‘We killed a man and ruined the lives of everyone he knew...’
Kevin Williamson is perhaps the most influential film and TV writer from the ’90s. Having created Dawson’s Creek and then moved into movies with The Faculty, I Know What You Did Last Summer and the Scream franchise, his imprint can be found everywhere from the work of Joss Whedon to Gilmore Girls. And boy, do I have a soft spot for his work…
Four beautiful teenagers with old people’s names are stalked by a hooded figure wielding a hook following their involvement in the death of some guy the year before. Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) is the more cautious of the four, Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is the beauty queen, Barry (Ryan Phillippe) is the loose canon and Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is the nice guy. He’s also a fisherman. Weird.
It’s safe to say that Summer never gets close to hitting the heights of Scream, but it is thrilling to see such an iconic collection of ’90s teen heartthrobs together at last. The plot itself is fairly interesting, although it loses its way in the third act, and while none of the principal cast bar Michelle Gellar is any good at acting, they are at least watchable and they work well together as a four. Johnny Galecki of The Big Bang Theory fame is also surprisingly effective as a wise-cracking kid from the wrong side of the tracks.
The problem here is that jobbing director Jim Gillespie is no Wes Craven, and he simply doesn’t have the chops to take Williamson’s script and turn it into gold. The whole thing looks like shit despite supposedly taking place in a beautiful fishing village. The soundtrack is terrible. The cinematography workmanlike. All in all, it makes one realise just how good a horror director Craven was.
That being said, despite being undoubtedly an average movie, I Know What You Did Last Summer has endured, as evidenced by the TV reboot only two years ago. Sure, both the sequels are disgraceful, but I’d be open to a cinematic reboot of this weird little franchise. Make it happen Blumhouse.