I Know What You Did Last Summer is a 1997 American slasher film starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, and Freddie Prinze Jr. as four teenage friends who are stalked by a hook-wielding killer one year after covering up a car accident in which they supposedly killed a man. It was directed by Jim Gillespie and written by Kevin Williamson, who adapted the 1973 novel. It is the first in the I Know What You Did Last Summer film series.
Williamson was approached to adapt Lois Duncan's source novel by producer Erik Feig. Where Scream, released the previous year, contained prominent elements of satire and self-referentiality, Williamson's script for I Know What You Did Last Summer reworked the novel's central plot to resemble a straightforward 1980s-era slasher film.
I Know What You Did Last Summer was released theatrically in the United States on October 17, 1997, by Columbia Pictures. It received a mixed reception from critics and grossed $125.3million on a budget of $17million. The film was parodied in Scary Movie (2000) and is frequently referenced in popular culture, as well as being credited alongside Scream with revitalizing the slasher genre in the 1990s.
The film was followed by three sequelsI Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006) and I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)and a 2021 television series.
Plot On July 4, 1996, in Southport, North Carolina, Julie James and her friends Ray Bronson, Helen Shivers, and Barry Cox drive to the beach while celebrating Helen's victory at the beauty pageant. On the way back, Barry's drunken antics cause Ray to accidentally hit a pedestrian, assuming they killed him. Julie's friend Max passes by on the road, and they hide their crime from him to buy more time to decide what to do. Barry and Helen try to dump the body in the water, but the pedestrian wakes up and grabs Helen. Barry pushes him into the water, and the group makes a pact to never discuss what happened.
One year later, Julie returns home from college for the summer. The friends have gone their separate ways, with none of them pursuing their dreams, due to trauma from the incident. Julie receives a letter stating, "I know what you did last summer!" She and Helen take the note to Barry, who suspects Max is pulling a stunt on them. Julie meets Ray, who now works as a fisherman. Max is killed by a figure in a fisherman slicker wielding a hook. That night, Barry is ambushed by the killer, who steals his car, hitting Barry, but refraining from killing him.
Julie researches newspaper articles, believing that the man they ran over was a local named David Egan. Helen and Julie meet David's sister, Missy, at her home, under the guise that their car broke down. Missy explains that a friend of David's named Billy Blue visited her to pay his respects. That night, the killer sneaks into Helen's house and cuts off her hair while she sleeps.
The following morning, Julie finds Max's corpse wearing Barry's stolen jacket and covered in crabs in the trunk of her car. When she brings the others to see it, the body has been removed. Julie, Helen and Barry confront Ray, who claims to also have received a letter. Julie goes back to visit Missy, while Barry and Helen participate in the 4th of July parade. Missy reveals that David allegedly committed suicide out of guilt for the death of his girlfriend, Susie Willis, in a car accident and shows David's suicide note. As the writing matches that of the note she received, Julie realizes it was not a suicide note, but a death threat. Julie realizes the man she and her friends struck in the hit-and-run was not David Egan.
At the Croaker Beauty Pageant, Helen witnesses Barry being murdered on the balcony, but finds no sign of the killer, or Barry. The police officer escorting her home is murdered by the killer. Helen runs to her family's store, where the killer murders her sister, Elsa. She escapes and runs toward the street, but the killer slashes her to death.
Julie finds an article mentioning Susie's father, Ben Willis, and realizes Ben was the man they had run over a year earlier, moments after he killed David to avenge his daughter. She goes to tell Ray but notices Ray's boat is called Billy Blue. A fisherman knocks Ray unconscious, inviting Julie to hide on his boat. On the boat, she finds photos and articles about her and her friends and pictures of Susie. The boat leaves the docks, and the fisherman is revealed to be Ben Willis, targeting them in revenge for leaving him for dead.
Ben chases Julie below deck, where she uncovers the bodies of Helen and Barry in the icebox. Ray awakens and goes to rescue Julie. He ultimately uses the rigging to sever Ben's hand and send him overboard. He explains that he posed as David's friend and visited Missy out of guilt. The couple reconciles, relieved not to have actually killed anyone after all.
One year later, Julie is in college in Boston. As she enters the shower, Julie notices the words "I still know" written in the steam on the shower door right before a dark figure crashes through it.
Cast
Jennifer Love Hewitt as Julie James Sarah Michelle Gellar as Helen Shivers Ryan Phillippe as Barry Cox Freddie Prinze Jr. as Ray Bronson Johnny Galecki as Max Neurick Bridgette Wilson as Elsa Shivers Anne Heche as Melissa "Missy" Egan Muse Watson as Benjamin "Ben" Willis / the Fisherman Stuart Greer as officer
Production Development and writing Background Written by Kevin Williamson, the screenplay for I Know What You Did Last Summer was rushed into production—having previously been disregarded—by Columbia Pictures upon the success of the Williamson-written Scream, released in 1996.
The film is based on the 1973 novel by Lois Duncan, a youth-oriented suspense novel about four teenagers who are involved in a hit-and-run accident involving a young boy.
Development Producer Erik Feig pitched the idea of a screen adaptation to Mandalay Entertainment, and subsequently appointed Williamson to retool the core elements of Duncan's novel, rendering a screenplay more akin to a 1980s slasher film. Inspired by his father, who had been a commercial fisherman, Williamson changed the setting of the novel to a small fishing village, and made the villain a hook-wielding fisherman.
The killer's arming of himself with a hook is a reference to the urban legend "the Hook", which the four main characters recount at the beginning of the film around a campfire. According to Williamson, he wrote the scene as a way of indicating what was to come: "Basically what I was doing was I was setting the framework to say, 'All right, audience: That's that legend. Now here's a new one.'" Unlike Williamson's screenplay for the film's contemporary, Scream, which incorporated satire of the slasher film, I Know What You Did Last Summer was written more as a straightforward slasher film. Gillespie commented in 2008: "The joy of this film for me as a filmmaker was in taking [the] elements that we've seen before, and saying to the audience: 'Here's something you've seen before'—knowing that they're saying 'We've seen this before'—and still getting them to jump." Gillespie also claimed that he felt Williamson's screenplay did not resemble a "slasher horror movie" and that he saw it rather as simply "a really good story" with a morality tale embedded within it.
Pre-production 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.Gillespie & Mirkovich 1998 (0:08:46) Jennifer Love Hewitt, who at the time was mainly known for her role on the television series Party of Five, was cast in the lead of Julie James based on her "ability to project vulnerability", which the producers, director Gillespie and writer Williamson unanimously agreed upon. Initially, Hewitt was considered for the role of Helen. Melissa Joan Hart was offered a role, but she turned it down, because she felt that the film was a rip-off of Scream. For the role of Barry, the crew had envisioned an actor with a " quarterback" appearance, as the character had been written as an intimidating figure. Ryan Phillippe was ultimately cast in the part based on his audition, despite the fact that he was not as physically tall as the script had called for. Director Gillespie chose Freddie Prinze Jr. for the role of Ray, because he felt Prinze himself had an "everyman" quality much like the character.
Sarah Michelle Gellar was the last of the lead performers to be cast in the role of Helen. Like Hewitt, Gellar was also known to American audiences at the time for her roles in television. Gillespie commented on casting Gellar: "I wanted an actress that had a warmth to her, but could still come off as being a bitch." For the supporting role of Missy, Gillespie sought an actress with significant screen presence, as the character, despite appearing in only two scenes, is central to several major plot points. Anne Heche was cast in the role, which she recalled as being two days' worth of work that required her to "be scary".
Filming
Scottish director Jim Gillespie was hired to direct the film after being suggested by writer Williamson. 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 weeksGillespie & Mirkovich 1998 (0:08:12) 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. Gillespie devised a color scheme with cinematographer Denis Crossan which was marked by heavy blues throughout and a notable lack of bright colors.Gillespie & Mirkovich 1998 (0:24:27)
For the beginning of the film, coastal areas of Sonoma County, California stood in for North Carolina, where the film is set. The opening shots of the sun setting on a rugged coast were filmed at Kolmer Gulch, just north of the town of Jenner, on Highway 1. The car crash scene was also filmed on Highway 1 in the same area. The scene in which the four friends are seated around a campfire on the beach next to a wrecked boat was inspired by a painting Gillespie had seen in a reference book; to achieve the image, the art department purchased an old boat in Bodega Bay, cut it in half and placed it at the beach location.Gillespie & Mirkovich 1998 (0:09:58)
The remaining scenes were filmed primarily around the town of Southport, North Carolina. Specific sites included the Amuzu Theater, where the beauty pageant is held, the Old Yacht Basin and Southport Fish Company. Julie's house is on Short Street just north of Southport Marina. The daytime sequences shot on the marina show multiple vessels traversing the water; though real vessels, the boat traffic was orchestrated by a marine traffic coordinator to make the waterway appear lively.Gillespie & Mirkovich 1998 (0:36:57) The Shiver's Department Store setting in the film was discovered on location in Southport by director Gillespie, who was so impressed by the location that he reworked elements of the script in order to incorporate it into the film; it eventually became the primary setting for Helen's extended chase sequence with the killer. The exterior sequences of Julie's Boston college campus were in fact shot at Duke University,Gillespie & Mirkovich 1998 (0:24:51) while the hospital sequence was filmed at Southport's Dosher Memorial Hospital in an unused wing of the hospital.Gillespie & Mirkovich 1998 (0:43:00)