‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’: THR’s 1997 Review
On Oct. 17, 1997, Columbia Pictures unveiled I Know What You Did Last Summer in theaters, where it went on to gross $125 million worldwide and kickstarted a horror franchise for Sony. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review of the Jennifer Love Hewitt and Sarah Michelle Gellar film is below:
Having successfully persuaded horror audiences to Scream again, fright scribe Kevin Williamson follows up on that initial promise with I Know What You Did Last Summer, a good old-fashioned scarefest that relies on smartly constructed suspense, not buckets of gore or CGI over load, to coax viewers to the edge of their seats.
Backed by sharp direction from Scottish filmmaker Jim Gillespie and solid performances by Party of Five‘s Jennifer Love Hewitt and Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Sarah Michelle Gellar, the Columbia picture may be a mouthful for the marquee, but is certain to scare up potfuls of moolah when it opens the week end after next.
There certainly isn’t anything particularly groundbreaking going on — horror aficionados will easily spot a little Friday the 13th here and a little Texas Chainsaw Massacre there, not to mention Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street around the edges — but Williamson and Gillespie know a thing or two about effective packaging.
Set against the mist-laden back drop of a seaside South Carolina village, the action centers on four high school friends celebrating their final Fourth of July together before heading off in different directions.
There’s aspiring actress Helen Shivers (Gellar), who has just been crowned the coveted Croaker Queen; her cocky, rich kid boyfriend Barry (Ryan Phillippe); her best friend Julie (Hewitt), who’s off to Boston to pursue a career in law; and Julie’s beau Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.), who dreams of escaping his working-class roots to become a successful writer.
But their big summer blowout hits a roadblock when Barry’s new BMW runs head-on into a large, dark object in the middle of a remote stretch of highway. When their target turns out to be a human casualty, panic sets in, and realizing their blood-alcohol levels will no doubt result in a career-ending charge of vehicular manslaughter, they dump the body in the ocean.
Flash-forward one year later, when Julie receives an anonymous note bearing the words “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.” Before you can say “slasher picture,” she and her accomplices find themselves being pursued by a ghostly figure in a black slicker with a mean, Candyman right hook.
Gillespie and Williamson push all the requisite scare-tactic but tons, admirably forgoing the ever popular latex and optical effects in favor of traditional lighting and camera angles.
The cast is definitely above-par for this course. Although Hewitt and Gellar are required to provide all the obligatory scantily clothed screaming, they’re a lot more self-sufficient and take-control than their ’80s counterparts. Philippe and Prinze are also fine in a limited capacity. — Michael Rechtshaffen, originally published on October 10, 1997.
