90's Goodness - I Know What You Did Last Summer
It’s been over 20 years since the late 90’s horror revival, led in large part by Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s Scream. Figured it was a good time to go back and watch one of these, the lesser known (by this point) movie, also written by Kevin Williamson, I Know What You Did Last Summer.
The movie has an all star 90’s teen cast including Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy The Vampire Slayer), Freddy Prinze Jr (Scooby Doo), Ryan Phillipe (Cruel Intentions), and Jennifer Love Hewitt (Can’t Hardly Wait), as a group of teens who accidentally hit a man with their car and drop his body in the ocean.
One year later, they start to get notes with strangely nice handwriting stating “I Know What You Did Last Summer”, and then they are stalked by a man in a fishing trench coat and a hook.
The movie was based off a YA novel written by Louis Duncan, and you can definitely feel that vibe coming from the first two acts of the movie, with the suspense building and building to the third act climax which is when the 90’s horror slasher vibe kicks in.
The acting is somewhat laughable at times, but the cast is young and pretty and does what they are supposed to. It’s not the full meta of Scream, but they definitely are cut from that same cloth.
I did find it funny that there’s a scene at the beginning of the film where they sit around a campfire telling urban legends that not only foreshadows what’s to come in the movie but also another 90’s horror slasher movie that came out the following year as well. (Check out our Urban Legend review HERE)
The film also has a pretty great 90’s soundtrack which includes a laughably bad goth cover of the song “Summer Breeze” by Type O Negative which is worth hearing for the sheer “this is a thing” factor.
While the movie does set up a sequel (apparently two of them, as I learned the other day) neither of those come close to the entertainment factor presented here.
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