Souviens-toi... l'été dernier

During the 4th of July holidays, four teens Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt), Helen Shivers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Barry William Cox (Ryan Phillippe) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.) are driving after drinking on the beach. Barry distracts Ray as he runs over a guy on a desolate road in the middle of the night. They argue convincing Ray to dump the body. Max (Johnny Galecki) drives by but Julie lies to him. The body has a hook for a hand but he's not actually dead as he makes a final grab at Helen. The friends agree to keep it a secret after dumping him in the harbor. Then one year later, Julia comes back to town from college and she gets a note with "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER!" Helen is working for her sister Elsa and broken up with the jerk Barry. Barry suspects Max as the one who wrote the note. Ray is now a fisherman following his father's footsteps.

The movie has some of the best young actors of Hollywood at the time. Kevin Williamson works over the script. It's a pretty simple teen slasher movie. It has some psychological aspects and mystery of the note. In the end, it's slash and splat. It works well and gets a couple of passable scares. It never really gets truly gritty or realistic. It's just an old fashion slasher flick. It's all about the old fashion 80s kills.

It's hard to believe 'I know what you did last summer' was made over two decades ago. This classic teenage slasher is still one of the most memorable movies in the genre.

Although a slasher, the film has substance. The very idea of what these teenagers are going through, makes one wonder: what would I have done if I were in that situation? The event leading to the revenge killings can so easily happen to anyone of us. Its believable and quite honestly a daunting thought. What would you have done?

What happens after the accident, off course is pure slasher material, but it still has substance. 'I know what you did last summer' is a creepy film with well crafted suspense. Naturally, there are a number of false scares and some credibility issues and coincidences, but in general this was thoroughly enjoyable. The performances were very good and the film itself has style and from the opening moments just felt memorable. The title alone is enough to make you want to watch it out of curiosity.

Exactly, everyone should - but why? Because it is an excellent film, containing a good storyline (though not one of the best) and some promising new actors and actresses. In regards to the storyline, not many viewers realise that the film was actually based on a novel written before Kevin Williamson even thought up the idea to create another horror flick - therefore the general outline is not his, and so some people's comparisons between this and Scream can be considered as wrong. However, they are right in the sense that the typical horror elements are all there, and some are similar to Scream. I feel that the statement on the video cover "scarier than Scream" is to some extent true, especially the climatic ending (I won't spoil it for any of you left to see the film)!

I enjoyed the acting performances, though sometimes the screams did get slightly out of hand - near the end, one popped up every other minute or so! Despite this, the characters were portrayed very well, and you could really notice the distinctions between them, and which characters you were likely to prefer. However one drawback to the characters was how obvious it was to spot who was going to bite it - all my sister had to do was look at the characters in a group and guess straight away.

On the whole though, I found it to be a good horror film, done proud by the talents of writer Kevin Williamson and of the cast. If you are looking for a good scare, or simply taste other films after experiencing the wonder that is "Scream", then "IKWYDLS" should be your first choice - with its many 'jumps' making you enjoy the ride all the way!

ENJOY, and most importantly, SCREAM ON!!!

This film is great! The ACTING IS BETTER THAN IN MOST HORROR FILMS ALSO. Freddie Prinze Jr i the only one that fails to capture emotion. Jennifer Love Hewitt gives great acting in the actual scene where they hit the man, but other than that she is okay. Ryan Phillipe is also great, but its easy to play an air head that curses and is mad at everyone. The best performance has to be given by Sarah Michelle Gellar. She is great going from a natural beauty, to a scared off helpless girl. She conveys emotions well and her chase scene in this film is a classic. I would recommend this film for that reason only. Its fun, but kinda forgettable after a while. Anne Heche also gives a very good performance, even if its small. See it. You will be entertained.

Some might say this movie was released about 12 years too late, others that this was a cheap copycat of Scream(also a Kevin Williamson movie), the truth is that it's all a matter of taste, and what you expect. The people who were expecting something better or on the same level of Scream(which is a modern horror classic), probably left the cinema disappointed. On the other hand, those who went to see a typical, by-the-numbers dumb teen slasher movie, probably had a great time at the cinema. If you're willing to suspend your disbelief and turn your brain off for 1h45min, you'll be able to appreciate "I Know..." for what it is. With the remake recently coming out, i thought it would be cool to finally check out this successfull 90s Slasher, and it was pretty much what i expected it: Very dumb, with lots of plot holes, weird contrivances, and some ridiculous performances. All these shortcomings would be enough to categorize any movie as bad, but again, this is a teen slasher movie we are talking, all these flaws don't diminish the enjoyment for the movie, but it's actually part of the charm. Scream set the bar way too high for any slasher movie that would come after it, so high that not even Williamson himself would manage to deliver another work on the same level, and only a year later. However, we still get a reasonably interesting and coherent story, brought to life by a(mostly) talented and charismatic cast of young actors who were all coming in hot at the time. Jennifer Love Hewitt is the lead, and she did the best she could with the material she was given, sure, she's not a great actress by any means, but she managed to carry the movie with a lot of charm and sincerity, and MY GOD WAS SHE BEAUTIFUL... The rest of the main cast was... Fine i guess? Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Geller didn't had a lot of chemistry as a couple, and it was hard to care about Phillippe's character since he was written as a complete prick with no redeeming qualities. Geller at least had some good dramatic scenes with Hewitt, and the final moments of her character near the end were by far the best moments in the entire movie. Freddie Prinze Jr. Undoubtedly delivered the worst performance of the four, and it didn't helped the fact that his character was just plain boring, i didn't believed a second that he was the killer despite the movie trying so hard to manipulate me into thinking that, since his acting was shoddy and totally unambiguous. The killer's backstory was kinda interesting and had a lot of dramatic potential, but unfortunately they wasted all the good premise and setup in favour of a quicker, more rushed and chaotic conclusion that spoiled all the tension it could have built. A huge element in any Slasher is the kills, and whether they are well made, and im happy to say that most of the killing in the movie was pretty entertaining, not very gory and creative, but still, reasonably well choreographed and visually impactful. Overall, "I Know..." is not nearly as good or iconic as Williamson's finest work, but it still managed to entertain hardcore slasher fans with a comfortably clichéd palette of dumb characters, gory killings, and teenage drama. If you watched this movie with your friends back in the day and had a great time with it, you'll probably enjoy just as much today, with nostalgia playing a big role. Curious to see how much they improved (or ruined) in the remake...