Ok, here are all the reviews I have found on I know what you did last Summer, these
are good and bad so you will get to hear both sides of the story. My review has
also been added to the list!
Here is my review on the movie, I hope it helps you decide to
actually go and see the movie if you haven't already!
A Real Hook-Line-and Sinker!
I know what you did last Summer is an amazing thrill ride in the comfort of a movie theater seat. (At least mine was--I was in one of those stadium seating theaters) I was on the edge every second and was gasping along with the rest of the audience. One of the people I was with screamed at the scene when Missy jumps up suddenly at the car window. This is an extraordinary movie with an incredible story. This killer is fantastically played and very scary. The whole trench coat hook thing gives me the hee-bee-gee-bees every time I think about him! And he doesn't show any mercy to his victims. There's not a whole lot of mystery reguarding who he is though, its just a good twist once you do find out. The cast was great, I do agree though that Love does need to work on her screaming--but thats not her fault, she never watches horror movies. Actually she is quite terrified of them and only did the movie to try to help her phobia of them. Sarah was an excellent Helen and portrayed her wonderfully, Ryan got his part as the jerk-jock down perfect as did Freddie with his sensitive and sweet Ray. And the odd-ball cast was good too. Anne Heche was the perfect person to play Missy and Johnny was good with Max--but not as good as I have seen him act before.
Over all though--this movie is exceptional for Kevin Williamson's second attempt at writing and I am looking forward to the next feature he puts out. I think that he should most definitely make a sequel and make this Hook guy a reoccurring killer like Freddy, Jason or Michael. The hook killer will be one of the legends.
Out of 5 stars I give I know what you did last Summer
5 stars!
And I plan to go see it MANY more times!
I found this article in my local news paper the day the movie came out. This guy obviously is WRONG but, like I said above I am trying to give both sides of the story, and at leasthe was being honest.
Not much of a 'Scream' this time
by: Robert Philpot
Kevin Williamson has a problem: Its called Scream. The budding screenwriter made a bravura debut with that witty, intelligent and scary hit, and now there's a feeling of "What'll he do next?" tainted by a fear that he has already painted his masterpiece.
Williamson's follow-up, I know what you did last Summer, does little to ally that fear. Its has its moments of wit, intelligence and fright-but it doesn't have Wes Craven, the real secret to Scream's success. The veteran horror-movie director knows how to blend humor, humanity, morality and even social commentary into his scare shows, and he was perfectly in sync with Williamson's campfire-tale sensibilities.
I know what you did last Summer director is Jim Gillespie, a neophyte with a journeyman's sense of know-how but but withought Craven's sense of style. As many times as I know what you did last Summer makes you jump, you never escape the feeling that it's just going through the motions.
Its a pretty simple story: Four good looking high school grads having a last pre-college fling accidentally smack into and kill a highway pedestrian. Their decision to cover up the death might seem hard to believe till you recall some more of the more heinous things you've read in the paper lately, but thats not their real problem. Their real problem is that a year later, they start seeing signs that someone is pretty ticked off about the wreck, and it appears more and more that it's the pedestrian they thought was dead, and that he's running around doing particulary nasty things with a very large hook.
Horror -movie fans know that theres's more to it than that, of course, and the movie doesn't prove them wrong. But it takes the movie too long to get there; unlike Scream, with its virtuoso opening seqence, the movie has no ... um, hook, nothing to yank you in. The first half is far too talky; Williamson may be a talented scenarist, but his ear for dialouge is still developing, and it shows in the script's stilted wordiness. Things get better when the characters shut up except to Scream.
Like Scream, I know what you did last Summer borrows from TV for its teen-firendly cast. Party of Five's Jennifer Love Hewitt is studious Julie, the group member least likely to lose her head; Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Sarah Michelle Gellar is beauty queen Helen, the member most likely to lose her hair. The guys are less familiar: Ryan Phillippe is Barry, the hothead jock; Freddie Prinze Jr. is Ray, the sensitive guy.
They are all attractive and talented, but the characters in a kind of screenwriting shorthand that prevents them from getting deep into their roles-and prevents us from really identifying with them. About all you can really say about them is that Hewitt needs to work on her screaming.
Time will tell if Williamson's Scream was a fluke; fortunately, not much time; with the sequal due in January. I know what you did last Summer does have moments that he's still someone to keep an eye on; in a few months, we'll know if the watching was worth it.
He gave it 2 and a half stars out of 5.
I foud this article on my favorite movie review site, Girls On Flim. All the movies are reviewed by chicks and it gives the 'girl' perspective on the movies. If you would like to see reviews on other movies-I highly recomened you check out this site and read with they have to say!
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER
Written by Kevin Williamson
Directed by Jim Gillespie
Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes
Rated R
Reviewed by Dre on October 16, 1997
A high bar was set in the teen slasher film genre after last year's smash, SCREAM, so even though I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER shares screenwriter Kevin Williamson, I had fairly low expectations for it. I feared that it would be a poor relation to the stellar SCREAM. I am here to report that I was wrong: I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER is a perfectly scary, taut horror flick, which learned a lot from the example of SCREAM, but has a tone and style all its own.
Based on the popular teen fright-book of the same name, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID starts innocently enough and builds slowly--but of course, you always know the horror's just around the corner. It's the Fourth of July, and two couples, recent high school grads and best friends, are celebrating their last summer together in their hometown of Southport, North Carolina.
Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar, aka "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") and her rich-jock boyfriend, Barry (Ryan Phillippe), are the beautiful teens, the charmed youths, of their quaint fishing town. Helen's off to New York to launch an acting career, and Barry's just gotten a brand new black BMW, which he'll soon be driving to college to play football (oh, I mean study). Their friends, Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt, from "Party of Five") and Ray (Freddie Prinze, Jr., seen recently in THE HOUSE OF YES), are madly in love and equally ambitious: Julie's headed to law school, and Ray plans to become a writer.
After telling ghost stories on an isolated beach and canoodling for a bit, the four are ready to wrap up their romantic Fourth of July evening, but Barry's too drunk to drive. So Ray ends up behind the wheel of Barry's new Beemer that fateful night when they hit something. Actually, someone. This someone is lying dead by the side of the road, and the foursome are completely panicked. After much debate, with Julie insisting to no avail that they go to the police, the four finally decide to toss the body in the ocean and take their secret to the grave. (Of course, this being a horror film, the whole "to the grave" thing hits a little closer to home than anticipated.)
A year later, none of the four are still speaking, their hopes and dreams dashed by the terrible guilty secret they share. But when Julie comes home from college right before the anniversary of the incident and receives an ominous letter saying only, "I know what you did last summer," she is forced to contact the others. They all must set out together to discover who is stalking them.
As in SCREAM, the only way to know for certain that someone isn't the stalker is to see them actually get murdered, which makes for some good tension. Speaking of the killer, this one wears a fisherman's slicker and a huge, creepy hat, using a fish hook to kill with impunity. Just in case you're curious, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER shows mucho gore. One person gets a hook in the throat, another is dragged along the floor with a hook in the guts. (Note: I sat between Clare and our friend Jonathan during this film. They both jumped a few times, though didn't seem to find it as scary as I did. Oh, and Clare says she liked it better than SCREAM.)
Unlike SCREAM, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID doesn't hold the same witty, tongue-in-cheek attitude towards the entire horror film genre, which is too bad, since that was what set SCREAM apart. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID is more like traditional horror, with the purely evil, omnipotent, and creative killer who manages to get from crime scene to crime scene without being spotted, heard, suspected, or smelled (all that fish!). Just leave that little voice of reason behind if you're in the mood for a good shriek or two.
What this film did learn from SCREAM is the lesson that a horror movie doesn't have to be schlock, but can actually be a quality project. The acting in I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER is stellar, the production values are supremely high, and they have a scrappy and tough lead heroine in Julie. Overall, it's a well made, well paced film that provides a good number of scares.
Lastly, you'll be glad to know that I KNOW WHAT YOU DID also passed the timeless "Dre Horror Test": namely, I had a lousy night's sleep after I saw it and had to keep the light on. High praise, indeed!
Fan Review Number One
This was sent to me by a fan that visited my site by the name of Danni and can be mailed at: o3rdiblnd@aol.com. This article was submitted here on October the 27th.
I Know What You Did Last Summer is an excellant movie! I don't know what they did but, it's story-line, atmosphere, characters, setting, and reality was wonderful. You can't compare it to Scream because it is just so much better. Scream was plain old cheeky horror. They took the gore and death factor a little too far. I Know What You Did Last Summer was more...well... realistic. The setting (a small fishing town) only added to the greatness. I can't stress enough what a great movie this is! You can't only see it once. I'd see it hundreds of times. If you haven't seen it yet, make sure you do go!
Fan Review Number Two
This was also sent to me by a fan who visited my page. His name is Brad Tracy and can be reached at: bradt@intellex.com. This one was also submitted here on October the 27th.
I saw the movie "I Know What You Did Last Summer" just the other day and I must say that its another hit for the up and coming horror movie writer Kevin Williamson.
Williamson's second stint at horror was not the total package movie that his debut smash "SCREAM" was but "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER" certainly has just as many nerve racking scares as its predecessor. I must say that I loved "SCREAM", and as a result I had really mixed feelings about how this movie would stack up against it. And just a little advice to those who might have the same feelings, all I can say is go see it, you will be pleasantly surprised! I must admit I don't get scared often, especially at a movie, but I was jumping just as much as everyone else in that theater!
The killer in this movie is another classic villain. The killers whole outfit, a black fisherman's slicker and fisherman's hat with the collar of his slicker up covering his face, and that hook he uses as a weapon is a very creepy, and very nice, touch! :) I must admit the beginning of the movie started out slow, but once the suspense was built, it just kept snowballing from there!! To a very climactic ending, which you just have to see for yourself!
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER was a very heart thumping, edge of your seat, suspenseful thriller that you SCREAMers will not be disappointed in! :) It is an excellent film for all horror fans to go check out!!
Fan Review Number Three
Bring your Depends! A good ending is hard to come by these days, and the final scene of I Know What You Did Last Summer is worth the admission price. Scary movies seem to be coming back into full swing, and since it was released right before Halloween, there will probably be extra box office dollars for this fun and scary flick, which gives some high voltage shocks. This film is the perfect example of a movie that's ten times better if seen in the theater.
Summer takes place in a picturesque coastal North Carolina town, which, on the Fourth of July, holds the annual "Croaker Festival". It is on this night (don't all horror films seem to happen on some holiday/annual event?) that the fates of four friends are changed forever. Helen (Gellar) is crowned the Croaker Queen, as her best friend Julie (Hewitt), boyfriend Barry (Phillipe), and Julie's man Ray (Prinze) look on, beaming with pride. What do they do to celebrate? Go to the beach, get drunk, and have sex, of course, those wonderful little horror musts that always foreshadow something bad. The bad comes in the form of an accident.
Ray drives Barry's sports car back from the beach, since Barry is quite sauced, complete with open intoxicant in the car. As they round Reaper's Curve (how apt), they attempt to pull Barry into the car again, which results in the bottle of liquor being dropped, causing a distraction for Ray. Big mistake, for suddenly something large hits the car (and Barry). All is silent for a moment. Then the kids notice that Barry has blood on him, and it's not his. What was the huge obstacle in the road? It turns out to be a person, and he seems to be dead. This part of the film is especially intense, for it is a huge turning point for all these kids. Barry immediately suggests dumping the body. Julie is horrified, but when she turns to Ray, he sees no hope if they go to the police, citing the spilled booze and Barry's state.
"It'll be manslaughter," he says. And so the quartet do something awful. They take the man to a pier and dump him in the water. However, he shows signs of life before he's pushed in. This is a disgusting thing that these kids have done, but it is realistic and believable that they would do it. However, this film doesn't just set up a good moral question, it also sets up grave consequences for the guilty party. Sure enough, a year later, they start getting letters, start getting stalked. They haven't spoken for a year, but are forced to reunite in order to try to figure out who's after them.
The mystery part of the movie works quite well, since many twists come as to who the identity of the stalker is, as well as the person they hit. The audience can't think too hard about some of the situations in the film, or else they'll notice the numerous improbable circumstances that occur, such as the killer wearing a big slicker and heavy hat in a North Carolina town in July. But who cares? It makes for a creepy looking outfit, and when he whips out his huge, glittering hook, he looks pretty tough. The music is perfect for this film, providing lots of atmosphere. The locations are really beautiful, and the opening shot is awesome, with a long shot of the ocean, which circles around the fateful Reaper's Curve, and finally comes in to just a single person, sitting on the bluffs.
As for scares, they come fast and furious. The director knows how to make the popcorn fly, and the screenplay is surprising in that it kills off people who the audience wouldn't expect. (The screenplay, by the way, was written by Kevin Williamson, who wrote Scream.) This one, (very loosely) based on a novel by Lois Duncan, doesn't have as crafty a plot as did Scream, but it sets up some sweet scares. The actors are all very effective, too, especially Anne Heche, who has a small, but great, part. I Know What You Did Last Summer tries to be a lot smarter and well-made than other, more generic slasher flicks, and it succeeds, keeping the audience hooked (pun intended). It's not as good as Scream, and it may have its iffy moments, when thinking too hard may reveal a plot hole as big as Texas, but it's a lot of fun to sit on the edge of your seat in a dark theater and get your pants scared completely off.
Fan Review Number Four
I Know What You Did Last Summer, written by Kevin Williamson, is a remarkable horror movie, and no doubt chalks up another victory for a horror-genre revival. In the last reviews I've seen on this page, there have been many comparisons to Scream, the debut film of Williamson's screenwriting career. Herein lies the problem, and the subsequent few, poor reviews this film has received.
While both films can be placed in the horror genre, this isn't enough of a reason to compare the two. While Scream plays on a tongue-in-cheek aspect, mixed with gore, and Wes Craven's stylish method of directing, which ultimately sets this apart and is the reason behind its 100+ million dollar gross, I Know What You Did Last Summer works on a different level. I Know What You Did Last Summer, hereby abbreviated with IKWYDLS, played strictly along the lines of suspense, gore and jumps. The self-referential nature of Scream does NOT apply to this movie. One must review this movie against other horror movies of the past, and not against Williamson's other brilliant script.
Having said this, I give virtually all praise to Jim Gillespie. Relatively unknown before this, and originating with credits in Scotland, his work in this film is present. The scary, suspenseful nature of this movie, along with its fast-paced second half (it took a while to get going, as some other reviews on this page have mentioned), make this very scary. Adding to the scare is the costume of the killer, which has been mentioned as a long fisherman's trenchcoat, with a fisherman's hat obscuring his face almost completely. The weapon of choice, a hook, serves the murders that inevitably take place in the film. I realize more and more that the costume of the killer in horror movies plays an extremely important role in the degree of fright the movie has. This can be seen with the Scream franchise, and Father Death's now-infamous face.
Speaking of which, Scream 2 is very similar to IKWYDLS in it's fright scenes. More thrill than its predecessor, it seems Wes might have taken lessons from Gillespie.
At any rate, staying away from giving it a rating, lets say that IKWYDLS is a memorable film, that will undoubtedly give its audience some screams, and end with some happy customers as long as they refuse to compare it to Scream.
Josh Kopple
1/10/98
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This page was last updated on: January 13th 1998
