Movie Review

Thriller leaves audience on edge




Campus Times
October 31, 1997

 

by Laura Czingula
Editorial Director

Expecting another movie like "Scream?" Well, it is similar and it is scary, but it is no "Scream."

"I Know What You Did Last Summer" is, however, still a great movie that sends the viewer on a roller coaster ride and makes him jump out of his seat, yell out loud and maybe even hit the person sitting next to him by accident.

The movie is a great thriller that made the audience literally scream. Director Jim Gillespie and "Scream" screenwriter Kevin Williamson have the viewer at the edge of his seat trying to figure out the murder and leaves him totally confused at the same time.

The movie starts out with two couples, Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) her boyfriend Ray (Freddie Prinze, Jr.), Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her boyfriend Barry (Ryan Phillippe), who have just graduated high school and are getting ready to start their adult lives.

After a night of drinking and celebrating their graduation on a romantic beach, the crazy teenagers decided to drive home. Ray wants to drive Barry's new BMW because Barry has had way too much to drink. Barry's rude behavior of passing around alcohol and hanging out the sun roof leads them to the nightmare's beginning.

The kids believe they have killed somebody. After being scared and confused, they struggle over what to do with the body. The group takes the body to the ocean and dumps it into the water. They decide to make a pact that they will not tell anyone about what they have done. They feel that if they do tell the police or anyone else, no one would believe that it was really an accident.

A year goes by and each of them are home for the summer. Julie receives a letter her first day back from college that says, "I know what you did last summer." She realizes that someone else besides the circle of the pact knows their secret.

Then other weird things start to happen. Helen gets her hair cut off in the middle of the night in her own bedroom and Barry is practically run down by his own car.

They then have a tormentor out there who knows their secret and is getting revenge on them for what they have done.

The story leaves the viewer in the clouds trying to figure out who is responsible for the pranks and the murders. After the viewer thinks he knows who it is, he realizes he is wrong and the thinking cap goes back on.

If interested in gory, graphic movies of suspense and murder then this movie is it. It is the kind of movie where one finds himself yelling at the screen telling the girl not to get out of the car, or telling the guy to turn around before the murderer gets him. But then again, it would not be Hollywood if the characters did the smart thing, now would it?



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