Cast:
Jennifer Love Hewitt (Julie James), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Helen Shivers), Ryan Phillippe (Barry Cox), Freddie Prinze Jr (Ray Bronson), Johnny Galecki (Max Neurick), Bridgette Wilson (Elsa Shivers), Anne Heche (Melissa "Missy" Egan), Muse Watson (Benjamin "Ben" Willis / the Fisherman), and Stuart Greer (Officer) Directed by Jim Gillespie.
Review:
"The joy of this film for me as a filmmaker was in taking [the] elements that we've seen before, and saying to the audience: 'Here's something you've seen before'—knowing that they're saying 'We've seen this before'—and still getting them to jump."
You may or may not know that this came from the writer of Scream (1996). Yes, Kevin Williamson had written a script loosely based on the 1973 novel of the same name, which had been written by Lois Duncan...but that script was done before Scream was even a thought in his mind, with the success of the 1996 movie getting people onto the idea of maybe doing studio slashers, which is where the old script came into play. This was the feature film debut of Jim Gillespie, who previously had done work on television and music videos. Duncan went on record as stating she was appalled by the movie being based on her book (stating specifically that she had a problem with sensationalized violence made to "seem thrilling rather than terrible", particularly since she was the mother of a murdered child); incidentally, Gillespie aimed to film with as little on-screen blood as possible to try and not be gratuitous with the violence. The book was a suspense novel featured a group of teens getting into a car accident (in the book's case, a young boy on a bike) that leads to death for the kid and oddly enough, nobody else. The movie was relatively successful with audiences, at least enough to inspire a sequel called I Still Know What You Did Last Summer in 1998 to go along with a direct-to-video feature (nobody cares), a modern take of the first film for an Amazon show in 2021 (what?), and a legacy sequel in 2025 that was called...I Know What You Did Last Summer (ironically following Scream doing the same thing years earlier*).
Sure, you remember the movie about a hook-wielding killer terrorizing four teenagers. And you probably had one question on your mind: What the hell? What the hell to any of this? This was Williamson's "straightforward" horror script? To be clear, I will say that I may or may not be a bit generous with horror movies when it comes to assessing them because, well, there are some that are just entertaining even in mediocrity. But not this one. It isn't even the barebones body count (four), and it isn't even just the fact that the characters might as well have been constructed out of a wood board. No, what annoys me the most is that this supposed modern take on the slasher movie is just the same type of hack stuff you could find in Friday the 13th. And that movie was meant to be taken seriously, but with this movie, I thought it was supposed to be a joke, right down to the scene where Hewitt twirls around before screaming into the air what is the killer waiting for. Some might be subservient to any kind of slasher movie when it comes to spectacle, but not me, not for this one. The funny thing is that the killer is pretty terrible at how he targets people, since half the people he kills had nothing to do with the thing that happened a year prior and some of the time he just sneaks up on the people just to...terrorize them (seriously, he breaks into one girl's house to cut her hair down). But it comes in such a tedious little movie, one that aims to say something, anything about what it means to make the wrong choice and have to live with it...and then the ending coughs that up anyway!
Some folks might consider Gellar to be the highlight of the film when it comes to...acting, but in general, everyone seems to be on the autopilot you could find in any generic slasher, even with the proverbial dark cloud over their heads. They just seem more like they are waiting for the boat show rather than being spooked by what is occurring around them, suffice to say. At least Phillippe is amusing in that veneer of arrogance and privilege for a time, probably far more than you think he will go given the amount of people to be terrorized or otherwise (such as Galecki, who might as well have been a paperweight). By the time the movie has ended its reign of error, complete with the characters seemingly learning about telling the cops about what the hell is going on, you will have gotten the feeling the movie was the equivalent of a toothache. This isn't one of those times where I get mad a slasher for being a slasher, this is just one of those frustratingly mediocre movies to get mad at because there were ideas worth looking into. Why not make a mystery worth watching about people who can't cope with who they are in making the wrong choice? But nah, there was a hook story mentioned in the early parts of the movie so we can have the killer go with hooks because, uh, reasons. As a whole, I Know What You Did Last Summer has a few tiny moments of relief - the chase of Gellar near the end is probably the highlight, at least when not considering the humor at the movie's expense for sheer ludicrous things. But the real moment where you believe things will be good comes here: when you look at the fact the 101 minutes are over, and you can watch a different, more interesting slasher movie. Or just a non-slasher movie. Or, well, whatever. Anything other than middle of the road junk.
Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.
Next up: Pumpkinhead.
*Totally not the point, but I don't give a shit about the reasoning for Scream 5 (2022) being called Scream. It was stupid when Halloween (2018) did it, so if I ever get to the Scream movies beyond the first, you best believe I'm calling the 2022 one Scream 5. Then again, the weird people talking about Scream in recent days about 7 on both sides make me roll my eyes.
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