unnerving precision. Studio execs, worried about copycat violence, buried the release. But fans didn’t forget. Over the decades, the film has been cited by everyone from Richard Linklater to Gummo-era Harmony Korine as an essential influence.
Beyond the Grindhouse
Kaplan transitioned into more conventional fare in the ’80s and ’90s, directing Jodie Foster to an Oscar in The Accused and helming tense thrillers like Unlawful Entry and Love Field. But even at his slickest, he retained a certain outsider sensibility. His characters—whether teens, victims, or vigilantes—were often angry, alienated, and one bad decision away from going off the rails.
On TV, Kaplan was a major force behind ER, directing dozens of episodes and sharing multiple Emmy nominations with John Wells and Michael Crichton. Yet for cult audiences, his legacy lives in street-level films that told wild, reckless, and sometimes painfully real stories, long before prestige came calling.
A B-Movie Craftsman with Cult Cred
Kaplan is survived by his daughter Molly, his sister Nora Heflin, and nieces Hannah and Eliza. His sister Mady Kaplan, who acted in Project X, died previously. He was married to casting director Julie Selzer, his collaborator on The Accused, from 1987 until their divorce in 2001.
While Hollywood may remember Kaplan as the director who brought social realism to courtroom dramas and hospital corridors, midnight-movie diehards will remember him as something else entirely: the guy who gave Isaac Hayes a shotgun, handed a megaphone to teen rage, and never flinched from the noise.