RW444 - I Know What You Did Last Summer Rewatch

In this episode of the I Know What You Did Last Summer Rewatch, Cory and Nathan are covering up every crime committed in the first instalment of this thrillogy!

Trailer:

Our Favourite Trivia:

I Know What You Did Last Summer was a screenplay penned by Kevin Williamson, which was then rushed into production by Columbia Pictures upon the success of the Williamson-written Scream (1996). It was based on the 1973 novel of the same name by Lois Duncan, a youth-oriented suspense novel about four young people who are involved in a hit-and-run accident involving a young boy.

Writer Lois Duncan was vehemently opposed to her book being reworked into a slasher film. This was due to the fact that her youngest daughter was murdered by an unknown assailant in 1989. Her original book wasn't that far off from a slasher though: it's still a bunch of guilty teenagers being stalked and terrorized by a murderous madman. It's just that nobody dies in her version, so in that sense it's more like an old school mystery.

Unlike Williamson's screenplay for the film's contemporary, Scream (1996), which incorporated satire of the slasher film, I Know What You Did Last Summer was written more as a straightforward slasher film.

According to producer Stokely Chaffin, the producers sought out actors who were "beautiful, but likable." Director Gillespie recalled that, though he had been unfamiliar with the screenplay's source material, that "roughly 60 to 65%" of the young women auditioning had read the novel as children.

Scottish director Jim Gillespie was hired to direct the film after being suggested by writer Williamson. Star Hewitt would later state in 2008 that Gillespie was to date her "favorite director [she's] ever worked with." Principal photography began on March 31, 1997 and took place over a period of ten weeks throughout the late spring-early summer of 1997. Approximately seven weeks of the ten-week shoot took place at night, which Gillespie says was difficult for the cast and crew, and also created commotion in primary small-town locations in which they shot.

The rocky roads surrounding Dawson's Beach where Julie, Ray, Helen and Barry have their hit and run, and later Julie travels across frequently is the same mountainous road location used in the Alfred Hitchcock classic The Birds (1963).

Johnny Galecki recalled doing a body cast for the scene where Julie opens the trunk and finds Max's dead body is in it, with a crab crawling out of his mouth. He later got a call that production was shut down, because Jennifer Love Hewitt was so upset by seeing the dead body cast of him. He called and reassured her that he was very much alive.

The ice inside the storage of the boat was actually made of gelatin so Jennifer Love Hewitt could comfortably move around inside.

The group goes to "Dawson's Beach." This is a reference to Dawson's Creek (1998), also written by Kevin Williamson.

Helen's haircut by the Fisherman is the same styled hair Sarah Michelle Gellar dons as Buffy Summers in the 1997-1998 second season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997). This scene never happens in the book though. Neither does the iconic scene of Julie whirling around, screaming out to the world around her, "Come on! What are you waiting for?!"

Danielle Harris was considered for the role of Julie James.

BODY COUNT: 6 (David Egan, Max Neurick, Barry Cox, Officer Caporizon, Elsa Shivers, Helen Shivers)

In anticipation of the film's release, distributor Columbia Pictures began a summer marketing campaign that presented the film as being "From the creator of Scream." Miramax Films subsequently filed a lawsuit against Columbia, arguing the claim was inaccurate as the director of Scream was Wes Craven, not Williamson. The week following the film's theatrical release, a federal judge awarded Miramax an injunction requiring that Columbia remove the claim from their advertising campaign. Williamson had requested its removal prior after seeing it on a theater poster.

I Know What You Did Last Summer has been referenced in various films and television series, and its central plot was parodied at length in the spoof film Scary Movie (2000).

It was also spoofed in The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror X" as "I Know What You Diddily-Iddily-Did", with Ned Flanders as the killer.

What's Up Next?

We continue this thrill ride by taking a beach vacation in "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer."

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