I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
Directed by Jim Gillespie
The late 90s saw the reemergence of the slasher movie. Movies like Scream, Urban Legend and I Know What You Did Last Summer breathed new life into the genre and brought in new fans. It was 1997 and I was in 5th grade. My love for horror movies was in its infancy. I always loved Godzilla movies and I was scared shitless by Child’s Play. For some reason I was instantly drawn to I Know What You Did Last Summer. I needed to watch it, and I’m not sure now if I even know why. This movie turned 20 on October 17th, yes you read that correct…TWENTY.
The plot centers around a group of 4 friends that accidentally kill a man by hitting him with their car. They decided to take the man’s body and dump it into the ocean. A year after they dump the body, they start getting odd letters and messages saying “I Know What You Did Last Summer” on them. The man is back and he’s seeking vengeance for being left for dead by the teenagers. Nothing too special, basically your run of the mill slasher story.
Playing the group of “teenagers” we get the gorgeous Jennifer Love Hewitt playing Julie the main character, Freddie Prinze Jr playing her boyfriend Ray, Ryan Philippe playing Barry the foul mouthed rich boy, and Sarah Michelle Gellar playing beauty queen Helen. The acting is basically what you would expect from the late 90s teen movies. As much as I was in love with Jennifer Love Hewitt back in the day, she’s not a great actress but her awesome cleavage in this movie kind of makes up for that. That seems to be a common joke about this movie and my friend Craig once said “That movie can be summed up with one thing…’push up bra’”. Freddie Prinze Jr. is hammy in every movie he’s in, each character he plays in any movie is the same. If he wasn’t a pretty boy, I honestly don’t think he would have had much of a career. Sarah Michelle Gellar is probably the strongest actor in the movie, so that really tells you how solid the rest of the cast is haha. Ryan Phillippe’s character of Barry is one of my most hated in all of horror movies. I couldn’t wait for this tool to die when I watched this back in the day and now I still couldn’t wait. He acts like he’s a badass and drops the F bomb basically every other word. The fish hook wielding killer Ben Willis, is played by Muse Watson, and really there’s not much to talk about, he doesn’t even have many lines. It is also worth noting that Johnny Galecki aka Leonard from Big Bang Theory is also in this movie, as a side character named Max that has a crush on Julie (but who didn’t back in 1997 right?). It amazes me how well each of the 4 main characters have aged in this movie. Jennifer Love Hewitt is still very attractive, Gellar basically looks the same, and I don’t think Prinze and Phillippe have aged at all. Hell even Galecki looks exactly the same!
The dialogue is painful in some spots. Helen’s sister Elsa has some really bad conversations with Helen in some scenes. Her character is written terribly as well, she’s basically a bitch even when Helen runs for her life and takes refuge in her store. Probably the scene that is the most inadvertently funny is when Julie checks her trunk, only to find a dead body with crabs all over it. She then runs to Helen and Barry that check her trunk, and the body is gone. Julie becomes frustrated and says the killer is watching and he’s just toying with them, then she yells “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!” It makes me laugh every time because of how clunky and wooden it is delivered and how idiotic it sounds. That infamous scene was parodied a few years later in Scary Movie, classic!
Special effects are always a huge deal in slasher movies but in this movie, they’re kind of lacking. We get a little bit of bloody but nothing too gruesome. Scream has much more gore than this movie. If it wasn’t for Barry’s 1,000,000,000 f-bombs this movie could be rated PG-13. There isn’t any nudity, there isn’t much blood and the kills are rather tame. If you’re looking for a gory bloodbath, look elsewhere. There is one scene that is effective that I always remember from the movie. Helen is hiding in her sister’s store when the killer walks by carrying Elsa on the fishing hook. It is a simple shot but haunting.
I can’t believe this movie is now 20 years old. That makes me feel so damn old. Every time I watch this, the cornier I think it is. I think this is a case of loving a movie as a kid, coming back to watch it as an adult and realizing it isn’t as great as you originally thought. The story is cliché, the dialogue is just horrid and the acting is product of its time and it is obvious. The horrid sequel is by far worse and shouldn’t be viewed by anyone. Although this movie is pretty average in hindsight, it will always hold a special place in my heart as the movie that fueled my horror movie obsession. Really it helped boost my love for slasher movies and for that I thank it. I really can’t give this any more than a C. It isn’t good, it is not bad at all but a product of the late 90s and a time capsule to that odd decade. If you haven’t seen it, watch it because it is a pillar of the slasher genre, Scream is probably better but this deserves recognition as well.
