FAQ

While it's possible that Julie was just hallucinating, the fact that she saw that she saw the body and that she had no idea that Max was dead suggests it was real. The way the killer could have removed the body from the trunk without a trace is that the body and the live crabs were stored in a body bag or something of the same size with a zipper on it. So when Julie wasn't near her car, the killer placed it in the trunk and opened the bag. Then the killer followed Julie until she pulled over and saw what was in the trunk. Once Julie ran off (she pulled over before getting to Helen's house so it's possible that she could have ran quite a fair distance) the killer had time to pull up in his truck or car and collect the body and the crabs. However, this still would leave a smell of both death and seafood in the trunk so the only logical explanation is that the killer sprayed Lysol or something similar in the trunk to kill the smell. As thin as that explanation might be, it's the most likely aside from it being a hallucination.

Ben Willis (Muse Watson) is the killer. David Egan, brother of Missy Egan, gets into a car accident with his girlfriend Susie Willis—causing her death. Susie's father, Ben Willis, blamed David for the death of his daughter. Ben eventually kills David Egan (off-camera) on the night of Julie, Helen, Barry and Ray's graduation and disposes of his body over the cliff side he was sitting on (just after the opening credits). As Julie, Helen, Barry and Ray are driving, they hit Ben Willis, who was apparently walking across the road after just killing David. Ben, however, doesn't die and he returns to stalk and kill the teenagers as revenge for running him over.

The setting takes place in Southport, North Carolina. A realistic town off the Atlantic Coast 30 miles south of Wilmington, North Carolina and 60 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Although the beach shots were clearly filmed on the West Coast as North Carolina does not have such a rocky coast, hilly topography and the sun sets over the ocean (in North Carolina it would have set over the land)

Because the killer wanted to create the impression that Ray was behind the whole thing and may actually be the killer. He did this so that he could drive a wedge between the 4 characters making it easier to carry out his revenge. Make no mistake if the killer had been able to kill Julie it was very unlikely that Ray would have lived much longer.