I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER
A Film Review by James Berardinelli
RATING (0 TO 10): 4.5 Alternative Scale: ** out of ****
United States, 1997 U.S. Release Date: 10/17/97 (wide) Running Length: 1:40 MPAA Classification: R (Violence, profanity) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Cast: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr., Anne Heche, Muse Watson Director: Jim Gillespie Producers: Neal H. Moritz, Erik Feig, Stokely Chaffin Screenplay: Kevin Williamson based on the novel by Lois Duncan Cinematography: Dennis Crossan Music: John Debney U.S. Distributor: Columbia Pictures
I feel like I've just taken a time trip back to the '80s. Remember when slasher films were all the rage, and each year brought forth the dreaded specter of another FRIDAY THE 13TH, HALLOWEEN, and/or A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (not to mention such other, notable titles as PROM NIGHT and SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT)? Well, they're back again, and stronger than ever. SCREAM started this recent wave, and its $100+ million box office gross has ensured a host of sequels and inferior copycats. THE WISHMASTER was arguably the first. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, brought to the screen by neophyte director Jim Gillespie, is the second, and there are many more to come.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER bears almost all the hallmarks of a classic slasher movie. The large-breasted female protagonist does some incredibly dumb things. Most of her friends get killed before the final reel. Every character is strictly one-dimensional -- there's no desire or attempt to form anything resembling a full-fledged personality out of any of these cardboard stereotypes. There's plenty of blood and gore (although, to be fair, one could argue that it's restrained here). The only thing that's missing are flashes of female flesh. Gratuitous nudity was always big in the '80s films. Apparently, that's no longer the case.
Of course, the killer has to be dressed in some kind of costume -- that's a slasher movie requisite. In HALLOWEEN, Michael Myers donned the featureless Captain Kirk mask. In FRIDAY THE 13TH, we had the hockey goalie motif. In SCREAM, it was the Grim Reaper. So what face of terror do we have in I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER? The Gorton's Fisherman. That's right -- rain slicker, hat, and all. I kept expecting to hear the theme song playing in the background.
The screenwriter of I SAW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER is Kevin Williamson, who made a name for himself by penning SCREAM. Those two movies give him a unique distinction. With I SAW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, he has now written a film of the very type that his other script parodied. SCREAM had a lot of fun playing with ideas, conventions, and approaches that I SAW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER takes very seriously. And the genuine scares of SCREAM have mostly been replaced by silly, repetitive shock tactics (one exception: a creepy cat-and-mouse game in a department store). This points out the main weakness of I SAW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. The characters aren't interesting enough for us to be scared for them. Who cares if they live or die? They just add to the body count, and everyone knows that the really good slasher movies have inordinately high death rates.
The story sounds more interesting that it is. Four friends just out of high school -- Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Barry (Ryan Phillippe), and Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) - - are out celebrating late one July 4 night when they have a little accident. On a dark, twisting stretch of highway, with Ray at the wheel, their car slams into a man and kills him. Panic-stricken, they elect to dump him in the sea rather than report the accident. They apparently get away with it, but one year later, someone begins stalking them, and they have to wonder whether an unseen observer saw what they did or whether their victim was really dead after all. Regardless of the truth, whoever is after them now is in deadly earnest, and, for Julie, it's a race against time to learn the killer's identity before he uses his fish hook on her.
I wasn't dazzled by any of the acting in this film, but it's rare that a slasher movie is characterized by Oscar-caliber performances. The male actors, Ryan Phillippe and Freddie Prinze Jr., were likely chosen because they represent two different types of hunks. The women, Jennifer Love Hewitt (of PARTY OF FIVE) and Sarah Michelle Gellar (TV's BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER), appear to have been selected because they share two crucial assets: impressive cleavage and an even more impressive set of pipes. Boy, can they scream! (And they're given endless opportunities to prove it.)
There is one minor aspect of the plot that elevates I SAW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER above the level of a typical '80s slasher flick -- it has an interesting subtext. I'm referring to the way the lives and friendships of these four individuals crumble in the wake of their accident. Guilt, confusion, and doubt build in them until they can no longer stand to be with each other or look at themselves in the mirror. Sadly, this potentially-fascinating element of the movie is dismissed quickly to facilitate a higher body count. And, as I said before, a few extra deaths can only make a slasher movie better, right?
Copyright 1997 James Berardinelli - James Berardinelli e-mail: berardin@mail.cybernex.net
Now with more than 1300 reviews... The ReelViews web site: http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/
"For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake."
- Alfred Hitchcock
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews