The wave of juvenile horror movies within the late Nineties and into the 2000s produced a number of forgotten gems, together with City Legend, Cherry Falls, and Campfire Tales. However most motion pictures have been overshadowed by 1996’s Scream, extensively credited with revitalizing the subgenre.
Sadly, I Know What You Did Final Summer time was dismissed as a Scream ripoff, which is ironic as a result of each have been written by Kevin Williamson (The School). It was the large success of Scream that satisfied Columbia Photos to greenlight his already written script for I Know What You Did Final Summer time, with Scottish director Jim Gillespie (Billionaire Ransom) on the helm.
The story is loosely based mostly on Lois Duncan’s 1973 YA thriller thriller of the identical title. The movie deviated from the novel, solely protecting some character names and the fundamental revenge stalker premise. In a 2002 interview, she lambasted the movie adaptation, saying, “Because the mom of a murdered little one, I don’t discover violent demise one thing to squeal and giggle about.”
Though I Know What You Did Final Summer time is taken into account a slasher, Gillespie didn’t wish to make a gory horror movie. He strived to invoke a equally foreboding tone as Halloween and Jaws. He set the awful temper with a sweeping opening shot of the North Carolina coast (really California) to the tune of Sort O Adverse’s haunting cowl of “Summer time Breeze.” The digicam finally lands on a fisherman solemnly sitting on a cliff and ingesting (however we don’t study him till midway by means of the film).
That is the seaside city of Southport, North Carolina, the place latest highschool grad Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) celebrates the 4th of July together with her mates — aspiring actress, Helen Shivers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Helen’s jock boyfriend with severe anger points, Barry Cox (Ryan Phillippe), and Julie’s passive boyfriend, Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.).
After Helen is topped that 12 months’s Croaker Queen, the quartet hang around and hook up on Dawson’s Seaside (Williamson additionally penned the long-lasting teen drama Dawson’s Creek). Driving alongside on the winding highway that evening, Barry drunkenly hangs out the sunroof for a traditional “woohoo, we’re younger!” second, dropping a bottle of booze on Ray, inflicting him to unintentionally hit somebody.
Julie, the type and down to earth brunette, desires to go to the police, which nobody else desires to do. Barry, drunk and extra upset in regards to the state of his automobile than the unconscious particular person on the facet of the highway, is all for masking it up. Ray, the good-hearted everyman, and Helen, a blonde magnificence queen, are a bit hesitant however finally agree with Barry, partly out of worry of their futures, but in addition as a result of Barry is unhinged. After they try and dump the physique, the person wakes to ship a bounce scare. Even realizing he’s not really useless, they depart him to drown within the water, and Barry forces everybody to make a pact, basically strangling an settlement out of Julie whereas Ray does nothing.
A 12 months later, we meet up with Julie at school, the place she, as evidenced by her stringy, lifeless hair, isn’t doing properly. Seems the guilt of manslaughter does a quantity on you. She returns house for the summer season and receives a cryptic letter saying, “I do know what you probably did final summer season.” By now, each {couples} have break up, and the buddy group has scattered, however this nameless letter brings them collectively.
Barry suspects and later threatens Max Neurick (Johnny Galecki), their “good man” classmate who crushed on Julie. Nonetheless, Julie and Helen conduct compulsory horror film analysis and imagine the person they hit was native fisherman David Egan (Jonathan Quint). The 2 monitor down his sister, Missy (a splendidly creepy Anne Heche), and go to her secluded farmhouse that offers off slight Texas Chainsaw vibes. In the meantime, Ray, additionally a fisherman now, spends many of the film away from the group, supposed to steer audiences to suspect him because the killer. Did anybody actually suppose that, although?
It’s revealed that the hook-wielding fisherman isn’t David Egan however really Ben Willis (Muse Watson), the daddy of David’s girlfriend Susie, who died in a automobile accident. A 12 months in the past, Ben killed David, blaming him for her demise, after which Ben was hit on the highway. Possibly not a brilliant intelligent twist, however nonetheless attention-grabbing for a teen horror film.
With such a small ensemble solid, I Know What You Did Final Summer time doesn’t have that many kills. For some cause, the primary to go is Max (perhaps as a result of he drove previous them the evening they have been masking up a hit-and-run?). As he’s working, a shadowy determine seems and hooks him within the throat, dragging him away. Whereas the movie has little or no gore, I distinctly keep in mind sure scenes scaring me as a child, specifically Max’s crab-covered corpse in Julie’s trunk, Julie discovering corpses buried in ice, and Helen’s bitchy older sister Elsa’s (Bridgette Wilson) physique being dragged by a hook in her abdomen.
Days later, on July 4th, Helen is again on stage (in a tremendous costume) to current a brand new woman with the Croaker Queen crown and sees the fisherman assault Barry on the balcony. As a substitute of, I don’t know, really investigating and even simply taking her severely, the group and finally the police dismiss her claims of witnessing a homicide.
After the officer driving her house ignores her warnings and will get a hook to the intestine, Helen channels Closing Woman vitality and escapes the police automobile, kicking off a nice chase scene. She runs to her household’s division retailer, jumps out of a window, continues to run down an alley, and almost makes it to security. Helen makes the standard horror film resolution to cease and look behind her, permitting the Fisherman to slash her to demise, the parade drowning out her screams.
After the movie’s success, Columbia Photos fast-tracked a sequel, 1998’s I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time. Nonetheless, Williamson didn’t return, and Gillespie didn’t like Trey Callaway’s (Revolution) script, so directing duties finally went to Danny Cannon (Gotham, Decide Dredd). This follow-up had a special tone, a brighter coloration palette, and doubled the earlier physique depend.
Choosing up a 12 months later, Julie is again in faculty, tormented by nightmares, and her long-distance relationship with Ray isn’t the strongest. After randomly profitable a free journey, she and her roommate Karla (Brandy Norwood) head to the Bahamas. They’re joined by Karla’s boyfriend Tyrell (Mekhi Phifer) and their buddy Will Benson (Matthew Settle), the boring however seemingly candy man whom Karla actually desires Julie to cheat on her boyfriend with.
I Nonetheless Know noticeably has extra Black characters (certainly one of them even survives!), although they enterprise into stereotype territory with voodoo-practicing bellhop Estes (Invoice Cobbs). He’s one of many harmless resort employees casualties, together with dockhand Darick (Benjamin Brown), housekeeper Olga (Ellerine Harding), supervisor Mr. Brooks (Jeffrey Combs), bartender Nancy (Jennifer Esposito), and Titus (Jack Black), whose character is hippie stoner and nothing else.
Now, the plot of this movie requires heavy suspension of disbelief. Will Benson is revealed to be Ben’s son (get it?). Sure, Ben Willis had his offspring enroll in Julie’s faculty, weaseled his method into her new buddy group, and finally bought them to that particular resort through a faux radio contest. The plan has so many baffling variables, and the general plot is nonsensical, but it surely makes for a enjoyable slasher with proficient, handsome actors and fairly cool demise scenes.
Whereas not as fashionable or intensive as different horror franchises, I Know What You Did Final Summer time stays a well-directed horror-mystery with a solid of rising stars and an intriguing, if convoluted, story.
The upcoming legacy sequel from writer-director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge), merely titled I Know What You Did Final Summer time, doesn’t depend 2006’s supernatural standalone sequel, I’ll At all times Know What You Did Final Summer time, or Prime Video’s short-lived TV sequence as canon (and that’s for the very best). Hewitt and Prinze Jr. reprise their roles as highschool sweethearts Julie and Ray, who discover themselves serving to a brand new group of victims take care of one other murderous fisherman.
I Know What You Did Final Summer time is on the market to lease on Prime. The extremely anticipated legacy sequel premieres in theaters on July 18, 2025.