Fangoria
October 1997
[Darcy Sullivan]
I Know What You Did Last Summer
..and the film makers hope it's something
you'll know you want to see this fall.
Dark night. Four kids. Fast car. Winding road. Someone ahead! Sudden bump. Uh-oh. That's the setup for the action taking place tonight on this remote country highway in Northern California.
The Jock: Check his pulse.
The Outsider: No way.
The Jock again: You're the one who rammed him!
The A student: Just do it! He could still be alive. He needs our help.
The Outsider, visibly shaken by more than the frigid cold, shines his flashlight over the knobbled concrete, toward the mass of bundled fabrics hunched in the roadside ditch. He steps forward and crouches over the "body", pressing a stuffed parka arm.
"I think he's dead."
"I don't have my tiara."
The last line might well have been scripted by Kevin Williamson for this scene, had it taken place in SCREAM. But on this chilly June evening in Bodega Bay, where cast and crew are filming Williamson's' screenplay for I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, it's a take-stopper. Sarah Michelle Gellar - Buffy the Vampire Slayer to you - is indeed missing her silver tiara, which is perched on a duffel bag of supplies behind a nest of cameras and operators. An assistant retrieves it and hands it to Gellar, and director Jim Gillespie kicks off take five of this four minute scene.
The cast keep calm, but the cold and the late hour make every moment precious. While Saguaro-shaped parkas keep the crew toasty, Gellar and Jennifer Love Hewitt are dressed appropriately for their roles as two high-schoolers partying on a sultry North Carolina summer night. But this ain't North Carolina, and Gellar's miniskirt leaves her ghoul-kicking gams particularly vulnerable. Even tougher than the cold is the intensity of the scene on which the story of I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER pivots. "We're under so much pressure," explains Hewitt, who plays the A student, Julie. "Without the work we're doing here, there is no movie."
Worse yet, they were supposed to wrap this scene last night but only made it halfway through. "Last night was an emotional workout for all of us," says Ryan Phillippe who plays the films' jock, Barry. "It was frustrating - I would have liked to stay there and just do it, but we ran out of night."
What's pushing this quartet of young actors - the fourth being Freddie Prinze Jr. as Outsider Ray - is the desire to play it real. It's the same impulse that drove Kevin Williamson (whose script helped make last years' SCREAM such a kicky, media-buzz success). "SCREAM was sort of a sendup," says Williamson. "This is more serious, more of a suspense thriller. I tried to play it straight, to keep the emotions and the behavior very real. I didn't want to make another SCREAM...until SCREAM 2."
Gillespie would no doubt echo that sentiment. This is the directors' first Hollywood feature though he has directed for British television and met Williamson when they worked on a science fiction film for FOX called BIG BUGS that didn't get off the ground. He's no stranger to thrillers - he landed the SUMMER gig on the basis of his short film JOYRIDE, a car-jacking story he describes as "DIE HARD in a trunk" - but horror is a different story.
"Horror's not really a genre I want to work in, at least not in the sense of Jason." Gillespie says. "As soon as I got on this project, I made it clear that this would not be a slasher film. It's more sophisticated, more a throwback to the Hitchcock style."
In I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, four Breakfast Club types accidentally run over a man in their car and have to figure out whether to come clean or flee the scene. As in the 1973 young-adult thriller by Lois Duncan, they don't do the RIGHT THING. A year later, their once-promising young lives have stalled in a mire of guilt. Then one of them gets an anonymous note that reads, "I know what you did last summer." "Once Julie gets that letter," says Prinze, "the film shakes you all the way until the end, and then it lets you free fall."
"What I loved about the book was the premise," Williamson says, "If you look at the scope of my work - which is not that much! - a line of betrayal runs through it. Here these kids keep this secret, and the secret comes back to kill them."
The premise also sparked Erik Feig, Neal Moritz and Stokely Chaffin, who are producing the film for Mandalay Entertainment and Columbia Pictures, which will release it October 17. "Stokely knew the book as a kid," says Feig, "I literally drove to Kevin's house with this book when he had just written SCREAM which was then called SCARY MOVIE. I was a big fan of that script."
This is Hollywood though so while everyone involved raves about Duncans' book, they have rewritten it's story, starting with that poor hit-and-run victim - a child in the book. "That change started as a studio note," Williamson admits. "Like, 'don't show them hitting a kid. It's not that kind of movie and it's a bit morbid..' I read that note and I was like, "Well, come on - I like that!" But the more I thought about it, the more I realized (the change) fed into my story."
Williamson also upped the violence quotient from the novel. If he hadn't, you wouldn't be reading about the movie in FANGORIA. "Nothing happens in the book!" Williamson says, "One kid gets shot and goes to the hospital. It seemed like a wasted opportunity. If you're tormenting these kids, why not hit them where it hurts? Here's a jock with a fabulous car - go after him that way. Here's a beauty queen - go after her that way." So while the book reads like an Afternoon Special from Hell, the movie moves into terror territory. "There's some great, horrific blood-and-guts stuff," says Phillippe. "One person's found in a trunk with live crabs coming out of their mouth." No wonder the producers hired Oscar-winner Matthew Mungle, late of GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI and THE LOST WORLD, to handle the films' makeup FX.
Mungle, who got his start back in 1981 on the slasher flick THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD, has since largely avoided the subgenre, but has always been willing to work on any project if the elements are right. "That's why I got involved in I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER," he states, "There's suspense, there's mystery, it's got a literate, intelligent and well-written script, it's got humor and there are a couple of visual shocks that will lift viewers right out of their seats." And Mungle, of course, is one of the key people responsible for them. "One of the effects I worked on involved a dismembered hand," he reveals, "It's pretty gory. And there are a lot of wounds and scars and stuff like that."
Don't expect the film to be a major bloodbath, though. "With violence, less is more," Gillespie maintains. "The trick of this genre is to make the audience believe they've seen something they haven't. The imagination can't be bettered. One reviewed criticized JOYRIDE for it's violence but there's not one scene of on-screen violence."
How does one pull of this kind of trick? "Through editing, of course, but also with sound," the director says. "If the acting is real and you hear the sound of the action, you believe it."
Williamson's keeping mum about the twists of his story, in which just about everyone's a suspect. Readers of Duncan's book will be in as much suspense as other viewers as Williamson has changed the identity of the bad guy. In fact, he had no choice, as the villain in the book appears as two characters with different names. "I just read it and I thought, 'No way.' It works on the page but not on the screen," Williamson says.
So good-bye to Duncans' "Collingsworth Wilson," hello..ah, that would be telling. Let's just say that in fashioning I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, the film makers were clearly thinking franchise. For a franchise, your killer needs a readily recognized image, like Jason's hockey mask or Michael Myers' mask or the SCREAM killers', um, mask. "We had many, many meetings talking about what our menace was going to be," says Moritz drolly. Feig jumps in, "It's not a menace hatched in a marketing meeting. It's a menace close to Kevin's heart and background. When he stayed up late, after horror films, thinking about what boogeyman could be behind his own door, this was it."
SUMMMERS' hook is really a hook. "The studio wanted a true scary movie, a modern day suspense thriller with a HALLOWEEN twist and a real threat," says Williamson. "A man with a hook is a threat. It ties in with urban legends too, which I love. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER is truly the beginning of an urban legend." It's also Williamson's chance to do his own version of the hook thing. "CANDYMAN, good as it was, wasn't the movie I wanted it to be," he explains. "It was set in the slums of Chicago. I wanted it to be in surburbia with babysitters. I wanted to see Jamie Lee Curtis getting chased."
New victim, new murders, new villain, new M.O. Anything else? Yes, in fact - Williamson changed the locale to a small North Carolina fishing town, just like Oriental, the one he grew up in. "The Croaker festival plays a part in the story - that was a yearly event from my youth. My dad was a fisherman and I come from a whole family of them. I love that world. My (upcoming) TV show DAWSON'S CREEK is all about it.
Most of SUMMER was in fact filmed in Southport, NC, an hour and a half from the Oriental. This town of fishing boats, swinging nets and creaking docks formed the seemingly Pacific backdrop to the terrors of SUMMER, but not everyone shared Williamson's fondness for the setting. "The town shut down at 9," recalls Phillippe, "At night it was like a ghost town. It did have a creepy feel to it, like Amity in JAWS."
Towards the end of the 50-day shoot, cast and crew headed for Bodega Bay in California near where THE FOG, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED, THE BIRDS and, ahem, SCREAM were filmed. "North Carolina is a great place, but it's the flattest state around," says Feig. "We needed to find a more dangerous looking road to be Reapers' Curve, where the kids hit the man."
That they found: On foggy coastal nights, even the cast and crew's drives to the location were a life-threatening experience. "This is a complete blind curve, right on the waters' edge," says Feig, noting the hairpin turn where the chilly cast are readying for another take. "Water becomes a central motif in the movie. The kids dump the body in the water. This will sound obnoxious but at some subconscious level, it's water as purification. These kids are really guilty, they've done something wrong and they're trying to expiate it. (Not for nothing does Feig, a first time producer, have an English degree from Columbia.)
For a smallish horror film, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER has a splendid cast, with small roles going to Johnny Galecki (ROSEANNE), Bridgette Wilson (MORTAL KOMBAT) and Anne Heche (who worked with Moritz and Chaffin on VOLCANO). But despite such support, the film's a virtual four-hander, relying on it's quartet of leads. "These are four extremely talented actors," says Gillespie, who reckons he auditioned 120 people for the key roles. "They need to sell the story's plausibility. We needed good performers - not good lookers - fortunately we got both."
"Our actors, like our characters, are the best and the brightest," adds Feig, "They're poised for greatness." Which begs the question: Are any of them like the characters they play? Here's the score:
Ray..."is the audience guy, the one you pull for, the guy sitting next to you at the movie," says Prinze. While the other three characters have money, Rays' from the poor side of town and Prinze says he can relate to the Outsider status. "When I was in high school, I was always on the outside looking in. Until senior year when I was considered cool for about six months." What Prinze can't relate to is Ray's sloppy driving, which puts the kids in their predicament. "In the movie, I'm the worst driver you could possibly see," laughs Prinze," In real life, I drive like a granny."
Barry...your basic bully/stud/jock is a nasty piece of work. He gets the others to form a pack never to share their deadly secret. "Nobody else is going to take charge of the situation," says Phillippe. "It's devious and wrong but I understand why he does it." Phillippe looks a tad small to be playing the football hero and he's enjoying the role reversal. "It's a way to be somewhat vindictive - these are the guys I hated and couldn't be. I know how they move and talk, their arrogance. I played my share of sports but never in a jockular way."
Julie...the good girl who unsuccessfully tries to convince her friends to go to the cops. "I don't decide to go along with the pact," says Hewitt, Love to her friends and Sarah on TV's PARTY OF FIVE, the show that also yielded SCREAM's Neve Campbell. "After we hit the guy, things get out of control. Barry pins me up against the car saying 'We take this to the grave'. There's not a lot of choice there." Julie's the books' hero and most sympathetic character - does Hewitt see anything of herself in the role? "I'm not as smart as Julie is," she demurs. "You're prettier," purrs Gellar.
Helen...the Croaker Queen and tiara-bearer who's gorgeous looks are her only similarity to Gellar, according to Prinze. "Sarah's very sharp and driven. She always succeeds through hard work. Helen is full of dreams, without the means to achieve them." Helen's even more of a selfish ditz in the book: "Had the script been like the book, I don't think I would have wanted to play her," Gellar says. "This Helen's much more 3-D. She's still vapid and a little vacuous, because she has never been asked to be anything but pretty. For the first time she's put in a situation where she's asked to handle things and she doesn't know how."
The four actors say they are as different from each other as their characters are but likewise formed a bond. "We actually make people nauseous, we're so close," says Gellar, snuggling into Hewitt's lap in a trailer between takes. "When we had a three-day break, I called Love a million times."
Gellar and Hewitt are both intrigued by the difference between even this low budget movie - said to cost about 16 million - and the hit TV shows they're moonlighting from. "When we first got here, Love and I would laugh because we only had a page to shoot that day," says Gellar. "We'd think, 'What are we going to do with the rest of the time? There's only a page and we're filming fourteen hours today!' And then it's shocking because you don't finish the page."
"PARTY OF FIVE is shot on film," says Hewitt. ("So's BUFFY!" interrupts Gellar). "It's like a small movie every week. I can tell you the producers of PARTY OF FIVE would love three months to film an episode. The big difference is that there's no possible way this film could take a short amount of time to film."
Indeed, SUMMERS' a roller coaster compared to Love's regular acting job(she's also a recording artist). "PARTY OF FIVE is a heavy, heavy drama," Hewitt says. "There's no hair and makeup and I'm not running from a murderer."
Gellar, at least, had better get used to it. "Sarah's now in SCREAM 2," Williamson reveals. "There was one part we kept auditioning actresses for. I said, 'You know what we need here, Wes? Buffy!' He flipped for her. I'd very much like to put her in THE FACULTY too," he adds, referring to his forthcoming feature directing debut.
Williamson is hot on all of the leads - he championed Prinze, who lost the part of Stu in SCREAM to Matthew Lillard; he calls Phillipe a "real actor"; and he says Hewitt "can do no wrong. The thing I love about her is that she's so real. There's not one word out of her mouth you don't believe." But Gellar is special. "Sarah's my Molly Ringwald," he jokes, adding quickly, "I should be so lucky."
For the actors and the film makers, much of SUMMERS's appeal came from working with Williamson. "Kevin did a lot for horror films," says Prinze. "They were getting weak, losing the support they used to have, the money they used to make. SCREAM made more than $100 million. I wanted to be involved in a project Kevin had written."
Prinze, it turns out, is a true genre fan. "I love horror films; that's all I used to watch. I saw THE OMEN when I was in fourth grade. I love the original NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, I love Clive Barkers' LORD OF ILLUSIONS, I love John Carpenters' IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. Sam Neill's so good in that - insanity is a great quality for a character to have."
Feig also respects Williamson for boosting his beloved scary movies. "Kevin and I sort of bonded on horror films," he says. "My mom loved them, my dad hated them. But my mom liked going with someone so if she ever had a day off, she'd stop by school with a fake doctor's note and we'd go to a double-feature of horror movies." Feig sees SCREAM and SUMMER as part of a resurgence of quality goosebump flicks. "There was an absence of scary movies for teens that weren't schlocky, straight-to-video pieces."
"I always thought of this movie as SHALLOW GRAVE meets FRIDAY THE 13th," notes Moritz who next joins Ridley Scott and Arnold Shwarzenegger for I AM LEGEND, based on the Richard Matheson novel previously filmed as THE LAST MAN ON EARTH and THE OMEGA MAN. "Ours is a little more sophisticated than most horror films, but you can't shy away from the things people like about movies like this."
So despite the emphasis on character, on realism, on psychological terror, genre fans can expect some familiar gross-outs and good-girl thrills from the writer who idolizes Jamie Lee Curtis. Indeed, Gellar and Hewitt explode with giggles when asked if I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER is a "guy film".
"Oh yeah!," Gellar squeals, "Come on, it's chicks running through the woods!"
Hewitt adds," They should call it I KNOW WHAT YOUR BREASTS DID LAST SUMMER."
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