I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)/Additional

 


For my official review: Here

I had intended to go on a 90s/early 2000s revisit back when I watched "Scream" (1996), but I just never got around to it. I was wanting to watch I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) again, having not seen it since I reviewed it back in 2012, as seen in the link above. I was 20 at the time when this film was released in theaters during the big slasher boom in the wake of "Scream". I laughed to myself when I said aloud, "You could so a Six Degrees of Sarah Michelle Gellar." Reason I thought that was Gellar is in "I Know What You Did Last Summer", "Scream 2" (a college gal not expecting a Ghostface killer), and "Halloween H20" (her scene in "Scream 2" is playing on the television when Molly and Sarah are hanging out together). But she's always Buffy to me. I want to say she has magic and likes to cook in "Simply Irresistible" and, of course, kicks all kinds of ass as this vicious and filthy rich sociopath in "Cruel Intentions" by 1999. Obviously, this period is special to me because I was 20/21 years old. In "I Know What You Did Last Summer", she's the beauty queen who has all these hopes and dreams to go to New York City and become some next top model. Within a year, Gellar's Helen was back in Southport, North Carolina, in the cosmetics section, working under her sister's (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras) nasty thumb at their father's department store. I imagine after her ex-boyfriend's car hits a guy on their way back home after a fireside fuck near the ocean, with its crashing waves and idyllic photography a big NYC modeling career might hit an abrupt emotional wall. Going into that world, you kinda need a clear head and goals.

 Anyway, her friendship with Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) is tested, for sure, when they are forced into secrecy by Barry (Ryan Phillippe), who refuses to allow his privileged life of affluence to be disturbed. Ray (Freddie Prinze, Jr.), who doesn't go to college -- opting to be on a boat fishing since he was behind the wheel of Barry's car when the drunk prick dropped beer in his lap, causing his attention to be diverted -- will never cross Barry, instead consistently backing up, even when punched in the face.

The film introduces a victim, but not *the* victim hit by the car as a swerve (see what I did there?). And ongoing the rest of the film, a victim wants to get his revenge on the four for hitting him with the car, dropping him in the ocean, leaving him for dead after he moves. So this has all been written before. 




On this viewing, I can see why generations raised on lots of gory violence will look back at this period and feel as if the "Scream" era slasher is just too soft. Even when the killer is dragging a victim by her tummy with his hook or pulling out his hook from a cop's torso, this film remains very light on potent, shocking violence. This is just the "suspense era" of the slasher genre with the late 90s. Like with Helen, it is about her trying to get away from the killer, especially once she's in the store. Just about to flee into the busy 4th of July street, in an alley, with the killer accosting her, keeping her from almost escaping, safety just out of reach; Helen's tragic fate is staged well, I think. Barry, who is just a jerk for 98% of the movie, smiling at Helen a few times, can't gain any brownie points...he's an entitled douchebag for too much of the movie. But up in the balcony, too far away from the stage where Helen was, her pleas of help for him -- why is Barry in the balcony where he is distanced from everyone in attendance? Why would he think Hook-man would show up among so many people? -- the killer approaching him from behind is a good bit of "uh oh, he's in deep shit". I was a bit more favorable to this film in 2021 than 2012. I have softened towards this. Now do I like this more than "Scream" as some of my peers...no. But I have warm memories seeing it in the theater, and since I was the same age as the leads, all of us now in our 40s, all of that might have something to do with it. 3.5/5

I could really understand Gellar's arc of the smalltown beauty with her sights set on making it big "out there", only to return home a failure, working in a store, told what to do by a sister who seems to enjoy making her feel so small. Whatever happened between these two sisters (and the dad doesn't even look Helen's way, ignoring her completely while watching baseball), you feel every bit of tension and revulsion between them. Something in this family happened prior to our introduction to them. I mean, these two just despise each other. And so she's the beauty queen of the town for a year, having to return the crown, facing her murderer once this one "success" is given over to be placed on another woman's head. It is a bit of a bummer, really.

Oh, yeah, Jennifer Love Hewitt definitely turned heads starting really here, as opposed to Party of Five, where she sort of settled into the ensemble. Here she had star status above Buffy.

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