Rad or Bad? — I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

Step back into 1997 with me.

Imagine a world where Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, and Ryan Phillippe were in a movie together.

I’m here to tell you that this movie exists and it’s called I Know What You Did Last Summer. It tells the story of a group of impossibly beautiful teens accidentally hitting someone and killing them and then dumping the body in the river and making a pact to never talk about it again.

But there’s a plot twist: they all get letters saying “I know what you did last summer” and then they start getting murdered one by one.

This movie is written by Kevin Williamson, who also wrote Scream. But where Scream deconstructed the horror genre, this movie falls right back into the cliches and stereotypes Scream made fun of.

But apart from that, is I Know What You Did Last Summer rad or bad? Let’s look.

THE RADNESS:

— We get peak terrible Jennifer Love Hewitt. It feels like she thought she was in another movie completely, and I respect how serious she took her role compared to Freddie Prinze Jr., who basically used his character in this as the inspiration for Zack Silar in She’s All That.

— Ryan Phillippe really should’ve been more famous. He’s the most charismatic of the group.

— Big Bang Theory getting a hook to the throat never stops being the best kill of the movie.

— The Sarah Michelle Gellar chase scene was great when it came out and still holds up today.

— ANNE HECHE. I don’t think she knew they were filming a movie, or that they knew she wasn’t acting. But she was gooder than hell.

— The bodies in ice scene was fucking RAD.

— Very good poster.

THE BADNESS:

— The story is actually really confusing, I’ve seen this movie 500 times and I still have no idea why anything is happening.

— Sarah Michelle Gellar is too talented to be playing the dumb girl.

— The killer reveal was very “meh.”

— Ryan Phillippe’s death scene looked like one of the editor’s son’s accidentally got a hold of the clip. It’s not good.

FUN FACT:

Ryan Phillippe stayed getting hit by cars in the 90s.

FINAL VERDICT:

Rad but with a whole lot of bad.