I Know What You Did Last Summer -- 1997 -- R

What is basically Kevin Williamson's follow-up to Scream is a rough adaptation of a novel about a group of teens who hit a guy crossing the road in the middle of the night. I saw this film a few years ago, and with the coming of a third film in this franchise, I decided to watch it again through my more informed viewpoint of films as a whole.

What I find is not a standard teen hack-n-slash, but more of a cat and mouse thriller where the mysterious killer opts to mess with his victims' head before they die. There is one death that I don't get and served little purpose beyond freaking a character out later, but the film was decent enough to get over that rather uneventful end.

It differs from other horror movies in another way too. Rather than isolating the characters from the world as most horror flicks do, this one isolates them psychologically. They can easily get help if they need to, but based on their assessment of the situation, they can't or they'll be in deep trouble. One might argue deep trouble is better than dead, but it works in context for awhile.

There were several hiccups in the direction, however, that were nothing short of clumsiness. A character can bust out a car window, climbs through it, and then land in the broken glass, and runn off without a cut on her legs or feet. Another character swam through the water, but when he climbed out, his hair was in perfect place. The final bit of dialogue before the tag ending was also incredibly cheesy as if everything else got a rewrite but that. I also found a dislike to the way the adults are portrayed. As usual, they are goofs who believe nothing the main attackees have to say.

Finally, the real part that bugged me more than anything else was the Egan house and that it was SOOO necessary to go there...twice. Te first time they went, it was a normal house. It had four sides, and nothing special when the characters walked around it. Sure, Missy was creepy, but hey, it's that kind of movie. The second time, it had this weird Texas Chainsaw Massacre thing going on with all kinds of bird corpses hanging everywhere. I think the visit was a detriment to Julie's character since she didn't seem like the type to be extroverted enough to go. Maybe that was my big beef.

So, the base plot works fairly well. It has an orignial angle to it that is usually not explored in this type of film. I liked the suspenseful moments where you know where the killer is and you are waiting on edge for him to strike...or not. The cat and mouse stuff was great. The shortcomings were very, very minor, and could have been easily corrected had the powers that be taken the time or attention to do so.

As a final side, I can't spoil it, but there's a fabulous irony in with the guy who was hit when the history is revealed. It's never brought up, but I get a personal kick out of it.