After accidently ploughing into an innocent pedestrian – walking in the dark after midnight on a treacherous stretch of winding cliff-top road – four teens make the fatal mistake of not calling the police, dumping their victim’s body into the sea and making a pact to never speak of the incident again. However, exactly one year later, Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) receives a note in the post chillingly stating ‘I know what you did last summer’ so, had someone seen them that night or has the supposed the dead man returned from his watery grave? Either way, they are looking for more than just an apology.
Ok, let’s get it out there from the off, nothing will ever top Scream, that for me created a whole new mould in horror/slasher movies and to be honest, every slasher since has taken inspiration from that 1996 classic. This movie was also written by Scream scribe Kevin Williamson, so was only going to have similar traits, young, good-looking cast, some well-placed and executed jump scares, red herrings and of course some ridiculous scream at the TV decision making by the tortured teens – it wouldn’t be a slasher without would it?
The plot is standard as I alluded to earlier, it is the usual ‘let’s make a pact and take it to the grave’ type thing but this this is fine by me, as what I really want to see are all the things listed above. Other positives are that you are kept guessing until the end and interestingly, I actually thought this had a really good story to it, which is unusual for a glossy slasher and certainly has lacked in many of the post-Scream offerings.
Right, onto the bad guy and though the crazed fisherman Ben Willis is no Ghostface, he’s pretty menacing and pretty brutal and for me, has air-tight rationale for why he is doing what he is doing, now I’m certainly not condoning the murder of young American teens, well maybe Ryan Phillippe’s Barry, but none of the others! I guess, the only real issue is that Mr. Willis is just not as memorable as Ghostface – but again, in recent horror, who is? I mean Ghostface was so original and I am not sure if he/she if you’ve seen Scream 2, will ever be bettered.
The cast is great, sure, Jennifer Love Hewitt is no Neve Campbell but she and the rest of her co-stars, including Prince Jr as Ray, Ryan Phillipe and my late teens crush (who’s with me) Sarah Michelle Gellar as Helen Shivers (great name) all try their best to make the film work for what it is and I think they pull it off nicely. I must also mention Anne Heche, she is brilliant as the mysterious Missy and provided a really good additional twist to the whole story.
Overall the movie is just great fun, I genuinely think you’ll care about these characters and hope they survive, even though we know most of the won’t – something that can’t be said for the plethora of slashers that have followed in Scream’s footsteps.