I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (47)

Directed by: Jim Gillespie

Starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr.

The Pitch: Four teenagers accidentally run down a pedestrian, then finish him off to avoid trouble...Or do they???

Theo Sez: Question : you're trapped with a psychotic killer on said killer's boat, about 100 yards from shore. Do you (a) jump into the water and swim ashore, knowing the killer is unlikely to sacrifice his boat by jumping after you? (b) stay on the boat, so you can be chased into ever tighter corners? (c) refuse to play the scene, saying it insults the audience's intelligence? The characters' penchant for behaving with unfathomable stupidity - choosing (b) in the above example, in other words - finally sinks this intermittently effective "scary movie", though if films were judged solely on their opening half-hours it might be contending for the year's Top Ten : there's a wonderfully vivid atmosphere to the early scenes - the beach on a sultry night with waves crashing in the background, then the wild comic-book effect of Conscience eating away at our heroes - and, by the time the premise kicks in, we're primed for an irresistible slice of trashy-but-potent pulp (not unlike the 1965 I SAW WHAT YOU DID, which is the obverse situation to this one). That we end up only with generic, unmemorable slasher-movie action may be put down to the inexorable fickleness of Hollywood success - and the insecurity it breeds : clearly determined to make the most of his (and his pet genre's) 15 minutes, writer Williamson seems to have resurrected an old script idea (the kind he'd never really managed to work out beyond the premise) and fleshed it out as a SCREAM rip-off, not particularly caring if it fits or not. It's a shame, albeit hardly surprising - what should've been a compelling tale of psychological terror turns into just another exercise in making a fast buck ; plus, of course, an indication that Anne Heche - fey and haunted, like a worldlier Sissy Spacek - should cut the romantic crap and do way more horror movies.