I Know What You Did Last Summer . Memphis Flyer . 10-27-97

	I Know What You Did Last Summer
	DIRECTED BY: Jim Gillespie		REVIEWED: 10-27-97
	The success of last year's Scream made horror movies cool again. Writer Kevin Williamson deftly riffed on the genre's conceits for comic effect, while using them to spook the audience. With his latest effort, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Williamson plays it straight, and the result comes off less as a thriller than as a showcase for the four young actors who star. Jennifer Love Hewitt (Party of Five), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer), Ryan Phillippe, and Freddie Prinze Jr. (the late comic's son) make up a cozy clique of just-graduated high-school seniors who are enjoying their last Fourth of July together in their seaside hometown in North Carolina. Intellectual Julie (Hewitt) and jock Barry (Phillippe) are off to college in Boston. Beauty queen Helen (Gellar) is headed to New York to pursue an acting career, and the working-class Ray (Prinze) is moving there, too, to write. As they head home after saying their goodbyes, Ray strikes a man in Barry's new BMW. The crew panic and opt to save themselves and their futures, so they take the body, dump it off a pier, and swear never to mention the incident again. One year later, Julie returns home to find an anonymous note informing her that someone knows what she and her friends did. As the Fourth approaches, the foursome are terrorized by that person who they can't see, but who can see them. They decide to find him and stop him. I Know What You Did Last Summer is by-the-book. Williamson knows which dark corners to put his killer in, when to shake you with a false scare, and how to pull off a bang-up ending. And the four players fill their roles nicely. But the movie's surefootedness is perhaps its biggest flaw. It's not too gory or too surprising or too anything. It's certainly nothing to lose your head over. --Susan Ellis Full Length Reviews I Know What You Did Last Summer I Know What You Did Last Summer Capsule Reviews I Know What You Did Last Summer I Know What You Did Last Summer Film Vault Suggested Links The Haunting Stigmata Dead of Night Related Merchandise Search for related videos at Reel.com Search for more by Jim Gillespie at Reel.com Search for related books at Amazon.com Search for related music at Amazon.com Rate this Film If you don't want to vote on a film yet, and would like to know how others voted, leave the rating selection as "Vote Here" and then click the Cast Vote button.