| Product: |
I Know What You Did Last Summer (DVD) |
| Date: |
11/03/06 (186 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: Mildly Effecting, Good Cast,
Disadvantages: Same Ol, Same Ol
On the magical night of their last day of High School, a group of four friends; Helen, Barry, Ray and Julie decide to spend a wild night drinking and driving. When suddenly out of nowhere a man steps on the road and is knocked down by the car, the young adults panic and decide to dump him in the nearest river, figuring that any evidence will be washed away. As they throw him in though, the injured man stirs into life, frightened and tired they watch him anyway, leaving the fisherman to drown. A year later on the days running up to the 4th of July, Julie gets a note simply stating ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ was someone else there that night? Who else could possibly know about the murder? The four friends are hurtled into a cat and mouse game of blood, death and mayhem.
I secretly really like I Know What you did Last Summer. No, it isn’t one of the most intelligent movies to come out of the industry, no it isn’t fresh and totally original and no it won’t be heralded as a contemporary classic, but for a thriller aimed squarely at the slasher teen crowd, it isn’t half bad. You know the formulae; four young, attractive teenagers desperately try to outsmart a maniac as he goes on a bloody rampage, using a variety of inventive and sharp weapons. It’s been tried and tested, over and over again but I am still a big fan of the teen slasher genre, I find that it delivers adrenaline, cheap scares and even cheaper laughs as well as completely implausible but surprising death sequences and usually a pretty solid cliff-hanger. I Know What You Did Last Summer is one of the more popular 90’s thrillers and proves to be a fairly engaging, enjoyable exercise in mayhem from start to finish, with enough smarts and snappy dialogue to pull it through the ridiculously unbelievable plot and slow stretches. First and For-most I Know isn’t a horror film and if you go into expecting to be terrified then you may well be very disappointed, there are few actual murders and the gore quotation is kept to a minimum, this production is more about suspense and teeny bopper thrills than actual terror. Bless its heart I Know does try to keep you on the edge of your seat, with dancing shadows, typical ‘scary’ music and attractive ladies slowly turning around the corner where you just know the killer is but it really doesn’t ratchet that much tension, which can leave some of the scenes feeling very slow and tiresome. Another point against the film is the ridiculous killer, basically a man in a fishermen’s slick and hat, he says nothing, has no personality, lumbers around like a stupid fool and kills off fairly nice people because on one mistake that they made on a drunken night. I didn’t see him as a huge threat and just thought that as a villain he was a little bit silly..
I had a real problem with the main concept of I Know What You Did Last Summer because I didn’t think that it worked. It tries to be a morality tale about getting what you deserve and vengeance for dastardly deeds but looking back the group of friends made a simple –albeit fatal- mistake, they killed someone and hid the body, but only one member was the instigator and they all suffered the consequences through sleepless nights, horrific nightmares and tremendous guilt. Surely hunting down teenagers with their whole life ahead of them is wrong, especially when all but one was apposed to the dumping the corpse, for me the whole plot felt unfair and actually quite upsetting. The screenplay tried to be clever by making the film about consequences but because it asks you to look deeper than just the bloody exterior, many plot holes become apparent and the injustice of the premise becomes even more rank. However it isn’t all bad Kevin Williamson does try to put some veins of characterisation into the four main characters with success, giving each one specific personality and enough brains to become mildly endearing. As the movie progresses each player has to deal with their guilt as well as a hook wielding maniac and this gives a grounded feel to the paper thin story. However the most enjoyable part of the screenplay –and indeed the whole movie- has to be the well constructed, atmospheric mystery that is essentially the heart of the story, who is David Eagan? Why was he on the road that night? Who is actually stalking the group? Could Mr. Eagan have risen from the dead to have a go at retribution? I found myself interested in this engrossing mystery more than any other thing about the film, so was disappointed when the resolution came, and it had no real bearing to the story at all.
I Know is helped greatly by the talented cast who are all very good. Jennifer Love Hewitt plays the main heroine Julie with enough strength and confidence to make the incredibly annoying character at least remotely likeable. Her character wonders around whining about the repercussions of the gangs actions and spends half the film crying, whilst gliding through the other 60minutes with either a ‘I told you so’ smirk or a look of complete terror. Hewitt has enough bouncy personality and sweet sensibility to sale through the film giving a likeable but hardly earth shattering performance that does the job. Freddie Prinze Jr. has about as much charisma and screen presence as a fly; he can’t act, seems to find it hard to convey any emotion whatsoever and always comes off a slightly nerdy fool who just happened to stumble onto the film set, with no idea what he is doing. However he does a perfectly adequate performance as the heroic Ray seen as the character is hardly stretching, he plays sweet and nice all American boy who works the boats with a satisfying amount of energy –although he isn’t very convincing as an action hero- and his chemistry with Hewitt feels a little forced. Sarah Michelle Gellar is probably the biggest name in the film and really does come of as the most talented; she is breathlessly comfortable, always extremely confident and does manage to squeeze a lot of sympathy from the audience. She definitely has more of a presence in this film than her co-stars and portrays her character with energy, spunk and wit. Ryan Phillipe plays the overbearing baseball player Barry with a fair amount of intensity and has no trouble throughout the film.
One of the things I liked about I Know What You Did Last Summer was the atmosphere that it built, for all intensive purposes it has an effective style that does engage, with dark alleyways and a whole array of fishermen hooks and slicks it manages to build the tension where the rest didn’t. I also liked the idea of introducing unspeakable horrors into a small community that’s just trying to celebrate the 4th of July; this gave the film a false feeling of security and a nice claustrophobic feel to it. Mostly though I just liked the films sense of energy, the plot twists are ridiculous and the death wildly implausible, yet none of that matter because it all contributes to the movies steady pace and the frenetically fast conclusion has a frantic and adrenaline endusing fell to it that really does get the heart rate going. As there is only one really good murder in the whole film, it is extremely hard to recommend the film for its body count, but the murders do have an effective almost depressing feel to them, as the young teens desperately try to get themselves out of many ridiculous situations. I also felt that the film gathered an almost apocalyptic feel to it that gave the conclusion a real snappy punch.
Overall I Know what You Did Last Summer doesn’t have the heart or wit to b another Scream and it doesn’t manage to reinvent the genre, but it does have enough cheap thrills to become a solidly enjoyable, annoyingly
Effective piece of slasher trash. Good performance and good production values mean that you can watch worse (see the horrendously silly Valentine) but don’t expect a masterpiece.
Price: £6.97 ASIN: B00004D35Q Amazon.co.uk
Summary: a Solid, But Silly Slasher Flick
|
|
