I Know What You Did Last Summer, I think: Revisiting the 90s teen horror classic

I Know What You Did Last Summer was one of the first horror movies I can remember seeing. It was a big step for me after Sleeping Beauty and Pocahontas gave me nightmares. I vividly remember walking into my sister's room while the movie was playing. She wasn't really paying attention, otherwise she probably would not have let me watch it. A lot like the time I was watching American Pie in her room and she shut it off after first scene when Jim is trying to watch porn. Anyway, the two things I distinctly remember were developing a huge crush on Sarah Michelle Gellar that continued throughought the Buffy series, and being terrified of the fisherman with the giant hook. Now last night when it came on Cinemax, I had no choice but to re-watch the late 90s cult classic.

I am going to go ahead and skip over the opening scene where we see David Egan at the top of the cliff and get straight to the pageant scene. Two things about this scene that don't seem right: First, Sarah Michelle Gellar's boyfriend has no problem with Freddy Prinze Jr making the comment, "wow, it looks like Helen inflates those things." Either this guy is a softy who doesn't mind his best friend ogling at his girlfriend, or he just takes it as a compliment. Second, they crown Gellar while she is wearing a bathing suit. Now I don't know much about pageants other than watching the end of Miss America, but they definitely don't get crowned in bikinis, that being said, it didn't seem like the creepy old host of the thing minded seeing her in a bathing suit for a little longer.

If only they knew...

We now move to the beach scene. This scene happens in every great teen horror movie. All of the characters having a grand ole time with no idea about all the horrible events that are about to occur. We learn that Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe's characters are madly in love. We also find out that Ryan Phillippe is playing college quarterback and is intent on playing for the Steelers. Ryan Phillippe is 5'8"; I don't think the Steelers are going to be knocking on his door anytime soon. And, if you're gonna sell me that 5'8" Ryan Phillippe is headed to the NFL, why not just blow the whole thing out of the water and have us watch him throw some go routes, show off the arm a little. I'd love to see who is worse, Phillippe at throwing a football, or Mike the Marine from Homeland shooting hoops. This is also the point in the movie where I asked my eight year old self, "What were you thinking?" Sarah Michelle Gellar is obviously gorgeous, but Jennifer Love Hewitt steals the show. She is stunning. Anyhow, we learn some other pointless stuff like Freddy Prinze Jr and JLH are going in different directions, whatever.

Yup, that guy

Time for our protagonists to leave the party. This may be the most responsible group of teens ever to be portrayed in a movie. They actually decide to let the sobef person drive home, which must have set designated drivers back for a decade given the fact that he still managed to run someone over. About that, so Ryan Phillippe is acting like a grade A jackass standing out of the sun roof yelling at nothing, at this point, Prince Jr takes his eyes off the road for maybe a second when he plows right into someone standing in the middle of the street. Before I get to the chaos that ensues, let me just say, how did he not see or hear the car coming?! I have no sympathy for this guy. He has to cross a pitch black mountain road at 2:00am and he chooses to cross right when probably the first car that has come down the road in hours is flying by. Not only that, there was someone yelling from the sun roof of the car! Stevie Wonder would have known not to cross, but this donkey had no idea. So they smash into this guy, and like how anyone sane would react to crashing into an unidentified being in the middle of the road, Phillippe flies out of the vehicle to check that is car isn't too damaged. Meanwhile the sensible one, JLH, is freaking out because she sees blood everywhere. They eventually find the body and when JLH asks Phillippe if she can check his pulse, he informs her he's sure that the guy is dead because you know, he's gotta be dead. Our super team starts thinking about what their plan of action whe, oh no! It's the guy from the Big Bang Theory! Johnny Galecki is riding down the mountain when he comes (see what I did there) to a stop when he sees them. Our crew pretends that one of them is yacking and that's the reason they stopped. Galecki notices the enourmas amount of damage to the car, but instead of asking what happened, decides to just laugh it off and continue on his way. Phew. JLH still wants to go to the cops at this point, but everyone else says they'll never believe Prinze Jr was driving because it wasn't his car. Come on, three stone sober responsible kids going to good schools, and one hammered guy, I think there is a good chance the cops believe them. Regardless, like Robert Frost, they take the road less traveled and to dump him into the river. A tno point while carrying this guy do they notice that he is not actually dead. Not one heartbeat is felt, not one breath is heard. That really could have saved them a lot of trouble. When they do finally get to the docks to throw him in, they make a pact to never tell anybody, because you know, once you pinky swear, that's that. As they throw him in, he clutches the crown and, because the crown is clearly the most important thing right now, Phillippe jumps in after it. As he is swimming to the bottom of the water to pull away the crown, he sees the guy's eyes open. I don't know about you, but when I open my eyes under water, I can't see anything, let alone when its dark outside in murky boat waters.


Our adventure continues a year later. When JLH gets a letter with no postmark and no return address that says, "I know what you did last summer," hence the title, I Know what you did Last Summer. So she freaks out like she should and goes and tells her friends. We now learn that it has been a rough year for the kiddos. Sarah Michelle never went to New York and Freddy just stayed to follow in his father's footsteps as a fisherman. Well, it hasn't been a rough year for the 5'8 stud quarterback who is apparently tearing it up at his made-up university. When JLH shows him the note she received, he comes back with one of my all-time favorite movie lines, "You did a lot of things last summer!" I honestly just laughed out loud as I was typing that. He decides the only person who could have done it was the guy from the Big Bang Theory because he was the only one there. Mini Doug Flutie finds him and roughs Galecki up a bit and states to the others, "Don't worry, I took care of it."

Why are there no Phillippe Phlakes?

We now get to a major plot hole in this academy award snub. The man with the fish hook decides to kill the Big Bang Theory for apparently no reason. This guy's whole plan was to get revenge on the kids who "killed" him, so why did Galecki deserve to die? Well fish hook man sticks his fish hook through Galecki's neck and tears through his head...and scene! But wait a second, later Galecki's body turns up in our crew's trunk and his head doesn't seem ripped apart at all. I'm calling foul! Also, at this point I am going to the cops. Someone killed Big Bang Theory and he is clearly coming after you next, I'll do the time for hitting a guy who jumped into the middle of the road instead of getting mowed down by a fish hook killer.

Following the same plot hole guidelines as my last one, it really becomes clear the bad guy just doesn't have a plan. He chases down Verne Troyer Montana with his car and plows him through a giant plank of wood with it. When miraculously our friend survives this encounter, fish hook man stands over him with his hook drawn, but decides to leave him be, even though fish hook man kills him soon anyway.

Now we might as well get to the point where Phillipe gets killed. First let me address that he he just survived getting run over by a car and plowed through a wall. He should at least have some broken bones, but nope, not even a scratch. This leads us to one of the most ridiculous scenes in movie history. Sarah Michelle Gellar is on stage presenting the pageant crown to this years winner while Phillippe is looking on from the balcony above by himself. During the pageant fish hook man starts obliterating Phillippe and cutting his NFL dreams short. And I guess he is doing this in complete silence because Sarah Michelle is the only one in the whole theater to notice it. She then starts screaming bloody murder (yes, pun intended) and still people are only concerned with how crazy she is instead of the future hall of famer getting mauled to death.

Next up is one of my favorite chase scenes ever. Fish hook man murders the cop, and now has his sights set on Sarah Michelle. This is where I finally start thinking to myself, "why is this fish hook guy so dominant?" If they all just started carrying knives he really wouldn't be that big of a threat. He would also be scarier if his hand was a fish hook, but no, he just carries one. I also don't understand how Sarah Michelle didn't easily get away from him. Fish hook man does not once break into a speed walk let alone a run. Yet somehow when she gets to the shop he is hot on her tail, in more ways than one. Sarah Michelle then bangs wildely on the door and begs her older sisterVeronica Vaughn from Billy Madison to let her in.Mrs. Sampras could not have been more nonchalant letting her little sister into the jewelry store. I don't care what kind of relationship you have with your sibling, if your sibling is pounding at the door screaming that someone is going to kill her, you'd better hustle to that door. Well as she should, she pays for her mistake by getting her throat ripped out by a fish hook, so I guess all is right in the world. Sarah Michelle also meets her untimely demise in this scene.

It's a fish hook!

We star the scene which I guess is the climax of the movie. JLH starts putting together all of the clues and figures out who they actually hit they night. And guess what, it was fish hook man! All three of them are now engaged in battle on his boat. Long story short, they put an end to the madness and cut off fish hook man's arm and toss him overboard.

The final scene is terrific. JLH is talking to Freddy on the phone a year later, and they are having a wonderful time. That is until she finds another letter that is not postmarked and has no return address. Thankfully though, this one is harmless and is simply an invitation to a frat barbeque, or so we thought! She walks into the steaming shower where the words, "I still know" are carved out in steam, fish hook man jumps out of the glass and roll the credits. This guy clearly has more survival skills than James Franco in 127 Hours. He not only survived getting hit by a car, he swam up after being unconscious and dumped in a lake. He then swam back to shore with only one arm after being hurled off a boat.

My final thoughts are that although this movie is completely ridiculous, it is sill one of the best teen horror movies out there. So if you are ever bored on a rainy night, I highly suggest you pop it in the ole VHS machine. Well that pretty much does it until I re-watch I Still Know what you did last summer. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings as much as I did.