From the title I knew it was gonna be soooo Juicy.
Okay, so âI Know What You Did Last Summerâ is one of those movies that feels like gossip turning deadly. It starts off with this group of young peopleâJulie, Helen, Barry, and Rayâhaving this carefree summer night. You know that vibe of being young, free, and slightly reckless? Thatâs exactly the energy. Theyâre out celebrating, living big, and thenâbamâon the drive back, they hit someone. A man. Just like that, the night flips from fun to panic. And instead of calling the police like any calm, reasonable adult might think of doing, they make that fateful pact: dump the body, never speak of it again. Seal it away like a dirty secret.
Fast forward a year, and life is not all sunshine anymore. Julie comes back to town, and she looks haunted. You can see it on her face: that weight of guilt, that âwe did something terribleâ feeling that doesnât wash off no matter how many showers you take. She gets this creepy noteââI know what you did last summer.â Just one line. Simple. And my heart sank along with hers because itâs the kind of thing that cracks open all that denial. Imagine thinking you buried something forever, and then one sentence pulls it all back up.
The film is then tilted towards paranoia. They have different spirals. Helen is still pursuing her dreams of becoming a beauty queen, Barry wants to take everything in his own hands and be mean, Ray appears detached and calmly suspicious, and Julie is literally falling apart. Then the killings start. This hook-waving fisherman? He is so frightening because he is so unyielding and so quiet. There were no corny monologues, no negotiating, just shadows and that hook that grabbed the light at the only bad times. The pursuit after Helen--oh my God, that one at your elbow. You can feel each step with her, each beat of the heart, and just when you imagine she will sneak out into a place of safety, the fisherman catches her. Brutal.
The thing that actually caught my attention was that the movie relies as much on guilt as fear. It is not merely a question of a murderer pursuing them--it is rather a case of them being pursued by the lie. As such, their choices brought them targets. And, frankly, I was asking myself what would I have done? The agreement seemed so moronic on film, but in that adrenaline, that panic, who knows, would you not make an effort to bury that also? That is my weak area because I understand how easy it is to be a naive teenager and turn into a willing participant in something vile.
It all comes together in the ending on the boat where Julie is confronted by the fisherman. The turbulent sea, the cramped cabins, that hook cutting through the air it is pure tension. When he finally oversteps the mark, it is not relief as much as it is a breath that you do not expect to last very long, since trauma does not sink that easily. The conclusion even preconditions that he is not actually away. The final bathroom mirror nightmare with Julie, the chills, and yet you know they are going to happen.
What makes the movie work for me isnât just the slasher mechanics. Itâs that ache under the surface: the weight of secrets, the fragility of friendships under pressure, how fear warps people. Itâs messy and guilty and scary all at once. I walked away from it not just spooked but unsettled in that deeper, more personal wayâlike it wanted me to admit that we all have that one decision we pray never comes back to haunt us.
