I Know What You Did Last Summer
On the second day of summer, my Netflix sent to meee…two three-name actresses, and a Corvette and a Bonadoo-cheeeee! The Couch Baron takes us to a terrifying place — kind words for Jennifer Love Hewitt’s performance — in his wrap-up of I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Surely you all know the premise of Kevin Williamson’s attempt to take advantage of the revitalization of the teen-horror genre that resulted from the success of his own Scream, but just in case: After Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) wins a small-town beauty pageant, she and her dating friends Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.), along with her jerk-off boyfriend Barry (Ryan Phillippe), celebrate beachside. On the winding, mountainous way back, Barry distracts Ray with his drunken-idiot behavior enough that Ray hits a guy in the road, and the panicked teens, over Julie’s objections, decide to dump the mangled and apparently dead body in the ocean. But the guy comes to and attacks them before falling in the water.
The next summer, Julie receives a fateful note that reunites the estranged teens in fear, and soon, the note-sender has gorily killed poor Johnny Galecki, who never seems to catch a break in this life, and is inflicting severe mental torture on the conspirators while dressed in a rain slicker and sporting a large hook in homage to a so-called urban legend discussed by the kids at the beginning of the film. The meta was clever in Scream, but…no. On July 4th, the anniversary of the accident, Barry buys it first, then Helen, although of all the victims in the film, she’s the only one that displays any resourcefulness, evading the killer at several turns and even going hand-to-hook with him before finally being subdued. The climax comes on the killer’s boat, on which Julie jiggles her way around and manages to escape the killer’s clutches until she can be rescued — not by Ray, exactly, but by a length of rope that decides it’s had just about enough of this bullshit and yanks the killer skyward, lops off his hand, and pitches him into the water…leaving him to still know what they did last summer. I, on the other hand, don’t — this was bad enough without effing Brandy.
Enviable Vacation Locale: Sure, it’s quaint and sleepy, but with all the death, maybe you want to try the Cape?
Unconventional Ways To Beat The Heat: Helen and Barry bury themselves in ice in the hold of the Gorton Killerman’s boat, which is clever. Then again, this is after they’re dead, so they probably didn’t have much choice in the matter.
Quality Of Beach/Summer Fashions: The characters are too busy getting stalked and/or killed to spend much time at the beach, but a variety of tank tops are on display by both sexes. And just to keep the equilibrium, since the boys don’t get to wear brassieres, neither do the girls. On another note, it’s only marginally related to fashion, but there’s an extended and entirely gratuitous Phillippe shirtless scene. Hey, I’ve got to mention the highlights.
From The “Oh, Kevin” Category: A reference to “Dawson’s Beach,” and the pageant Helen wins being called “Croaker Queen.” Groan. Also, driven to the brink, Julie yells to the killer, “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?” Don’t set me up like that, Williamson.
Horror-Movie Ridiculousness: Every horror film defies the laws of nature and physics at one point or another, but the most preposterous development in this film occurs when Julie opens her trunk in broad daylight in the middle of a residential neighborhood to discover Galecki’s corpse being eaten by copious crabs, only to return a short time later to find the evidence completely vanished. Not only did the killer succeed in avoiding notice in the middle of the day in retrieving the body and the snapping crustaceans, he even had time to vacuum the trunk. How considerate!
Credit Where Credit’s Due: I have to hand it to SMG — she’s the only one of the principals who doesn’t completely phone in her performance (not that it’s easy to tell the difference when it comes to old Freddie). In addition, she’s partially responsible for the only genuinely funny moment in the film, which occurs during the second year’s pageant. A “girl” who looks like she was alive in the days of Janis Joplin sings an overwrought and off-key rendition of “Fame,” and SMG, sitting on the stage, gives an absolutely sublimely disbelieving “Jesus.” I do have to ding her slightly, though, for this part of her pageant speech: “It’s my goal to entertain the world through artistic expression. Through art, I will serve my country.” Not with movies like Simply Irresistible, you won’t. I still know that you made that film.
Worth The AC? Only if it’s August in Nevada.
Overall Suitability As A Summer Movie: B-minus.
Tags: 12 Days Of Summer Movies
The shittiest thing about this movie is that the book that it was made from was GREAT! And also completely different besides an initial death and the names of the kids. A Lois Duncan if I remember correctly. Hmmm…maybe I’ll dig out my copy and reread it! Better than seeing the movie obviously.
But in the sequel, they kill try to kill her in a tanning booth! It’s aaaaawesome! Because she’ll die eventually! Of skin cancer!
Should that be “kind words for Sarah Michelle Gellar’s performance” up there? I have to inflate the Buffy-love where I can. ;)
And shit, I guess this means I have to watch I Know What You Did… now. I’ve avoided it for years upon years! Curse you, Sars!
Must second that. Both movies are horrible, but that death-by-tanning in the sequel is a brief moment of pure genius. The best part? The killer locks her in there using a twist tie! Not a padlock and chains, not even a crowbar stuck through the handles. A little plastic twist tie! And JLHew freaks out and flops around in her tanning bed like a fish, all Elizabeth-Berkeley-in-Showgirls style. First-rate comedy.
@ Tulip – just be forewarned if you buy a new copy of the book. The good IKWYDLS folks put this crappy movie-version in book form as well, and frankly you’re more than likely going to find that book over the original (which was wonderful and oddly was my assigned summer reading between 8th and 9th grades in 1989).
Yes, it’s a Lois Duncan book.
Also by Lois Duncan, the excellent Killing Mr. Griffin became the craptastic Teaching Mrs. Tingle with Katie Holmes, Barry Watson, and, inexplicably, Helen Mirren. She hasn’t had much luck with movies.
@ Terry – thanks for the heads up! I know I used to have a copy of practically every Lois Duncan ever written but god knows where they all are now. That will be good to know for the inevitable library search so I don’t get the wrong one.
@ ferretrick – HA! At first I thought you meant Helen Mirren! :)
Now I’m thinking of the book “The Grounding of Group 6” and wondering why the hell no one ever made THAT into a stupid teen movie. It has all the great elements, teen sex, survival, violence, and a guy named Sully IIRC.
“Gorton Killerman” cracked me up. I wish my last name was Killerman, so I could name my son Gorton.
“Also by Lois Duncan, the excellent Killing Mr. Griffin became the craptastic Teaching Mrs. Tingle with Katie Holmes, Barry Watson, and, inexplicably, Helen Mirren. She hasn’t had much luck with movies.”
There was a TV version of this, too. I think Mario Lopez was in it, and it stuck closer to the original – the teacher actually died, which Mrs. Tingle (Helen Mirren, what, your mortgage was due?) didn’t because it was released after Columbine, so they worried that was too sensitive. I was a HUGE Lois Duncan fan in elementary school (Daughters of Eve was my favorite) – the summer after fourth or fifth grade, I was in the library every day checking out one of her books. I went through a pretty macabre period: first the R.L. Stine Fear Street series, then Lois Duncan, then Steven King.
One of my favorite parts of the movie was Bridgette Wilson playing SMG’s sister. “Is the washed-up has-been having a moment?”
I loved Lois Duncan! And I remember this book was particularly creepy. I wonder if I would find it so creepy now after having watched the stupid movie.
Ya’ll are giving me a stroke with the book nostalgia. I was a huge Lois Duncan fan and owned The Grounding of Group 6 twice–I lent the first copy out in junior high and it was paid forward so many times from there that when I got it back it was totally shredded. I also remember another book by the same guy where five teens start an anti-nuclear weapons movement that spreads throughout the world–they all wear buttons that say “NEVER” on them–and on of the original five kids is being hunted by a team of guvmint agents because his parents killed themselves after they found out they were inadvertently making bioweapons for said guvmint. Who do you think was funding your research, idiots? And how do you “inadvertently” come up with a bioweapon? Stupid hippies.
I loved Daughters of Eve. That teacher was the real thing–mess with my affections and it’s a BOTTLE! FOR YOU! IN YOUR FACE!
Aw….Lois Duncan! She set some of her books in Albuquerque, which is where I grew up, and it was always cool to recognize places. I have driven down that very same mountain after parties (didn’t kill anyone, though), and, in the book, Helen was a weathercaster for a local TV station and lived at the Four Seasons, which was quite the chic abode back in the day.
Daughers of Eve was by far the creepiest of the books, though. I still think of cast iron skillets in a totally different way.
After that excoriating critique, a B-minus? Man I wish my teachers had been that soft-hearted in high school. Unless there were some redeeming factors here that I missed?