Review of I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) by Filipeneto — 13 Feb 2018

Empty, predictable and even humorous.

In this film, a group of teenagers commit a crime and decides to keep that secret forever but someone knows what they did and decides to punish them. From the same writer of "Scream" (Kevin Williamson), this film is directed by Jim Gillespie and features Jennifer Love Hewitt as a protagonist.

Teen movies usually go up in college or the end of high school, and show plots with stereotyped groups of adolescents (sexual perverts, idiots, nerds, dumb blonde's and others). This film starts from that and introduces notes of suspense: a crime, a secret, several murders throughout the plot and a busty girl playing the damsel in distress. This would make an excellent comedy (who doesn't like to see stupid teenagers to die horribly in movies?) and there are several moments that are deeply hilarious and predictable. The creation of suspense fails repeatedly for that reason.

Jennifer Love Hewitt is a satisfactory actress, but fails to convince the audience. The problem may not be the actress but the plot, the script and the way her character was planned. The actress tries at various times to reach a higher level of psychological tension but ruins everything with theatrical moments and hysterical screams. The rest of the cast doesn't matter, are there to die or kill. The best of the film is to discover the killer's identity but, unfortunately, if we just want that, any CSI series or similar can give that even better.