I Know What You Did Last Summer Wrap Up

Does this series have a devoted fanbase?  As popular as that first one was I don’t remember anyone talking about it after the early 2000’s.  I wonder if it gains new fans because it doesn’t appear to be brought up much in the horror community or looked back on with a ton of reverence.  If you were there in the late 90’s you might’ve been into it but otherwise the franchise doesn’t seem to have stood the test of time.  The original isn’t great and the first sequel is quite bad so I get it.  And I’m sure most folks haven’t seen the second sequel or the TV show.

You didn’t know there was a TV show?  Amazon put out eight episodes in 2021 but it didn’t do well enough to warrant more.  I could only get through the first three episodes before tapping out.  The characters are deeply unlikeable with the whole production taking on an obnoxious attitude.  They made the premise considerably more complicated to the point that it borders on in-name-only territory.  Unlike the trashy low budget fun of the Scream show from MTV this one doesn’t have much going for it.

Compared to most other horror franchises this one is on the tamer side.  It may not be apparent upon first watch but there isn’t much gore, sex, drug taking, kids partying, excessive violence or anything else that you would normally find in a slasher.  Director Jim Gillespie (Eye See You) wanted almost no blood in the first picture and shot it that way.  However, he and the producers realized later they weren’t getting the impact they desired so to punch it up they went back and added some in reshoots.  This included an entire death scene earlier in the film to help pacing (Max, who gets the hook through the chin during the crab boil).  The sequels do ratchet up the violence and debauchery a touch but not much.

One thing that’s been bugging me that I can finally address is I think the “last summer” part of the title sounds stupid.  When you see it written in that first threatening note the text comes across like a child wrote it.  A way more ominous message would’ve been “I know what you did” or even simply “I know”.  Additionally, the concept of sending these cryptic messages doesn’t line up in my mind with the killer, Ben Willis.  He’s a grizzled middle-aged small town fisherman.  He seems like a guy who would take you head on and not fuck around with cutesy shit like handwritten notes or cutting someone’s hair off in their sleep.

In the end probably the biggest issue these pictures have is the base premise alone asks the viewer to clear a damn high bar.  I just couldn’t get there.  While I can understand the argument for covering up a hit and run manslaughter (to put it simplify, they did a lot more than that) I don’t agree with it.  There’s supposed to be vindication at the conclusion because it turns out they actually ran over a murderer who ended up surviving, oops.  None of that matters though because the kids didn’t know that when they, again, committed several very serious crimes in an attempt to hide the initial one.  Sadly, the rest of the components of the film aren’t strong enough for me to look past this.

And those are the I Knows.  It wasn’t a place that fostered burgeoning talent (most folks involved were either already established or didn’t go on to soaring heights), didn’t do anything very creative or unique with the slasher genre, didn’t do well enough to have much of a life beyond the 90’s and doesn’t hold up that well decades later.  While certainly not the worst set of horror movies they don’t have a lot to offer either.