I Know What You Did Last Summer

Well I’ll be diddly-damned, I didn’t know this was based off of a book. Amazing what you rediscover when you search the internet for poster pictures. I also completely forgot Anne Heche was in this. It really had been quite a while since I watched it.

Anyway….

A group of teens are out drinking and driving on a seaside road, when the tipsy driver up and runs somebody over with his car. Terrified of ruining their futures, the kids decide to just pretend like they didn’t just commit vehicular homicide and they dump the body in the ocean and try to wash their hands of the whole ordeal. But one year later they all start receiving messages from an unknown party informing them that there was a witness to their little deadly joyride. And boy, is that person pissed at those murdering little a-holes. One by one the kids suffer the consequences of their actions, and it’s up to the survivors to try to figure out who their stalker is, before the killer with a fish hook come to kill them all.

This movie right here is something that every parent should show their kids to teach them some very valuable lessons. Lesson One: Never take your eyes off the road, even in deserted areas. You never know when some dumb-ass will just go traipsing across the road in the middle of the night. Lesson Two: There are good reasons why it’s illegal to have an open container of alcohol in the car with you. So the next time you drive your drunk friend home, make sure they finish their drink before getting into the car. It’s to protect your ass, not theirs. Remember that the next time you feel the need to stick it to “the man.” And finally and most importantly, Lesson Three: Learn early how to properly check for a pulse, because if you screw up on the first two lessons you want to make sure the body you dump in the ocean doesn’t get the chance to literally come back to haunt your ass.

I mean, really. How did at least not one of you know that?

Despite being written by the same guy who wrote Scream, the script for this film honestly isn’t as good. It’s got some good humor in it, no doubt, but when comparing the two the jokes feel like the kinds of things that were likely left on Scream‘s cutting room floor. It’s script is slightly snarky and sprinkled with bits of wit, but when you look at the two together this one comes off more like Scream‘s younger, less experienced sibling, rather than a true rival.

And it must be said that I have really never cared for Freddie Prinze Jr.. His acting is just too damned….. airy for my tastes. It distracts me from the other three leads who do a much better job of standing on their own. Though I was reminded that Jennifer Love Hewitt’s got a helluva pair of lungs.

I Know What You Did Last Summer is a fun little slasher with some good chase scenes (who knew there were that many places you could hide on such a small looking boat) and the movie has a lot of decent actors, but the film lacks in the gore department and falls a bit short on the creativity angle as well, especially when you consider what went into it’s predecessor. It does feature some truly excellent uses of a fish hook, though. So there’s that.

I Know What You Did Last Summer is available on a variety of streaming services.

I Know What You Did Last Summer is also available on DVD and Bluray.