I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) Review

After the completely bonkers and brilliant Tokyo Gore Police I was ready for some trashy easy to watch American serial killer rubbish. After a quick search I decided I’d watch the I Know What You Did Last Summer films, so here’s my review of the first one.

Director: Jim Gillespie

Writers: Lois Duncan (novel), Kevin Williamson (screenplay)

Stars: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Anne Heche, Freddie Prinze Jr.

Budget: $17,000,000 (estimated)

Runtime: 101 min

Trivia – 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)

Trivia – Lois Duncan has stated openly that she hates the movie, because the filmmakers turned her book into a slasher film. She especially detested it in the wake of her 18-year-old daughter’s murder in 1989.

The idiotic group after the “accident”

I’m sure most have seen this but if you haven’t it starts out with a group of annoying teens being extremely annoying. They get drunk at a party and head off to the beach to engage in some sex, after the sex they jump in a car to drive back. It’s here that one of the annoying drunken teens decide to act even more annoying than normal, he takes a bottle and drinks it whilst sticking his head out of the sun roof. This distracts the driver who then crashes into some bloke crossing the street.

The group of unlikable people check on the man and after finding him dead they decide to chuck his body into the sea. Whilst doing this they find out that he’s not dead but after a struggle he falls into the water and they all go home.

Interesting that Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jennifer Love Hewitt auditioned for each others roles

The group hasn’t spoken to each other for close to a year when Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) returns from collage to their home town. Upon arriving she receives a letter saying I Know What You Did Last Summer, this provokes her into contacting the rest of her annoying group who as you’d expect don’t believe her.

Julie encounters more and more things bodies that appear and disappear and her group still don’t believe her until they are targeted by the deranged fisherman. This all leads to a pretty decent sequence on a ship as Julie and Ray (Freddie Prinze Jnr) fight for their lives against the killer.

Even the characters with small roles come across as unlikable 

The Good

Decent story for a slasher film and there’s a bit of a twist in there as to who the killer really is. Some of the deaths are reasonably good but there’s not enough of them.

The film excels when the killer is chasing someone, it builds up the tension well and the chases don’t always end how you’d expect them to.

The Bad

The characters, all are annoying and the main character isn’t as good as the ones we tend to see in films similar to this.

Not enough blood, there’s some decent kills but they’re not gory enough and there really needs to be a lot more of them. The main reason I watch films with these annoying teens in is to see them slaughtered brutally an area this film did not deliver in.

Other than that there’s not much else to say about this film, it’s stereotypical but it is probably worth a watch despite the cast of idiot teens being idiots throughout the film. I’d recommend this if you’re bored one day and don’t want something too heavy to watch, which is exactly why I watched it. As with all films of this type the effects are decent and they’re filmed well with decent actors.

Overall Score