Four friends have just completed their last year of school. They have their whole lives ahead of them. First college, then marriage. Julie, Helen, Ray and Barry. Julie and Helen are best friends. Ray is Julie's boyfriend, Barry is Helen's boyfriend. The couples are inseparable, and the four friends are inseparable.
July 4th 1996 is a big day for the friends. Helen wins the local beauty contest and becomes the Southport Croaker Queen. After a beach party Julie and Ray have sex for the first time. Helen wants to keep Barry waiting, but she promises him that after college they will marry and have three children. The naivety of young love is so beautiful.
But one thing ruins the day and shatters their dreams. On the way home they run over a fisherman crossing the street. Rather than go to the police and risk jeopardising their futures they decide to dump his dead body in the sea. What harm can it do? He's already dead. Just as they're about to get rid of him he wakes up, but in their panic they throw him off the wharf anyway. It's no longer a road accident, they've committed a murder. The four friends swear that they will never tell anyone what happened, so they can continue with their lives as planned.
But murder changes everything. Nobody can remain the same after ending a person's life. We see the four friends reunite a year later, July 3rd 1997. The two relationships have broken up. Only Julie made it to college, while the other three have remained in Southport. None of them speak to one another any more, not even the three who live in the same town. Broken dreams and four shattered lives. The only reason they have for meeting again is a letter sent by someone claiming to have seen what happened 366 days earlier:
"I know what you did last summer".
This is a brilliant film, whatever the critics say. Once more they've proved themselves incapable of understanding what the public wants to see. It was a huge box office hit.
Most people compare it with "Scream", which was released a year earlier. Some horror fans prefer one, some the other. For me it's difficult to decide. I find "I know what you did last summer" slightly more enjoyable, even though I acknowledge that "Scream" is technically superior. Both are teen slasher films, i.e. films about a serial killer who targets teenagers primarily, though not shying away from collateral damage. The difference is in the tone of the films in between the killings. "Scream" is bright and light-hearted, whereas "I know what you did last summer" has a dark, morbid atmosphere from the very first scene, and not even the July 4th festivities can lift the feeling of doom.
Do you think that beauty contests are superficial, sexist trash? I do. They seem so artificial to me. Beauty contests put female beauty on display while avoiding female sexuality. The girls in the contests seem to tick all the boxes in the current beauty norms without actually looking desirable. It's a very bland beauty. In America it can be considered a religious beauty. It's the sort of beauty that good Christians can enjoy on Saturday evening without feeling guilty the next morning in church.
Having said that, I still like the girl in the middle.
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