"I Know What You Did Last Summer" Offers Few Memories by Homer Yen (c) 1997
The camera zooms in incredibly close . It focuses on the closed eyes of a person presumed dead. All of a sudden, with a thunderous sound effect and an eerie sounding musical pulse, his eyelids open. The camera zooms in incredibly close. It focuses on one of the characters desperately running for her life. Then, with a thunderous sound effect and an eerie sounding musical pulse, she bumps into the killer. The camera zooms in incredibly close. It focuses on a door from where seemingly strange sounds emanate. All of a sudden, with a thunderous sound effect and an eerie sounding musical pulse, the doors swing open to reveal what's inside.
Close-up thrill-shots such as these seemed to elicit more laughter from the audience rather than genuine fear, which is a pretty good sign that you're not watching the thriller that the director had originally envisioned. Rather, you adopt the opinion that the characters are so goofy and so unaware of the trouble that they're in, that you stop caring about who lives, who dies and where the story goes. Instead, you become more interested in how the characters get killed off.
The four young teenagers who are the potential sacrificial lambs for this movie are Helen and Barry and Julie and Ray - two couples and dear friends to one another. During the summer just after high school graduation, they take a fateful drive down a dark mountain highway. Suddenly, without warning, their car hits someone whom the teens presume was killed as a result of that collision. Fearing jail time and possible manslaughter charges if they confess, they instead decide to dump the body into the ocean and make a pact never to discuss the episode again. A year goes by and things among the four friends begin to change. Relationships fizzle, future dreams crumble, and attitudes change. But, they can not forget what they did. And apparently, neither can someone else. Someone begins to send letters to all four of the teens with the frightening message: "I know what you did last summer." The letter-writer (a figure in a rubber slicker wielding a large metal hook) soon makes his presence known and begins to hunt down the four teens. It's now up to the four of them to try to figure out who the killer is before it's too late.
While this movie has some nice visually eerie effects, too much of it's impact had to be generated with extreme close-ups, while the level of suspense was choppy at best. There is so much more that this movie could have been, but decided to give us nothing but cheap thrills. It could have been a clever whodunit, but discovering who ultimately was the killer made me just shrug my shoulders. It could have explored the changed friendships after a year of adulthood, but seemed to only include that aspect to add 15 more minutes to the film. It could have given us smarter characters who knew that anytime you're alone and you see shadowy figures moving about, you don't walk towards them yelling "hello". Once you yell "hello", you can expect an extreme close-up, a thunderous sound effect and an eerie sounding musical pulse. It's difficult to be in suspense when you know what's about to happen. The only redeeming aspect of the movie is that I now have a neat idea for a Halloween costume, but I'm not sure if the local costume store sells rubber slickers and hooks. The horror that I experienced from this film is realizing that I actually went to see it.
Grade: C-
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