I Know What You Did Last Summer

From the moment I turned on I Know What You Did Last Summer I knew I would like it. Why, you ask? The first few notes of Type O Negative’s version of Summer Breeze had me hooked. It’s crazy how a movie soundtrack can make or break a movie. And I really like the soundtrack to this movie. But then again I feel like the 90’s had a lot of good slasher horror movies. 80’s horror is still the best (in my opinion obviously) but I think the 90’s is a close second.

<img src="I-Know-What-You-Did-Last-Summer-note.png" alt="I Know What You Did Last Summer note.">

Photo Credit: Mandalay Entertainment

Released: Oct 17, 1997

Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins

Director: Jim Gillespie

Writer: Lois Duncan, Kevin Williamson

Actors: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Anne Heche

PLOT

Four young friends bound by a tragic accident are reunited when they find themselves being stalked by a hook-wielding maniac in their small seaside town.

MY THOUGHTS

There are six kills in I Know What You Did Last Summer. Granted, they are not bloody or even gory for a slasher movie. And somewhat mild compared to 80’s horror. But I kind of dig it. For the most memorable would have to be Helen’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) death. She was so close to getting away that it’s frustrating. Plus, every time I see her death it’s hard because I see Buffy the Vampire Slayer instead of Helen. And that Buffy would never go out like that. The rest are kind of meh because the kills are either off screen or just basic.

I Know What You Did Last Summer had a beautiful cast. Yes, a lot of pretty people. But, I also think they each did a pretty good job with their roles. Even though Barry (Ryan Phillippe) was an ass at times, he still had his likable moments.  I think the weakest was Freddie Prinze Jr. as Ray. I just didn’t feel he had a strong character

We start the movie with a young man getting drunk at the edge of a cliff. Then we switch to four friends celebrating the fourth of July in a small fishing town. They end up at a beach, drinking, and telling stories and sharing their dreams. On the way home they accidentally hit a man, thinking they killed him. They dump his body and swear not to ever talk about it again.

The movie fast forwards a year and nobody is happy, and nobody's dreams are coming true. Julie comes home from college, failing and looking rather ill. Helen, who went to NYC to become an actress, is already back home working at her family store. Julie gets a mysterious note that alludes to what happened the previous summer. She talks to Helen and Barry, but Barry, ever the jerk, thinks it's one of the fishermen who had a crush on Julie, but we soon learn it’s not. He gets quickly dispatched by the killer.

Barry has a run in with the killer when the killer leaves a note and steals his jacket. Then hits him with a car, but doesn’t kill him. Just lets Barry know that he could kill him at any time. Since Barry ends up in the hospital, Julie and Helen do some research and find out that the man they think they ran over was a David Egan. They go to his home to talk to his sister and find out someone had stopped by after his death claiming to be his friend.

That night Helen, while sleeping, is visited by the killer and with scissors, cuts her hair. The next morning Julie hears about it and heads to Helen’s. Halfway there she hears scratching from the trunk. Pulling over she finds Max, the fisherman with a crush, dead in her trunk with a lot of crabs. She runs to Helen’s and brings both Helen and Barry to her car, only to have the body missing. 

The big town parade is happening and Helen has to participate. Barry stays with her to protect her and Julie goes back to David’s house to see if she can figure out the guy who stopped by. She doesn’t find out, but she does find out that he didn’t have a tattoo, which the person they hit did have. She starts figuring out what really happened the previous year.

While Helen is preceding over the pageant, Barry is murdered in the balcony. Of course, nobody believes her and a cop takes her home. She doesn’t make it there, and ends up at her family's store where her bitchy sister is working. The killer dispatches with the sister fairly easily, but it takes more to kill Helen. Though eventually she dies as well.

It all culminates on a boat with Julie, Ray, and Ben Willis fighting it out. Obviously they end it with an ambiguous ending to leave it open for a sequel (which there are two sequels. One a straight sequel from this and the other it’s own movie. Plus, there’s an Amazon TV show, which has nothing to do with the movie. And pretty crappy as well.)

I Know What You Did Last Summer is based on a young adult book by Lois Duncan. I know I read it when I was younger. I read all of the books by Christopher Pike, R.L. Stine, as well as Duncan. Though I really don’t remember much about the book.

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I wanted to take a quick break to let you know I found these great deals on Amazon for I Know What You Did Last Year merchandise. I’ve applied to Amazon’s affiliate program and if I can get three purchases I will be accepted into the program. This will be of tremendous help with starting my small business.

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Overall, I enjoyed this movie. There aren’t a lot of kills or even blood but I liked the story and the actors. This came out during the phase of several really good young adult, slasher style movies. Other movies that were good too are Scream, Urban Legends, and The Faculty. If you like these types of movies and haven’t seen I Know What You Did Last Summer, I recommend watching it. It’s pretty good.

And now for your Forever Final Girl Exclusive…Did you know?:

  • Kevin Williamson wrote this script before Scream (1996), but was unable to sell it. Following the big screen success of his next screenplay, "Scream," Columbia Pictures immediately bought I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). This is the reason many critics and fans felt this was a huge step down from his more clever and innovative Scream scripts.

  • The ice inside the storage of the boat was actually made of gelatin so Jennifer Love Hewitt could comfortably move around inside.

  • Writer Lois Duncan was vehemently opposed to her young adult novel being reworked into a slasher film, stating she was "appalled" in one interview. This was due to the fact that her youngest daughter was murdered by an unknown assailant in 1989. She said, "As the mother of a murdered child, I don't find violent death something to squeal and giggle about." Her original book wasn't that far off from a slasher though: it's still a bunch of guilty teenagers being stalked and terrorized by a murderous madman. It's just that nobody dies in her version, so in that sense it's more like an old school mystery. The movie was a blockbuster though, spawning several sequels and even talk of a tv series; and all this didn't hurt Duncan's book sales which quadrupled 10-fold after the classic 90s slasher came out!

  • Aside from the characters' names and the teens hitting someone with their car, the plot is almost completely different from the original novel. In the novel they did not hit a fisherman but a young boy who was the brother of one of Helen's new friends. In addition, no one dies in the book. Barry is shot with a gun but survives and Julie comes to a close encounter and is almost choked by Collie, the boy's brother, but Ray hits him with a flashlight.

  • The rocky roads surrounding Dawson's Beach where Julie, Ray, Helen and Barry have their hit and run, and later Julie travels across frequently is the same mountainous road location used in the Alfred Hitchcock classic 'The Birds' (1963).

  • Sarah Michelle Gellar co-starred in this film with now-husband Freddie Prinze Jr.. They first met while filming.

  • Johnny Galecki used to know Jennifer Love Hewitt, they lived in the same apartment building when he was doing National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), "I was about 13 or 14. She and my little sister were friends, so I knew her a little bit."

  • Jennifer Love Hewitt strongly disliked horror films prior to making I Know What You Did Last Summer. Currently, her only other horror role has been in the film's 1998 sequel.

  • The final sequence on the boat was shot on an actual water-bound vessel on the Cape Fear River, which proved difficult for the actors and crew. According to Gillespie, the filmmakers nearly lost the boat while attempting to dock it due to the volatile waters, after which they were forced to leave and shoot other footage until the following day.

  • The scene in which the four friends are seated around a campfire on the beach next to a wrecked boat was inspired by a painting Jim Gillespie had seen in a reference book; to achieve the image, the art department purchased an old boat in Bodega Bay, cut it in half, and placed it at the beach location.

  • The film is included on Roger Ebert's "Most Hated" list.

  • One scene shows Julie at her breaking point, twirling around and asking the killer what it's waiting for, even though he's nowhere to be seen so it looks like she's talking to the air. And when speaking with Us Weekly in 2018, Jennifer Love Hewitt revealed that that iconic scene was a kid's idea. "That scene was actually directed by a kid who won a contest to come on and create a moment for the movie, and it became the biggest part of the movie," she shared. She said that she had "no idea" where he was now, but that she wasn't thrilled about the idea of the scene at first. "He's like I want her to stand in the street and turn around and just scream. 'What are you waiting for, huh?'" Love Hewitt said. "I was literally like, 'Are you kidding me right now? This is what I'm gonna do? OK. This was a great idea.'"

  • When Helen is being chased and her sister opens the front door, she says "you could have walked around to the Broad Street entrance, it's open". It's barely audible because Helen was screaming and frantically locking the door. The killer heard this and that's how he got inside of Shiver's to kill Elsa.

Have you seen the other I Know What You Did Last Year movies? Check out my other reviews here: I Know What You Did Last Summer Franchise.

Let’s get into the rankings:

Kills/Blood/Gore: 2.5/5

Sex/Nudity: 0/5

Scare factor: 3/5

Enjoyment factor: 5/5

My Rank: 3.5/5

IMDB: 5.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes: critics:  4.1/10  audience:  3.9/10

Letterboxd: 2.9/5