I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

Believe it or not, I had never seen I Know What You Did Last Summer before now. I've seen it parodied in Scary Movie and probably other movies too, but never watched the actual film. Then the other day I was in the mood for something light and I finally watched it. 

The story follows four friends, Julie (Jennifer Love-Hewitt), Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.), and Barry (Ryan Phillippe). On their way home from a party on the beach, they accidentally hit and kill a man. After some arguing, they decide to dump the body in the water and never talk about what happened ever again. A year later, Julie returns home from college only to find a letter simply saying, "I know what you did last summer". Shocked, she reunites with her friends and tries to figure out who is after them. 

I haven't read the novel of the same name by Lois Duncan upon which the film is based on and therefore I don't know who is to be blamed; what I do know, however, is that the plot of this film is extremely simple and thin — to the extent that it feels like there's no plot at all —, it's filled with holes and becomes boring when it's actually supposed to get interesting, that being as soon as the man with the hook makes his appearance. As for the twists, they are not that surprising, and the filmmakers attempted at twists so many times, it eventually becomes annoying. 

The writing doesn't get any better with the characters as they are nothing but four stereotypical teenagers, very annoying and unlikeable teens whose lack of development prevent us from caring about them. Also, why should we sympathize with a bunch of idiots who killed a person and dumped the body in the water? The only character I felt sorry for was Max, the fellow student suspected of being the man with the hook, but only because he is played by Johnny Galecki, The Big Bang Theory's Leonard whom I love. 

Columbia Pictures

The acting is also your standard horror flick acting as it's just pretty people putting on scared/scary faces for most of the film's runtime while reading their lines. 

With all that being said, I Know What You Did Last Summer is not a complete waste of time. While the writing is terrible, and tension and suspense are nowhere to be found, there's plenty of enjoyable, unintentionally funny moments that make the film a bit less unbearable.