{"id":12546,"date":"2025-07-15T01:01:36","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T05:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=12546"},"modified":"2025-07-15T01:01:36","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T05:01:36","slug":"i-know-what-you-did-last-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/07\/15\/i-know-what-you-did-last-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"I Know What You Did Last Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I Know What You Did Last Summer<\/strong> (1997)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 101 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong horror violence and language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jim Gillespie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kevin Williamson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Debney\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Denis Crossan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 17, 1007 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr., Johnny Galecki, Bridgette Wilson, Anne Heche, Muse Watson.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $72.5M (US)\/$126M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0The slasher (or \u201cDead Teenager\u201d) film, thought to be all but extinct by 1990, came back with a hilarious vengeance with Wes Craven\u2019s 1996 self-aware satire Scream. It was a brilliant goof on a genre defined by a specific set of rules and the idiotic characters who break them at every turn. It made a lot of money and opened the door for a revival of bloody horror movies populated by dim teens.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The first out of the gate was I Know What You Did Last Summer<\/strong>, a mostly effective, non-satirical horror-thriller written by Scream scribe Kevin Williamson. It was his involvement that got the studio in hot water. In order to build anticipation, Columbia included the tagline \u201cFrom the creator of Scream\u201d on the poster in the beginning stage of their marketing campaign. Miramax, the distributor of Scream, quickly filed a lawsuit claiming it to be misleading as it suggested Craven\u2019s involvement. Williamson himself asked that it be removed as well. A federal judge subsequently ordered Columbia to remove the offending tagline from all advertising.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Loosely based on the 1973 novel by Lois Duncan, I Know What You Did Last Summer <\/strong>centers on four teens- brainy Julie (Hewitt, Party of Five), beauty queen Helen (Gellar, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), d-bag jock Barry (Phillippe, Cruel Intentions) and decent guy Ray (Prinze, She\u2019s All That)- with a terrible secret. While drunkenly celebrating July 4, they accidentally hit a pedestrian while driving recklessly on a dark road. Believing him to be dead, they decide to cover up their misdeed by dumping the body in the ocean lest their futures be destroyed. The problem is the victim isn\u2019t completely dead. They throw his body in the water anyway then make a vow never to speak of it again.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One year later, the secret has taken its toll on Julie, a pale shell of her former self. Wracked with guilt, she shut down emotionally after that fateful night. She comes home from college for the first time in a year only to be asked by her mother if she\u2019s on drugs. Then she receives a letter that rocks her world. It\u2019s a note consisting of seven words. Can you guess what they might be? Here\u2019s a wee hint, look at the title. Understandably freaked, she decides to track down her former friends and warn them somebody knows what they did last summer.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The incident has affected the others as well. Helen, who was going to pursue an acting career in New York, is still in town working in the family store. Her ex Barry is still a giant a**hole. Julie\u2019s ex Barry works as a fisherman. It soon becomes clear somebody is stalking them, but who?<\/p>\n

\u00a0While they try to solve the mystery, somebody in a slicker is offing people with a hook. Now you\u2019d think that somebody dressed like that would stand out, right? Not in this case. The action takes place in a coastal fishing town in North Carolina. Lots of people wear rain slickers and there\u2019s no shortage of hooks. Go to the dock and you\u2019ll see lots of people wearing such attire.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I Know What You Did Last Summer<\/strong> is directed by Jim Gillespie making his feature film debut. His resume includes the DTV Sylvester Stallone actioner Eye See You (2002, aka D-Tox) and the 2005 horror Venom. It not only got the slasher genre going again, it also gave rise to horror movies (e.g. Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later, The Faculty) featuring actors from WB\/CW teen dramas (e.g. Dawson\u2019s Creek, 7th<\/sup> Heaven, etc.). It\u2019s one of the better ones. Gillespie infuses it with plenty of suspense, throws in a few good jump-scares and splashes a little blood on it. And when I say little, I mean it. That\u2019s the one thing I didn\u2019t like about these late 90s horror movies. Where\u2019s the gore? That, of course, is a rhetorical question. These films are really meant to be date movies. Scary enough that the girl will cling closer to the guy, but not gory enough to make her puke up her popcorn and Diet Coke all over him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Hewitt delivers a surprisingly good performance as Julie, the one affected the most by the incident. She\u2019s the only one who wanted to call the police when it happened, but she was outvoted not to mention intimidated by Barry the bully. She realistically portrays a girl consumed by guilt. She\u2019s emotionally closed off and completely freaked out at the same time. The scene where she finally loses it (\u201cWHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, HUH? WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOOOOORRRR?!\u201d) is cathartic for both her and the audience.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Phillippe is completely convincing as an arrogant, entitled sociopath who bullies his way through every situation. He\u2019s the nightmare high school boyfriend who typically gets dumped shortly after graduation. Gellar is pretty good as the popular, pretty girl who always got by on her looks. Prinze does decently as Julie\u2019s nice guy ex who still likes her even if she doesn\u2019t want to be around him. A solid supporting cast includes Johnny Galecki (The Big Bang Theory), Anne Heche (Volcano) and Bridgette Wilson (Billy Madison).<\/p>\n

\u00a0I Know What You Did Last Summer<\/strong> is a decent teen horror flick, but it would be been more interesting if Gillespie spent a little more time exploring how the incident affected all four principals. He treats it in too superficial a manner. We see that it made Julie an emotional wreck. What about the others? Obviously, it doesn\u2019t matter much to Barry because he\u2019s clearly a narcissist who cares only about himself. We gets hints of what it did to Helen (she can\u2019t move on with her life) and Ray (he feels guilty), but it gets no deeper than that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I Know What You Did Last Summer<\/strong> benefits from a cool soundtrack and great cinematography by Denis Crossan. The opening shot has the camera dramatically swooping high above a stormy sea and coming to rest on a lonely figure sitting on a cliff overlooking the water. It sets the exact right mood of dread and gloom. If there\u2019s one thing this movie doesn\u2019t lack, it\u2019s atmosphere. It has a good story, replete with a twist or two, to go with it. Ultimately, it\u2019s a fun ride for teens who, unlike the ones in Scream, haven\u2019t seen too many horror movies.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 101 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong horror violence and language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jim Gillespie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kevin Williamson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Debney\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Denis Crossan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 17, 1007 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr., Johnny Galecki, Bridgette Wilson, Anne Heche, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/I-Know-What-You-Did-Last-Su.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12546"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12552,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12546\/revisions\/12552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}