I Know What You Did Last Summer

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When “Scream” made a big splash in 1996, it reinvigorated the slasher film for the 90’s. It also gave birth to a myriad of clones, and the first to follow on the heels of Scream, was another slasher flick, written by the same guy (Kevin “Dawson’s Creek” Williamson). “I Know What You Did Last Summer” hit theatres in 1997, and made even the most strong-willed movie goer jump out of their seats on more than one occasion.

This film creeps you out right from the start, as the opening credits appear as part of a swooping view of a rocky coastline. The background music is dark and daunting, as we close in on the side of a cliff, where a young man sits on the edge staring out at sea. By the way he’s dressed, we assume he’s a fisherman, and a sad, sullen look is all over his face.

Cue to a much happier scene, and we meet our four teenagers of this flick. A Teen Beauty Pageant is in full swing with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I mean Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) taking stage and winning the contest. Watching form the balcony is her boyfriend Barry, Ray and his girlfriend, Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt). It’s the 4^th of July on this fateful night, so after the pageant, the two couples hit the beach to drink and fool around. But not before gathering around a fire on the sandy beach, where Ray tells the story of a man with a hook. It’s one of those urban legend tales, you know; the couple in the car, the guy hears a noise outside, goes to investigate leaving his girlfriend in the car, who then hears another sound. It’s a scratching sound on the roof, or was it a dripping noise? Either way, the outcome was the boyfriend got killed by an escaped maniac with a hook. After the rest of the group dismiss the story as just a story, Ray is adamant the urban legend originated from some real life incident, as they all do. The irony of this story would later come back to haunt the teens, as they leave the beach and get in the car. 

Driving along the dark, seaside highway, Ray gets distracted by Barry and they hit something on the road. Getting out, they find a boot, covered in blood. Upon further looking, their worst nightmares are realised when they discover the body of a man lying in the ditch. He appears to be dead, and as the four teens work out their options, they decide dumping the body is their only hope of not getting locked up and having their lives ruined. For each of them has a bright future ahead, and this one wrong turn could take that all away. In their desperate attempt to walk away like nothing happened, they dump the body in the ocean, and make a pact never to speak of it again.

One year later, and Julie is leaving college for the summer and returning home. The events of last year have clearly taken their toll on this once bright and beautiful girl; she looks tired, pale and beaten down. Going home only brings those feelings out even more, and it gets worse for her when a letter with no sender details arrives for her. She opens the envelope and removes a small piece of paper with just one message written on it; I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER! The secret she tried to bury and believed she had done so wasn’t such a secret. Someone knew and Julie regroups with Barry, Helen and Ray to figure out what’s going on. 

I Know What You Did Last Summer as a perfect example of it’s time; 90’s slasher flicks were the movies being made for and watched by teens. Every teen generation has its signature film, which spawns a genre and for us teens, it was the murder-mystery flick, where anyone could be killed and everyone was a suspect. This was the formula so well established by Scream, and even though IKWYDLS is a cousin of that earlier film, it’s not completely a run of the mill slasher flick. It is driven by a mystery, where our heroine Julie is determined to find the truth. It’s well made and has better performances than most slasher flicks of the 90’s thanks to its cast. The two female leads, Hewitt and Gellar, were everywhere in the 90’s. With Hewitt in “Party of Five” and Gellar slaying vampires, they were the scream queens of teen movies in their day. The two guys (Ryan Phillipe and Freddie Prinze Jnr) were there for their looks obviously, and would both be seen in multiple other teen flicks of the era thanks to this little horror flick kick starting their careers.

What I liked about this flick above the many other slasher flicks of my day, was that it didn’t assume the audience was dumb. The characters weren’t dumb; they just had dumb luck. The premise is an interesting one, and it makes me wonder if the villain had been following the teens all the way back on the beach where Ray told the scary story by the fire. Given the tale he shared, the killer that stalks them in revenge for their act from the summer before pursues them with a large hook. I reckon he had been planning to mess with someone for a while, and just decided to choose these four teens on that July 4^th night.

The other standout aspect of IKWYDLS, is the suspense and scares on offer. It’s a movie that makes you jump. And we’ve all seen enough movies to know the standard scare tactics they use to try and shock us. Like the one where the guy is standing behind them, or it’s just the pet cat, etc. But in this film, there are scares that aren’t so obvious. I think the one that I remember the most from the first time I saw this, was when Helen is chased on the streets by the killer but finds refuge in her family clothing store. She’s locked the doors, but somehow the radio is switched off, the lights are turned off and she’s alone in the dark. She’s also surrounded by mannequins, covered in plastic sheets for the night. She turns slowly and sees a tall figure that looks out of shape. It could be just another mannequin, as it’s completely still. And after a few seconds of stillness, we the audience relax a little, but then just as we do, the mannequin moves and it’s the fisherman with the hook, leaping out from under the plastic in a flash. I remember the audience jumping out of their seat and screaming, then laughing. It was one of many frightfully fun jumpy moments this film had. 

I Know What You Did Last Summer came out early enough in the teen slasher flick ambush to stand on it’s own as a good movie. It had its own signature style and was different from Scream, where as many other slasher flicks tried to imitate Scream completely. IKWYDLS was so iconic for its time it was even parodied in 2000’s Scary Movie (along with Scream) and has also been referenced in many other films. It had a sequel the following year, ingeniously called “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer”, but that was just a cash grab with cheap thrills and gore over suspense and story. Sigh. Never mind, the first one is still a good film, and doesn’t reek completely of the 90’s. Given its stars hung around in movies and TV for quite a while after this, showed the film had staying power, and is always a favourite of mine to watch.

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