I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

After four teenagers make road-kill of an innocent pedestrian, they are terrorized one year later by a mysterious stalker dressed like the Gorton’s Fisherman.

That’s about the extent of the plot. Not much else to it. Pretty standard slasher film stuff, although it is better than most of the Friday the 13th series.

The film makes absolutely no sense, and is basically just a premise for cheap slasher-film booga booga theatrics. Horny teenage angst? Like Prego, it’s in there.

Not to disappoint, this film also features such time-honored classic clichés like the killer that seemingly is able to keep pace with someone running full speed while he is merely walking briskly (just once I’d like to see a psychopath who drives everywhere), the scared teen bumping into someone they think is the killer when it clearly is a coat rack, the killer that insists on using some odd instrument of death when a gun would do the job ten times more efficiently, and the ending that sets up the sequel should this one prove a financial success.

B-movie stuff given A-movie treatment, no doubt due to the success of Scream the year before. It’s no coincidence that this film features the same screenwriter, Kevin Williamson (Scream 2, The Faculty), who has been given far too much credit for doing an adequate job in Scream, but he shows he’s vastly overrated with this tired, derivative film.

If there’s one genre I don’t miss, it’s the type this film comes from, and like the psychos who inhabit the slasher world, just when you think you’ve finally seen the end of them, they jump out of the woodworks once again.

Qwipster’s rating:  D

MPAA Rated: R for strong horror violence and language
Running Time: 100 min.

Cast: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr., Anne Heche
Director: Jim Gillespie
Screenplay: Kevin Williamson (based on the novel by Lois Duncan)