Producer of I Know What You Did Last Summer

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I Know What Yous Did Last Summer (1997) is a horror/slasher film very loosely based on the novel of the aforementioned name by Lois Duncan, starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Ryan Phillippe. The screenplay was written by Kevin Williamson, who likewise wrote Scream (1996).

The tale starts with a party and the consumption of besides much alcohol, equally these stories tend to do, during a beach political party after Helen Shivers (Gellar) wins the Croaker County Dazzler Pageant. On the mode dwelling house, notwithstanding, a drunken swerve of the friends' car leads to the death of a fisherman on the side of the road. The four decide to tell no one, and to forget the whole thing, throwing the body into the ocean. But somebody saw, and the next summer, they start to take vengeance, alert the four with an ominous message: I KNOW WHAT YOU DID Concluding SUMMER. Earlier long, people start dying, killed by a pelting-slicker-clad effigy wielding a hook...

The film was followed by two sequels: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998) and the straight-to-video I'll Ever Know What Y'all Did Last Summer (2006). In July 2019, it was announced that a television series based on the films was existence developed for Prime Video, with James Wan serving every bit a producer. The series premiered October 15, 2021.

For tropes applying to the original novel, run across its own page.

This flick contains examples of:

• Adjusted Out: Barry's female parent features prominently in the book, and Helen'southward parents have a couple of scenes too. Helen'south father simply appears as an extra, and Barry's mother is barely seen.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Julie is a redhead in the book, and brunette in the flick.
• Accommodation Expansion: A minor example. In the book, the grade carve up with Ray coming from a poorer family didn't really inform the character too much across internal angst. In the motion-picture show, this becomes part of his motivation for covering upwardly the accident - pointing out he doesn't have a rich family to help.
• Adaptation Caption Extrication:
  • A pocket-sized case. Elsa in the book is an overweight biting girl who's jealous of Helen's beauty and easy success - she has to work long hours and still lives at habitation, while Helen gets a cushy job as a weather condition girl and is able to beget a nice apartment. In the movie Elsa is only as beautiful, and Helen has a failed try at condign an actress and gets reduced to working in the family section store. So Elsa'south jealousy and dislike of Helen isn't really explained.
  • Elsa however living at abode isn't actually given an explanation in the picture either. Helen's family in the book were struggling financially, with lots of children to look subsequently. Elsa nevertheless lives at domicile to both give her family more money, and look after her younger siblings. Their younger siblings aren't seen or mentioned in the film, and Elsa too has quite a prissy job every bit the supervisor in their parents' department store - and then information technology'due south unexplained why Elsa is withal at home (although we only meet her collaborate with Helen before she goes to bed, and so it's possible she does live somewhere else and happened to exist at the business firm that night).
• Adaptation Name Change:
  • Helen and Elsa's last name Rivers becomes Shivers.
  • The victim goes from David Gregg to David Egan.
  • David's sister goes from Megan to Missy.
• Adaptational Attractiveness:
  • Elsa, Helen's sister, is described equally very unattractive throughout the volume. In the moving picture, she'southward just as pretty as Helen is. Elsa was written as evidently-looking in the script; the director decided that if Helen is gorgeous, Elsa should exist too.
  • Julie has a moment in the book where she notices her mother going grey-haired, and her hands looking very sometime. None of this is shown in the film, and her mother looks quite youthful.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • In the book, Julie is knocked out while Ray fights the killer offscreen. In the film, she helps him fight the killer.
  • Helen likewise simply lives in the book considering the killer has gone to target Julie, with a Allow's Get Unsafe! moment of climbing out her apartment window. Here she's able to fight the killer off multiple times but ironically doesn't walk away from their terminal run across.
• Adaptational Intelligence:
  • In the movie Julie is said to accept been an excellent student whose grades are slipping due to the trauma of the accident. It'southward the contrary in the book - where Julie was a slacker who had to really work hard to improve her grades after the accident. Julie makes considerably less stupid mistakes than in the book; for example, she sent anonymous flowers to the funeral there, which ended upward getting her pegged as the culprit, and she was unknowingly dating the victim'south brother.
  • Helen arguably in the volume was more than naive, bordering on ditzy sometimes (she's oblivious to Barry cheating on her). At the accident, she's at first trying to talk some sense into the boys (she's because going to the law), doesn't hesitate to burn down dorsum at Barry with taunts and helps Julie effigy out some of the clues (in the volume information technology was Ray who did this).
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • Elsa by extension of Helen's Adaptational Karma. Elsa in the book resents how easy Helen has everything, and has to work hard to support their large family. With Helen being a fallen beauty queen and Elsa now her superior in the family business concern, she seems fifty-fifty nastier by comparison. And she's as well as gorgeous as Helen, significant she has no reason to be jealous of the latter'southward beauty.
  • The teens compared to how the accident goes from book to picture show. In the volume, they immediately get to discover a payphone to anonymously call the police. In the film, they make up one's mind to dump the apparently expressionless body in the sea to cover information technology upwardly.
• Adaptational Karma:
  • Helen in the volume suffers no negative consequences from the accident - and in fact gets a squeamish job equally the local weather daughter, making her able to afford a posh apartment (an impressive feat for a xix-year-old). In the moving picture still Helen's attempts at becoming an actress have failed, and she'due south reduced to working in her parents' section shop. Also, she does fall victim to the fisherman here, although that goes a lot farther than anyone wanted her to suffer.
  • Julie in a sense besides. The book has her buckle down and improve her schoolhouse work afterwards the accident, resulting in a prestigious college acceptance alphabetic character to Smith, likewise as a new boyfriend. In the motion picture, she's far more emotionally affected by the accident; her grades have plummeted and she's on her own, even barely in contact with her mother.
• Adaptational Location Change: The novel is implied to accept place in New Mexico (in that location are mentions of Cibola National Forest and Sandia National Laboratories, which are located or headquartered in the country, respectively), but the film moves the action to North Carolina.
• Adaptational Villainy: The victim of the accident in the book was an innocent little boy. Not only did the victim in the film non really die, he had just committed a murder himself.
• Adaptational Wealth: The book says that Helen'south family is fairly poor, with a lot of kids, and Elsa is still at home because her family needs the money. In the film, they own a department store and seem to have a nice business firm. Helen is the contrary; she's able to afford an apartment of her own in the volume, while she's still at dwelling house in the film. Ray also draws a comparison to the others having coin and connections.
• Adult Fear: Helen'due south parents are subjected to a severe, albeit off-screen, example of this. It's mentioned that they are worried about her and want her brought home later on her Freak Out at during the parade and claiming Barry was killed. And and so not only doesn't she brand it home, merely neither does their other daughter who happened to be in the incorrect place at the incorrect time. The fact that their children besides Helen and Elsa may have been Adjusted Out just makes it worse.
• Historic period Elevator:
  • Barry is a few years older than the gang in the book. Helen is a year above Julie as well, who is still in high school. The motion picture makes all the characters the aforementioned age.
  • The victim in the book was a niggling boy on a bicycle. In the film, it'southward an adult.
  • The victim's sister is a teenager in the book, but is in her twenties in the movie.
• Alliterative Name: Applied to boats: Ray'due south gunkhole is the Billy Blue while Ben Willis' is the Sweet Susie.
• Apathetic Citizens: The people at the beauty contest hold Helen back and don't seem the least bit concerned even though she's screaming her head off for someone to help Barry.
• Asshole Victim: The fine details are up for argue, but this is a slasher motion picture that actually attempts to justify all the various teenagers getting killed; a striking-and-run probably doesn't deserve a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, but it's non the usual innocent batch of campers either. It'due south then revealed that the human they hit had only committed a murder himself, and didn't die when they dumped the body in the sea.
• Badass Longcoat: The fisherman'south raincoat. Information technology'south probably no coincidence that he dies when he's no longer wearing it.
• Allurement the Dog: Elsa's get-go line of dialogue is offering Helen a ride habitation subsequently the pageant, merely she's quick to insult her sister for deciding to stay out late, and this sets the tone for well-nigh of their later interactions.
• Dazzler Competition: Helen wins 1 at the kickoff of the moving picture to become the 'Croaker Queen'. The next yr, she rides in the parade and helps officiate the other competition.
• Dazzler Is Never Tarnished: A justified example. The killer cuts off some of Helen's hair while she'due south asleep, but she reappears for the pageant with it all tidied up. Naturally the killer wouldn't want to give her a reason to miss the parade. And something more extreme would prompt the attention of her family, requiring her to get to the police.
• Big Bad: The Fisherman, aka Ben Willis.
• Big Brother Bully: Gender Flipped but Elsa spends almost of her screen fourth dimension mocking or belittling Helen.
• Black Spot: Julie receives a note proverb "I know what you did terminal summertime". A similar notation beingness institute in David Egan's belongings tips her off that he wasn't the man they striking.
• Blood from the Mouth: Officer Caporizo afterwards the Fisherman stabs him.
• Bloodier and Gorier: The villain of the volume I Know What Y'all Did Last Summer never successfully killed anyone, while he kills several in this version.
• Anemic Carnage: About. The film was originally shot with almost no onscreen blood, but that changed when producer Erik Feig noted that with Elsa's death, it would be medically incommunicable for there not to be claret. So that scene was reshot with a visual issue of blood splattering on glass.
• Brainy Brunette: Julie more obviously in the film than the volume - where she was a redhead who had to work hard for her grades. She'due south likewise implied to be a scrap of a feminist.
• Tin't Get Away with Nuthin': Barry and Helen are the ones who dump the body in the river, and they're the ones who dice.
• Hunt Scene: Helen gets quite a famous 1 that runs through a park, her families department store, and finally ends in the narrow alleys backside the store.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Max initially just seems to exist to provide suspense about whether or non they'll get caught after the hitting and run.
• Composite Graphic symbol:Ben Willis is a combination of the novel's two characters of Collingsworth Wilson (the person hunting the four leads) and David Gregg (the person who was run over in the volume).
• Condensation Clue: Or possibly Condensation Sequel Hook: the writing on the fogged-up shower stall glass at the cease of the moving picture, Foreshadowing the 2nd picture's title.
• Dark Secret: The hit and run that starts the plot.
• Death past Adaptation: Nobody dies in the book. Helen and Barry are killed off, every bit is Helen's sister Elsa.
• Disposing of a Body: The characters did it last summer.
• Downer Ending: The film ends with the Fisherman being still alive and attacking Julie while she was showering at her college, seemingly killing her. This was Retconed in the sequel as a nightmare she had.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Julie has curly hair in the intro, but it is unkempt after the blow. Notably in the finale segment, it's curly once again.

  Buzzfeed : "Y'all know Julie suddenly cares well-nigh living once more, because her hair is more boisterous and curly."

• Eye Awaken: The homo that protagonists ran over does right afterwards Barry gets on forepart of his face underwater.
• Fallen-on-Hard-Times Chore: Sort of. Helen is working in her family'south department store after the Time Skip, having claimed her motion to New York "didn't actually work out" (she was planning to get an actress).
• Fallen Princess: Helen appears to exist such. She'south implied to exist a popular girl at school, and wins the local beauty pageant at the start. There'southward also cheerleading memorabilia in her room. But her plans to make it every bit an actress in New York fail, she and Barry carve up up and she's reduced to working in a department store.
• Fanservice:
  • Julie in a tight tank top she wears for the last third of the film and just a towel at the stop.
  • Helen besides walks around wearing hot pants in the second act.
  • Barry shirtless in a towel after showering.
  • Both male leads get scenes in tight wife-beaters.
  • Helen's dress for the parade is also extremely flattering.
• Terminal Girl: Julie, who's a far more than of an obvious Final Girl compared to her book self - she gets an Adaptation Dye-Task to go brunette, is said to exist an excellent educatee, and takes the moral high ground.
• Foreshadowing: An early scene between Helen and Julie has the former talking almost how important having skillful hair is, and checking that hers is notwithstanding looking expert. Elsa afterward taunts her about how obsessed she is with her hair, not knowing the killer is in the closet, perhaps fifty-fifty giving him the idea to assail her that fashion.
• Freudian Excuse: The killer is a human being who lost his daughter.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: The Fisherman. A seemingly normal local human being, he became a series killer after the loss of his daughter.
• Genre Savvy: When the girls get to visit the family unit of the man they killed, Helen says "Jodie Foster tried this and a series killer answered the door." She also says "Angela Lansbury always had a plan" - and she and Julie employ Jodie and Angela every bit aliases with Missy immediately after.
• The Glorious State of war of Sisterly Rivalry: Helen and Elsa, far more then than in the book. Elsa is more obviously the smart sis - in a prominent position at the family unit department shop, more than business savvy and she wears glasses. Helen is the pretty sis (or rather, the prettier sister) naturally - having previously been a teen dazzler queen and was planning to become an actress.
• Head-Turning Beauty: Helen Shivers is a beauty queen, introduced winning a local pageant and her three friends (even Julie) gushing about her looks. She's besides played by the beautiful Sarah Michelle Gellar, with gorgeous blonde Rapunzel Hair and perfect make-upward in every scene.
• Hooks and Crooks: The killer carries a gaffing claw.
• Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: All three films take identify around the Fourth of July.
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: Max is killed when the Fisherman impales his throat with the gaff hook he took from him moments prior.
• In Name Only: The original book and the picture share simply character names and a hit-and-run that sets the plot in motion. Everything else is night-and-day — the Duncan novel is a mystery/drama in which none of the principal characters dice, while the film is a slasher.
• Irony: When dumping the torso, Barry says to pretend he's a serial killer and they're doing everyone a favour. It turns out he'due south right .
• It Was Here, I Swear!: Used repeatedly (and relentlessly). The nigh egregious instance is the dead body and 400 crabs stowed in the trunk of one character, only to disappear equally suddenly. Non only does the body and crabs disappear within minutes, but the trunk's carpet is also pristine clean.
• Jerkass: The deputy, who openly disbelieves Helen and not in a respectful way.
• Jerk Jock: Barry, but more so in the book. He was a football histrion and goes to college on scholarship. In the movie he'due south only shown at the gym once.
• Child Detective: referenced but by and large averted when Helen and Julie go to the Egen's business firm and Helen nervously references Murder, She Wrote. They're also a lilliputian older than virtually versions of this trope.
• Meganekko: Helen's sis Elsa is shown to exist just equally beautiful as her, and she also wears glasses when working in the shop.
• Menacing Stroll: While going after Helen, the Fisherman chooses to calmly step after her while she's running abroad in panic.
• Mistaken for Murderer: Julie wrongly accuses Ray of having been the murderer all along.
• Modesty Towel:
  • Barry covers himself in one showering in the gym'south locker room.
  • Julie walks around in a towel in The Stinger while talking to Ray on the phone and getting ready to shower. Simply her shower is delayed when she sees the "I STILL KNOW" bulletin written on the foggy door.
• Moral Myopia: Ben'southward anger at losing his own daughter motivating his crimes feels weak and hypocritical when he's prepared to kill the Shivers sisters after seeing their male parent while sneaking through the business firm and knowing he'd be causing another family the same pain, especially given how Elsa was completely innocent of hitting him.
• Nobody Hither but Us Statues: The Fisherman pretends to be a mannequin in Helen's workplace to have a surprise set on on her afterward she passes him.
• Not Quite Dead: The Fisherman shows signs of motility right earlier they dump the trunk. Information technology turns out he lived after all.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Max's body vanishes from the trunk of Julie's car. Although given that she ran the residue of the manner to Helen's firm, had to explain what happened to the other two and then walk back - it does give the killer some fourth dimension to move it if he was following Julie from her house. And if Helen'south house is farther away than nosotros assume from when Julie gets out of the car. The killer however inexplicably appears out of nowhere to kill Helen when she escapes from the department store.
• One-60 minutes Work Week: Helen is instantly able to leave her job at the department store to chase leads with Julie, presumably because she'south working for her family unit (although her boss is her abusive sister Elsa).
• The Oner: The opening credits happen over a very long helicopter shot over the sea, going around the cliffs and finishing on David Egan.
• Peekaboo Corpse: While trying to hide from the Fisherman inside his boat, Julie discovers the bodies of Helen and Barry on water ice.
• Pick on Someone Your Own Size: Intergender example; the crazed fisherman is obsessed with killing Julie James and friends after they hit him with their car. He got ameliorate.
• Pink Means Feminine: Helen is the more obvious Girly Girl of the two females, and her sleeping room is painted pink. She also has pink curtains and pale pink bedding.
• Police force Are Useless: The inept cop who dismisses Helen as a hysteric and ends upwardly getting hooked himself. Previously, the teens dismiss going to the police fifty-fifty though Ray was the sober driver, assuming they wouldn't believe he was driving.
• Punk in the Trunk: Julie discovers the crab-covered body of Max in the body of her car. After she brings her co-conspirators to see information technology, information technology has disappeared.
• Ruddy Herring:
  • When Julie tells Helen about the notation, in that location are a couple of shots of Elsa looking at them. Elsa is also said to have been in David Egan's class at school. In the book Elsa is also a doubtable.
  • Max is initially assumed to be behind the notation, as the only person the teens saw that night.
  • Missy is besides introduced in a way that makes her seem like she could be a suspect too.
  • There's a mysterious figure known equally "Billy Blue" who expressed his sympathies to Missy. This figure is revealed to exist Ray, making him another suspect right before the climax.
• The Reveal:
  • The killer is Ben Willis (the guy the group actually hit) and not David Egan (who they thought they hit, and who Ben really killed) or someone trying to avenge him.
  • Ray is "Billy Blue", the mysterious person who chosen Missy to limited his sympathies.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The Fisherman after he'southward left for dead.
• Dominion of Symbolism: The accident and camouflage symbolize the loss of innocence from childhood to machismo. The protagonists are teenagers graduating from high school, and the plot takes identify after they've spent a year trying to alive as adults. Helen notably has become a Fallen Princess, Julie was once a straight-A student whose grades are slipping, and Barry was once the Big Human being on Campus that ends up in the hospital. The characters lamenting how they tin can't go dorsum to how their lives were before the accident parallels how they tin't go innocent again.
• Running Over the Plot: What they did terminal summertime was run over a pedestrian walking on a coastal road and put the trunk in the water. The twist is that he didn't actually die, and he'south back for revenge.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Max, whose death was added in reshoots, afterward filmmakers realized they needed to show that the killer posed a threat.
• Sassy Blackness Woman: Julie's higher roommate Deb.

  "Get your white every bit death, chalky corpse in that machine at present."

• Schrödinger's Canon: A lot of stuff about the character's families, such every bit Julie'southward mother having sensed something was wrong the dark of the blow and Helen'due south Middle Kid Syndrome, given that Elsa is the but of her siblings confirmed to be in the flick.
• Setting Update: The volume was set in the 70s, and a plot point was one graphic symbol being a Vietnam veteran. The film is updated to the 90s.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: Ray and Julie make out at the beach and she takes off her jacket. Ray asks, "Are you lot certain?" She nods, and they both fall on the sand kissing as the camera pans abroad.
• Shirtless Scene: Barry gets ane afterwards taking a shower at a gym and coming out in a Modesty Towel where he finds his own note from the Fisherman.
• Slashers Prefer Blondes: Of the killer'due south targets, the blond Barry and Helen are killed while the dark-haired Julie and Ray survive. Elsa is also killed, but simply because she's in the way.
• Spiritual Antithesis: While it was put into production thanks to Kevin Williamson scoring a big striking with Scream, it has niggling in common with it beyond being a stylishly-shot whodunit teen slasher. Scream was a very self-enlightened Deconstructive Parody of the genre in which both the heroes and the killer were fully aware of and ruthlessly exploited slasher clichés, while this film is a far more straightforward and appreciating Genre Throwback.
• The Stinger: The moving picture closes with Julie back at college a twelvemonth later, about to accept a shower when she sees the words "I STILL KNOW" written in the steam-covered door, seconds before The Fisherman smashes through the glass and rushes towards her.
• Stranger Behind the Mask: The twist is that David Egan is in fact not the man the teens striking with the auto. Information technology'southward actually the man who murdered him - though this is foreshadowed earlier in the picture show.
• Sunroof Shenanigans: The fatal motorcar accident that starts the plot happened because Barry was continuing up in the car's sunroof, interim foolish and distracting Ray from driving.
• Time Skip: After the climax, the ending of the film happens "1 twelvemonth later..."
• Token Black Friend: Julie has a sassy black roommate in college called Deb.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Julie'southward more than studious and career-oriented than tomboyish but Helen has the Girly Girl one-half of the dynamic downward.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Downplayed. While Barry is still aggressive and trigger-happy, he becomes extremely protective of Helen afterward the accident. He rides on the parade float with her, and tin be seen reassuring her that she looks skillful.
• Traumatic Haircut: The killer cuts off some of Helen'southward hair while she's comatose. The next scene has her wearing a cap to hide information technology, but it's been tidied upwards past the time she rides in the parade.
• True Blue Femininity: The wearing apparel that Helen wears in the Croaker Queen pageant is a light blueish. Very fitting for a feminine pageant queen.
• Unexplained Accent: Anne Heche for some reason puts on a southern emphasis for her role every bit Missy. As we never hear her brother David speak, it'due south unclear why she has this vox. In the scene where Julie tries to explain to Barry and Helen about finding Max's torso in her car torso, the car visibly has a Northward Carolina license plate, and then it isn't inconceivable that the film takes place in that state.
• Villain Ball: The Fisherman sure does pass up a lot of opportunities to kill those teens. Somewhat justified, as his intent is not just to kill them, just to make them squirm and exist afraid. Still, Willis' quest for revenge threatens to expose his murder of David Egan, which he would've been clear of completely thanks to the teens.
• Nosotros Used to Be Friends: After visiting Missy'southward firm, Julie and Helen take this commutation in the automobile.

  Helen: What ever happened to us? We used to be best friends.
  Julie: We used to be a lot of things, Helen.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer

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