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I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) comes from the pen of Kevin Williamson, screenwriter of both Scream films, slasher comic-horror films about a gang of nubile teenagers running away from a hooded man with a sharp knife.
This film features a gang of teenagers out late at night giving their car a run for its money when they accidentally run a man down and kill him. Each of our four main characters shout out different reasons about what they should do, leading from telling the police to dumping him in the river. Rather unfortunately they choose the latter, but as they do their deed it appears he’s not quite dead. They vow to say nothing to anyone about what happened and leave it at that.
Then a year later, Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) gets a mysterious note through the mail which reads, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and before you can say ‘boo’, out from the shadows at random intervals, but amazingly always in just the right spot, comes a hooded man with a sharp meat-hook. Several people are murdered, in gruesome but predictable circumstances and since the sequel that has already graced the UK cinemas features Ms. Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr, but not Sarah Michelle Gellar or Ryan Phillippe, then that should give you some idea as to who gets offed and who does not. That said, the latter pair went on to make a recent film with a rough remake of Dangerous Liaisons entitled Cruel Intentions, with Ms. Gellar returning to her roots…literally, as the bottle of peroxide was thrown in the bin.
Celebrated Hollywood lesbian Anne Heche turns up in a role in which she plays a relation to the deceased (I’ll give no more clues as I’ll have to leave some part of the plot to you to find out), but her spaced-out appearance would make her more suited to the Norman Bates persona than Marion Crane in last year’s Psycho remake.
This title is one of the first batch of DVD releases from Entertainment in Video, but it suffers the same fate that two other titles do, namely Jackie Chan’s First Strike and Evita, in that while bring presented in their original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1, none of them are anamorphically-enhanced, so even though the encoding is relatively artifact-free, the final image doesn’t look any better than a good VHS tape when it could have been so much more. The average bitrate is 5.40Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 7Mb/s.
The sound also shares a problem with the other titles in that while being filmed with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, it’s merely represented in DD2.0 which translates to Dolby Surround or ProLogic given the particular amplifier in use. However, I have to ask why, since Surround/Prologic-only is nothing but a backward step.
On the disc:
Chapters: There are 12 chapters spread over 96 minutes, but it’s a ridiculously small amount and the Region 1 DVD has 28. No trailer is to be found here.
Languages & Subtitles: Just one language: English – in Dolby Surround – and with no subtitles in any language. Could it be any more sparse?
Menu: A bland picture of the hooded murderer with an option to start the film or choose a scene. No animation. No sound. That’s it.
On inserting the disc, you see the copyright info and the Entertainment In Video logo and then the film begins without accessing the main menu first. Unlike Boogie Nights and Wag the Dog, you can’t fast-forward past them. If you go to the menu, clicking on “Play Movie” brings up the EiV logo and then the film starts. For some reason, whenever I see the EiV logo on this particular DVD or Evita, it shimmers like crazy and gives you a headache if you look at it for its full duration.
As well as a third edition in the series being planned for both this film and the Scream franchise, someone has seen the non-sense to create a lame parody with the working title of Scream If You Know What I Did Last Summer, but this first ‘Summer’ installment is enough since it takes Scream and just repeats it but with a different murder implement and zero tension. What this film does have going for it is an abundance of La Gellar who lasts until late on in the film and looks gorgeous, so it’s no surprise that she came top in the 1999 FHM poll.
I haven’t seen the sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, yet but when it does appear on DVD I’ll be curious to compare since it was filmed by British director Danny Cannon, best known for Judge Dredd and The Young Americans.
So, after what I’ve written, how much should I recommend this DVD? Even if you like the film, it’s missing so much that benefits the Region 1 release our American counterparts are enjoying, namely an anamorphic widescreen transfer (with a pan-and-scan option too if that floats your boat but it’s no mean loss here), a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, a theatrical trailer and an audio commentary by director Jim Gillespie.
Trivia fans: The first R1 DVD release was recalled due to an unauthorised trailer claiming it was created by the “makers of Scream”, when the only connection was screenwriter Kevin Williamson.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) is out now on Blu-ray, Amazon Video and DVD.
|
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
4 6 6 0 |
| OVERALL | 4 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 96 minutes
Studio: Entertainment In Video
Year: 1997
Released: 1999
Cat.no: EDV9019
Region(s): 2, PAL
Chapters: 21
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
Languages: English
Subtitles: None
Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Panavision)
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD5
Director: Jim Gillespie
Producers: Neal H Moritz, Erik Feig, Stokely Chaffin
Screenplay: Kevin Williamson
Music: John Debney
Cast:
Julie James: Jennifer Love Hewitt
Helen Shivers: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Barry Cox: Ryan Phillippe
Ray Bronson: Freddie Prinze, Jr
Ben Willis/Fisherman: Muse Watson
Melissa Egan: Anne Heche
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.