I Know What You Did Last Summer

 

With our world being enough of a horror show on its own, somehow escaping into horror movies seems less terrifying than anything life is throwing at us. I mean, take the first Presidential Debate: I think I can truly say it held more horror in an hour and a half than any movie I've watched in 8 binges and over 200 movies. 

So let's skip off into the blissful ignorance of serial killers, zombies, monsters, aliens, and other horror staples together. To quote one King Théoden of Rohan: So It Begins.

For the first horror movie of this year's binge, we have the 1997 classic (is it a classic? I remember it being big in '97. Whatever), I Know What You Did Last Summer. I don't know if I ever actually saw the entirety of this movie back when it when it was big or if I just absorbed it from the public consciousness, photosynthesis style. 

Basically there's not much meat to explain for the plot here, in case you were one of the five people along with myself that didn't see this (did I see it?) around when it came out. If you've seen any other 90s slasher movie, you pretty much know what this 'un is about: four supernaturally attractive about-to-graduate high school students accidentally hit a guy with a car, cover up the accidental murder, and find themselves hunted a year later by someone with knowledge of what they did. Last summer. In other words, they know what they did last summer. #literalmovietitles

This is pretty run of the mill fare, and I guess I can see how it fit with all the hullabaloo in the wake of Scream. Ultimately though it's pretty eh, with not much thrill or surprise from the kills, killer, characters, or the movie in general. The twist is really what carries it here, although it wasn't overly shocking when it was pretty easy to figure it out about 20 minutes before the reveal. At the end of the day it's a movie of its time and a pretty forgettable one at that, a Scream wannabe that's nothing groundbreaking or evenly overly edgy within its own genre. 

All that said, Jennifer Love Hewitt has a scream worthy of a scream queen. Good for her. 

6.5/10