I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

Episode 134, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Today is the 4th in our series of summer fun horror films, and, it’s our first one to have the word summer in the title. Woo hoo. Woo hoo. So, you know, the first this one is 19 ninety seven’s I Know What You Did Last Summer, which is a movie written by Kevin Williamson, fresh off of Scream and directed by Jim Gillespie. It Todd, a whole bunch of people, Jennifer Lef Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Felipe, Freddie Prinze junior, and Hesch is in there. I mean, basically, any pretty boy or pretty girl during the nineties, is in this film. It feels like.

Craig: I know. It’s so funny. It’s such a nineties time capsule. Like, it really doesn’t get any more nineties than this. So true.

Todd: You know, this is also right at the beginning of what set off what we’ve talked about before with Final Destination, a lot of these other movies of this nineties hip horror. Although this one wasn’t as hip as I remembered it being, honestly, going back and watching again for the very first time, since I think I think I saw this movie in the theaters. But then I my my recollection is also that maybe I rented it with somebody and fell asleep in the middle of it. I’m not sure which one of those recollections is the true one. Maybe it’s somewhere in between. Yeah. Maybe I fell asleep in the movie theater or something. But the other thing about this movie Now, Kevin Williamson was so hot at this time, like, as a writer Oh my gosh. Scream was was out. He people were saying he was the most powerful man in Hollywood. He actually wrote this movie before scream and it’s based on a on a book, by Lois Duncan, also titled, I Know What You Did Last Summer. And she wrote a lot. In fact, she was probably the original more or less the original, like, young adult suspense thriller, spooky horror kind of writer. You know, like like, Christopher Pike kinda came after her in that vein, John Bel Air’s, but she was before all of them, and she wrote, I know what you did last summer, but apparently has very little to do with this movie except Very little. Right? The very crumb of an idea. In fact, I read that she hated this movie.

Craig: Yeah. She did. I guess they they basically take the basic premise of, you know, teenagers hitting somebody with their car and they took the same character names, and then kind of beyond that, it it it really just completely deviates, from the book. I don’t think I read the book, which really kinda surprises me because I was totally into those types of books when I was, I don’t know, not even a teenager, but, you know, like, middle school. But I was more of a Christopher Pike guy. So Mhmm. Me too. I guess I you know?

Todd: Well, my wife read, a few of her books, and I think I read, Killing Mister Griffin, which Kevin Williamson also rewrote into a movie called, was originally called Killing Missus Tingle, but then it, unfortunately, was about to be released at the same time that the Columbine massacres happened. Because the subject of the matter is about some kids holding their tester teacher hostage. They decided to change it the title of the book of the movie to Teaching Missus Tingle.

Craig: That is so funny because I completely forgotten about that movie, and that movie is awesome. Is it Helen Mirren in that movie? You’re right.

Todd: I forgot it. It’s

Craig: so good. It

Todd: it was a good I remember again, I haven’t seen it since it came out, but I remember being a pretty good movie. So it’s so weird.

Craig: If if nothing else than for Helen Mirren, maybe maybe we watched the wrong movie.

Todd: I think you’re right. Okay. So I’ve I’ve dumped my history about this movie in everybody’s face. What was your history with this movie, Craig?

Craig: Oh, gosh. You know, I was I remember being super stoked to see it because, of course, Scream was huge, and everybody well, everybody I knew, loved Scream, and I did too. And and, the other draw of this movie for me was Sarah Michelle Gellar who, quite frankly, I’m still in love with. Like, I I just think that she’s just one of the coolest chicks in the world, and she’s just she’s gorgeous in that way that you wish your best girlfriend from high school was gorgeous. You know, that girl that, you know, you’re best friends with, but you secretly hope that one day she’ll she’ll realize that you’re supposed to be together.

Todd: That’s a good way of putting it.

Craig: And she’s just oh, god. She’s such a badass. I love her so much. I think that was my draw, to the movie. I don’t remember. I think I probably saw it in the theater too because, you know, it came out after Scream and there was all this hype around it and, I remember liking it at the time and then, Todd, I haven’t seen it in years. I have no idea when the last time I saw this movie was and then watching it again this time, I’m a little bit more lukewarm on it. I just feel like it it just hasn’t aged particularly well for whatever reason, and, I don’t know. I I feel like I’m gonna kinda be a Debbie Downer. Yeah.

Todd: I think I am too, man. To be honest, it’s, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because so many other better movies came after this. I think this was trying to capitalize. Like I said, he wrote this before Scream. It was bought the script was bought by a studio, but then the script was just kinda put on a shelf and not actually produced. Once Scream came out and was a huge hit, this got drugged back out again. And, and Jim Gillespie, who didn’t do much of anything before this and really hasn’t done much of anything after this, directed the movie. And the movie tries to cop that same that’s that nineties style, like Yeah. The the cinematography is all these just, like, beautiful, gorgeous, perfectly lit, but swooping. Like, does the camera swoop through this movie? Yeah. Across the scenes in very clever ways, with clever transitions and things like that. And then, everybody in here has perfect hair,

Craig: like Oh, yeah. It’s they’re all very sexy at all times.

Todd: Right? It doesn’t matter. They get wet. They’re even sexier. You know? They get dirty. Like, oh Todd. Right? Like, every bit of makeup, every every follicle of hair is perfectly placed on everybody here and the perfect skin. And it’s just it’s just like Scream, but it’s not like Scream because it’s the movie that Scream is making fun of or calling out.

Craig: Yeah. You

Todd: know? Yeah. It’s like, to me, it’s almost like a step backwards coming after Scream, you know. Yeah.

Craig: It is. It doesn’t have that self aware humor, about it. It’s it’s really just more of a straightforward slasher, which there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s fine. I I wanna start off, I guess, not being entirely negative and and say that it’s really competently done. Like Oh, sure. It looks good. You know, it’s it’s very shiny and polished, and the cinematography is good. It’s got kind of a cool soundtrack. It’s got, like, this soundtrack all full of, like, these nineties alternative covers and Yeah. Every everybody’s very beautiful and, you know, like, they’re like it’s got a lot going for it. It’s just the the I don’t know. The plot’s a little hokey.

Todd: Yeah. It’s hokey, and it’s not even like, you know what? When a person says it’s a slasher movie and it bills itself as a slasher movie, there’s not a lot of slashing going on. Not

Craig: Not a ton.

Todd: Not until the tail end. It doesn’t have the grittiness that slasher movies tend to have. And, well, I mean, of course, the slasher movies of the nineties didn’t, like the lack of grittiness was part of their style, I guess. Yeah. But, from today’s perspective, it fits in very nicely with a lot of those nineties horror movies. It was just a little too slick, a little too clean, a little too beautiful to to be a horror, you know, to be taken seriously, like, to be scary as a horror movie as as far as I’m concerned.

Craig: I mean, it it certainly feels like a studio movie, you know, like a big a big budget studio movie, which again, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Todd: And they’re good ones, you know. Final Destination, we love Final Destination. It kinda fits in that vein.

Craig: Yeah. And it, you know, it’s got well, I mean, to say that it’s got a little bit of urban legend in it is an understatement, but, you know, it’s it’s that type of feel. And and the movies were those movies were very, very popular, at the time, and they made big money. So, you know, we can sit here, whatever, 20 oh, Todd. It is 20 years later. I graduated in 1997.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: So we can sit here 20 years later and poo poo on it, but, you know, it it was a huge hit. You know?

Todd: It was a blockbuster movie. Well and it wasn’t critically successful at the time either, but it the public loved it, and it made a ton of money. Well, I guess we’d better get in the plot.

Craig: Okay. Well, I’ll take it from here then.

Todd: I can read Wikipedia just as well.

Craig: Okay. So, you you know, it it opens with this big sweeping shot over the ocean. And I can’t believe that I’m waiting now that we’re actually recording to ask you this, but I was genuinely curious because you see these, shots all the time, of, you know, like, it’s just this huge sweeping shot over the ocean. How do they do that, Todd? It’s pretty awesome. I’m I’m legitimately asking, like, is that like a helicopter deal? Like, how

Todd: It used to be I mean, nowadays, they do drones and things, but, you know, back in the day, pretty much a helicopter. And and and this one’s impressive, isn’t it? Because it goes for so long, and then it like a lot of these that are impressive, it ends up in, like, perfectly timed into some small detail, you know, zooming right in on it. Uh-huh. Allowing just enough time for all the credits, coming back around, and then zooming into that guy sitting on the cliff edge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s it’s helicopter. Yeah. Pretty much.

Craig: Okay. Good. Thanks. Alright. So so we zoom in on this kid, this young guy sitting on a cliff, basically. And I don’t know. He’s got some kind of, like, necklace or something, but, like, it’s like a a a silver disc, that can like spin in this kind of cradle or something and he’s playing with it. I don’t know. It shows up several times throughout the movie. I don’t so it’s it’s really insignificant, but they make sure that we see it a 100 times throughout

Todd: the whole thing.

Craig: And he’s just sitting there, whatever, and then he starts to see some fireworks, which leads us to this small town. I’m not sure where it’s supposed to be other than that it’s coastal and,

Todd: you’re having something like that.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. One of the Carolinas it’s supposed to be. I read that they did most of the shooting in one of the Carolinas, but all this coastal stuff they actually shot in California because apparently the director or cinematographer, whomever, said that, whichever Carolina they shot Todd in was too flat, and they needed more depth and stuff, especially for this big car scene that’s coming up. But anyway, they’re having, I don’t know, some sort of 4th July festival. It’s the Croker Festival.

Todd: I don’t

Craig: I don’t know if this is like a frogging town. You know, I don’t have any

Todd: idea what I’m doing. Is a croaker a frog or is that isn’t that a kind of fish? I thought it was croaker was a kind of fish.

Craig: You’re probably I don’t know.

Todd: They were the giant fish floats that floated by on the parade that kind of, like, clued me into that, Craig. I

Craig: I just thought it was a funny name. I don’t know. Okay. And so we get introduced to all of our main characters very early on. Helen is played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, who I can’t say enough about. She’s I just love her. She’s a beauty queen. She’s she’s in the Croker Queen contest. And in the Croker queen contest, like, they ask her about her future or whatever.

Clip: At Summer’s End, I plan to move to New York City where I’ll pursue a career as a serious actress. It’s my goal to entertain the world through artistic expression. Through art, I shall serve my country.

Craig: And she wins. She’s the croaker queen. Oh my god. And, tells

Todd: you the standards this town has.

Craig: Yeah. I just, like they just keep introducing all these characters one after another and, like, in my notes, you know, I just going down the page, we meet Elsa. Elsa’s her sister played by Bridgette Wilson Sampras, I think. If I remember correctly, she was the blonde girl from the Mortal Kombat movies, but don’t quote me on that. I could be wrong. But she’s a bitch. That’s her whole character. And and then we meet Max played by Johnny Galecki, who, of course, now is a, like, a bazillionaire from his role on The Big Bang Theory, back then known for his role on, Roseanne. And he’s pathetic. He’s a pathetic loser who is in love with, or in love with. That’s not really fair. He’s fawning over Julie who is played by Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Todd: Yeah. She was my girl, actually.

Craig: Oh my gosh.

Todd: Yeah. Jennifer Love Hewitt as opposed to Sarah Michelle Gellar has a little bit more of that, Girl Next Door innocence about her.

Craig: She does. It’s so funny. I wasn’t gonna say this because it’s so mean. And Jennifer Love Hewitt is she’s such a beautiful girl, and, she, you know, a Todd actress in her own right, but I always called her Pinhead because I always thought she had a pointy head.

Todd: I wasn’t really looking at her head for most.

Craig: Oh, no. Oh, god. You know, if you’re listening to our podcast for the first time, you may not know much about us. And and I swear to Todd, I’m not a chauvinist. I’m really not, but she’s got great tits. Like, she’s kinda like and there’s there’s one point in the movie where they say something about Sarah Michelle Gellar’s boobs and how great they are and, like, they totally misplace that line. That’s all

Todd: we need to say about it. Yeah.

Craig: And then we meet Barry who is Sarah Michelle Gellar, Helen’s boyfriend played by Ryan Phillippe, and they went on to star in Cruel Intentions together.

Todd: Which was an interesting movie.

Craig: So they, you know, they had some stuff going on. And then there’s also, Ray who is played by Freddie Prinze junior, and he set up kinda be kinda like the nice every guy. Also stunningly handsome. Yeah. Yeah. A very handsome guy. He and Sarah Michelle Gellar met on this movie, went on to get married, and are still married, you know, all this time later. They seem to be very happy. I’m very happy for him, I guess. And, okay. So that so we’ve got the 4 friends, Julie, Helen, Barry, and Craig. And after Helen wins the the Croaker Queen, they decide to go to Dawson’s Beach. Wink. Wink.

Todd: When you’re the writer, you could do things like that.

Craig: Well, yeah. Great. Kevin Williamson wrote Dawson’s Craig, so, you know, little wink and a nudge there. And they go to the beach and they’re they’re sitting around a fire, you know, it’s all very typical, and they’re telling, you know, this urban legend

Todd: No.

Clip: It’s scratching because the guy’s been hung from a tree limb and his feet are scratching

Todd: on the

Clip: roof and body. He’s been decapitated Todd it’s the blood from his severed neck that’s dripping on the car that’s going drip. Drip. Okay. No. He was decapitated. He was gutted with a hook. That’s why I heard

Todd: it.

Clip: Look. You’re all wrong.

Craig: Now we’ve all heard this story, the urban legend of the guy with the hook, but of course every time you hear it it’s a little bit different. You know, that’s how urban legends work and and then they’re they’re they’re all drinking and banging and, like, you know, just a great summer of 97 and talking about what

Todd: they’re gonna do and they’re going off in their different directions. One’s going to college, you know, are we gonna stay, you know, with together when I’m gone and things like that.

Craig: Yeah. Yep. But then they have to go home and, Barry is out of his mind drunk, but they’re in his car. He drives like a beamer or something, and, he’s adamant that nobody else can drive his car but him. But, eventually, they convince him to let Ray drive. And they’re driving along, and Barry’s being a dick because that’s his only character. Triple trick. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. And, he, like, he stands up in the sunroof with his big bottle of whiskey or whatever, and he drops the bottle of whiskey and it falls down on Ray, who is driving, which distracts him and they hit something. And, they Todd the car and you know, they’re all kind of freaking out, like, what happened? What did we hit? And at first they think it’s an animal, but then, Julie goes and investigates a little bit, and she finds a boot, a bloody boot. And and when they look just a little bit further, it out that they have hit a guy. And, it’s this guy like in a fisherman’s slicker and he’s so bloody in the face that they, you know, they can’t they don’t know who it is, they can’t recognize him, but they think he’s dead, and so they have to figure out what to do. And that, you know, that’s kind of the jumping off spot for the whole thing.

Todd: Yeah. You know, they’re arguing and, of course, Barry is like, we’re gonna get so much trouble. Let’s just dump them in the water. And the others are at various levels of how can we do that? That’s not right. Especially, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character, Julie, is really painted as the most moral of them.

Craig: Oh, god. She’s a goody goody. She’s, like, annoyingly goody goody. Yeah. Like, I’m not saying that it’s okay to, like, run over somebody and then dump them in the water, but, like, I wouldn’t be friends with her.

Todd: Out of the group. So so anyway, they end up dumping it, in the water, but not before a truck starts to come by. And so they quickly kinda toss the body over the edge and pretend like they’re puking. The car that pulls up is Max. Yeah. And so Max is like, hey, how’s it going? What’s going on? And he exchanges some mean words with them, and then he drives on. So they narrowly avoid Max seeing what’s going on, we suppose. Right. They take it down to the dock, and they have a little more argument about who’s gonna actually kick it in. And, Julie said she doesn’t wanna do it. Julie notices a tattoo on the guy’s arm, and then just as they’re leaning down to toss the guy in, the guy actually kind of like wakes up and grabs one of them, and it grabs the crown right off of Helen’s head. She’s still wearing her crown and pulls it down with him as he falls into the water. And so, Barry dives in the water and this guy is now floating in the water. This is this is really a dumb plant because they’re this dock is just in in this inlet, and they’re talking about how, oh, yeah, it’ll get swept out to sea because there’s this terrible undercurrent. There’s no undercurrent when he dives into this water. It’s just a bunch of seaweed and this body peacefully floating in this peaceful water.

Craig: Not even floating. Like, it’s on the bottom. Like, why is it just, like, hanging out on He’s just chilling.

Todd: I was thinking again of the freaking, and darn it. Of course, the cinematography is beautiful. Though it It is.

Craig: It looks

Todd: great. It looks fantastic. I was still thinking of the zombie shark fight scene from definitely, from zombie 2 because it’s it’s just like it. This guy is just upright and white and pale and almost dead already. Anyway, he ends up grabbing the crown from this guy, but his eyes open, and I think he lunges out at him and Barry freaks out, and he swims back up and goes to the top. It’s just so funny, like, at no point in this do these people go, oh, he’s not dead. Okay.

Craig: Let’s take him to the hospital.

Todd: Yeah. Like, maybe we should alter our plan a little bit, at least consider altering our plan a little bit. They’re content to basically just, finish the job, you know, without even talking about it. It’s kinda weird. Right.

Craig: Well, and and okay. So then Barry comes back up, and he gives Helen the crown or whatever, and and he has this whole big angry spiel.

Clip: Never, ever, under any circumstances known to Todd, speak about this again. Is that clear? It’s not merely a future therapy, Bill. Agreed? Billy. I’ll never mention it again. We make a pact. Right here and now we take the tsar grave. Agreed.

Todd: Julie?

Clip: Don’t you know her head you fucking say it. Yeah. Okay. We take this to our grave. Let me hear it. Let it go, Barry.

Craig: You know, I didn’t even really think about things like this being, overly dramatic at the time, but, like, at some point he grabs Julie by the neck and, like, throws her up against his car and is, like, strangling her and her boyfriend Just stands there. Already pretty is just standing there like, hey, knock it off. Like, what? Like, this guy is assaulting your girlfriend.

Clip: Yeah.

Craig: But but, you know, okay. So whatever. So they agree they’re never gonna speak of it again. And then they drive away and we see what I think was that spinny thing that the guy on the cliff was playing with on the ground. And and, you know, I’m thinking what the heck, But whatever. There it is. I’m still kinda thinking, what the heck? And then it jumps to 1 year later. And this is so funny to me because it’s so cliche. Like, it it jumps to 1 year later and Julie’s at college, but now, apparently, the the guilt has reduced her to, like, this gothy, gloomy Gus. Like like like, she has she has dreamy hair. Or glass. She only wears, like, gray. Like, it’s it’s so silly. And and that’s what it is. Like, we get to see how this is basically just kind of ruins them all. Like, okay. So she goes home for this summer. Her mom kind of talks about how disappointed she is in her. Like, her dad’s dead. And her mom at one point is like, your dad must be spinning in his grave at what you’ve become.

Todd: How horrible is that? That’s the one thing you gotta say about this movie, especially upon, you know, later reflection is it’s so dramatic. It is way

Craig: Oh, it’s melodramatic. That’s the thing, like, I was thinking this movie would never play now except for that’s not true. No. It unless, like, you see these movies on, like, Lifetime all the time. Yeah. I know I know that we have some international viewers out there, or listeners. Excuse me. But Lifetime is this cable network here in the states that just plays these totally melodramatic movies that are are geared towards women. But, they have titles like mother, may I sleep with danger? Like, the most, like, the most ridiculous things. And and this this movie would fit perfectly, on on that network now. They’re very melodramatic and silly. But anyway, okay. So she’s home and her mom berates her, and then she gets this note in the mail. It’s not postmarked. There’s no return address, And all it says is, I know what you did last summer. So she freaks out and she goes Apparently, Helen, Sarah Michelle Gellar, her family owns a store in Todd. And so Julie goes there to ask Helen’s sister, Elsa, can you tell me how to get in touch with Helen in New York? And she’s like, Helen’s not in New York. She’s right over there. She works here now. And and again, as you know, just like everybody’s lives have just collapsed because of this event. And now Hellesy well, not mousey, but, like, mousier than she was before. And she’s just like Yeah. The perfume girl at her family store, and I I don’t know. It’s lame.

Todd: This it is lame. It’s so lame because this whole sequence and I’m trying to put it in context of the time. But you would think that that 10 years have gone by, the way that these peoples have have completely changed, completely lost touch with each other, and talk to each other like So Ray grew up to be a fisherman, You know, like, no. It’s only been a freaking year. Yeah. I mean, you would imagine they would at least kind of have some touch, except except I was thinking about this just a little while ago. You know, this was right at the point where we didn’t have cell phones yet. Or Facebook.

Craig: Yeah. I mean,

Todd: it wasn’t that big of a dramatic change, but I pretty much did lose touch with most of my high school friends during my entire 1st year in college because I didn’t bother to pick up the phone and call them wherever the hell they were because I didn’t have their numbers and didn’t go home and wasn’t in constant contact with the with the people I wanted to be in contact with for whatever reason. And you just kinda dove into your new life wherever you were and made all those new friends. And so, yeah, I guess it’s to in that way, it does actually make sense, but they make it seem like it’s it’s just again, like the rest of the movie, it’s overly dramatic. You know. Mhmm. Like, this girl was apparently at New York and tried her hand and then came back, and now she’s working at the department store Mhmm. All within a year. Right. You know? Then they go, to see Barry, and Barry’s still an asshole.

Craig: Yep. That’s what I have in my notes. Barry’s still a dick.

Todd: And he’s just living in this really super fancy house on the coast, you know, with his, I guess he’s he just never went to school. He’s just living there.

Craig: Well, it’s his it’s his parents’ house. His parents are rich. Actually, I think that Barry’s kind of the only one who really went off and did what he was supposed to do. Like, he was gonna go off and

Todd: play be a rich asshole.

Craig: Yeah. Well and he was gonna go off and play college or play football in college and, that’s what he did. He’s back for the summer too and still a dick.

Todd: And you know this that’s the other thing about this. It’s kind of like Friends, you know, when you really think about it. It’s so dramatic. It makes these problems seem so horrible, except how can you engender too much sympathy for these people? I mean, this guy’s family is super rich. Right? Yeah. And this guy this woman, obviously, she’s fine. She’s going to college. She lives in a nice house. Her mother cares for her and whatever. The other woman still working her parents’ department store. You know, she’s got a fallback job. The only person is the 4th guy, Ray Mhmm. Who is, working on the docks. There’s something about his father who just who died or something, and he’s back being a fisherman. Nobody here is in this, like, really horrible position. It’s all kind of self centered issues.

Craig: Well, and I was also really questioning my character at this point because this sounds so callous because it is, but, like, I was watching it thinking, oh, they’d get over it. Like, I get it. It was tragic. It was horrible, but life goes on.

Todd: And life is going on pretty well for these people, you know, considering maybe their classmates. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. They didn’t even know this guy. Apparently, nobody even really misses him. Now we do find out that, Julie has done some research and and she’s found that this guy she thinks she knows who it is that they killed. His name is David Egan. He’s this guy who is just a little bit older than them. They had found his body in a fisherman’s net, and, he was presumed to committed suicide or or something, but, they think that’s the guy they killed. So they they feel bad about it or whatever, but, you know, the the plot just keeps going on and, like, they they, of course, remember that Max had showed up that night, so Barry immediately thinks that Max is messing with them. So they go and confront him. He also works down on the docs, and without explaining why, he just, you know, basically assaults Max and kind of

Todd: Very. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. And just kind of, you know, beats him up a little bit.

Todd: And then leaves. It tells the girls, yeah, I just took care of it. Yeah. I took care of it. And nobody else saw it. Then we get the hook. This is where the whole hook thing comes in.

Craig: Right. Right?

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. Max has a hook. He hangs the hook up. Max turns around to drop some crabs and some boiling water, and the hook is gone. And then, guy in a rain slicker comes out and kills Max. And I’m thinking at this point, why?

Craig: Exactly. Why? And I’ll tell you. Max, dude.

Todd: Okay. Because because when you’re watching this movie, and I’m sorry, even by the end of the film, I’m thinking, I mean, you you watch this movie, you know what’s going to happen. I mean, it’s all been set up. They got the note. Everyone who is involved in that is in danger. Max wasn’t involved in

Craig: that. Right? At all. No. He wasn’t at all. And that I swear I thought the exact same thing. I’m like, Max didn’t do anything. He just tried to flirt with the girls and, like, you know, like, he wasn’t very nice either. Like, except for Buffy and Pinhead and Buffy’s husband. You know, those 3 are nice, but everybody else in the movie is just jerks for no apparent reason. And and Max is kind of a jerk in his own right, so he’s got that going for him or whatever. But, seriously, he had nothing to do with this. Why would he get killed? Well, the reason is is because the execs decided that it was too slow. Like, kill somebody already. And you know what? So they did it in reshoots. You know, it was that it was after the movie was totally over. They killed off Max in reshoots because they decided there wasn’t enough killing.

Todd: And Max comes up later in the most improbable way, which is also quite silly. And I think that it shows because it was freaking slow, like, up until this point. I mean, it’s a ton

Craig: and ton of setup. Lots of talking. Yeah.

Todd: And it and, you know, and it feels like it’s maybe building and maybe building, and then it builds to this point where it’s like, what the hell? And are we totally off on what this movie is going to be? And then after that first killing, it’s not we don’t get any, but nobody else dies until the last, like, 15 minutes or something.

Craig: Yeah. Right?

Todd: I mean, it is I guess the body count, if you count it out as high, but it does not follow the Roger Corman model of, you know, some some brutal death every, you know, 10 minutes.

Craig: Yeah. In hindsight, I just think that it’s just a really poorly written script. Like, I it it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The next part that comes up. Okay. So they get Ryan Phillippe half naked, which I ain’t complaining about EA. But, they get him half naked in the gym, and then, like, he gets a, like, a pic like, a picture of his car or something with I know written on it, and then his jacket is stolen out of his locker. And so he goes out, and somebody’s stealing his car. The car is, like, speeding down the road backwards, and he’s chasing it, and then all of a sudden it turns on its high beams and starts chasing after him. And eventually, it it hits him. Like, it it hits him and throws him, like, through a wall and he’s injured. And then we see this. This is the first time we see, you know, the killer totally and, you know, it’s just this big scary guy in this big rain slicker and a big, you know, rain hat and you can’t really see who he is or whatever. But he stands there over him with the hook as, Barry is, you know, screaming for help, and then it just cuts to black and then it opens up in the hospital. Yeah. And he’s fine. And Barry’s like, well, he’s not gonna kill us because if he was gonna kill us, he could have. He could’ve just killed me just then. Yeah. Right? Like Yeah. Exactly.

Clip: What is What’s the point?

Craig: Doesn’t even make any sense.

Todd: I know, man. I know.

Craig: Like, if he’s gonna kill you, and obviously, that’s his intent and he spoiler alert, he does kill Barry later. Like, what are you waiting for?

Todd: I know.

Craig: Do it.

Todd: It’s just like they had more movie to fill, and I guess they needed Barry’s asshole in there to just kinda, like, balance out the team for a little while longer. Todd, it makes no sense. And and I think everybody’s scratching their head at this point. You know? And there’s no crazy twist, like, oh, the killer’s motive is not what we think it is. It’s exactly what we think it is from the very beginning. It just doesn’t make sense that he killed one guy who wasn’t involved and let this guy go for a little while longer, you know. Yeah. It’s it’s kind of annoying actually.

Craig: And then the other thing that really frustrates about me about this movie is that they throw in all these red herrings, and I I guess they do it, I don’t know, for mystery, for intrigue, to make the movie longer. I don’t know, but like, Barry refuses to go to the police because he’s still afraid that they’ll get in trouble or something. I don’t know. Todd doesn’t make any sense, but, Julie and Helen go into research Todd, and, like, I I don’t remember if they go to the library or just get on one of their old 97 computers or whatever, but

Todd: AOL or something. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah. They they research this guy that they think they killed, David Egan, and they find out that his girlfriend had died in a car accident. Todd was driving and like they went into the ocean or whatever and David survived, but Susan didn’t. And they’re like, well, let’s go find David’s family. Because because they think it it’s him. I don’t even know. I don’t even remember what’s going on.

Todd: I don’t know why.

Craig: So they go out to this house, which okay, so I I read that actually the house that they go to is the same house that they used in The Conjuring. Kind of cool. Whatever. But they meet Missy Egan, played by Anne Heche, who I swear to Todd thought that she was in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or or or the people who were, you know, directing and styling her because she’s in this big house in the middle of nowhere. She’s wearing these old dingy clothes. She’s acting like she’s just out of her mind crazy.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: They see pictures of David, we see that he was the guy from the cliff in the beginning. She and he says something about

Clip: One guy, he he stopped by not too long after David’s death and and he came to pay his respects. Really? Oh, yeah. He was a really nice guy. He was cute and smart. Well, we were we were sweet on each other for about 2 minutes. But it didn’t it didn’t work out. You know, he he didn’t he never really said it, but I think it hurt him to be around me.

Craig: It’s just so convoluted and stupid. And then there’s, like, a stupid jump scare where Anne Heche, like, scares them like they’re sitting in the car and she pounds on their window. It’s just so many cliched stupid things thrown into 1. It just I I don’t know. I guess I guess maybe in 97 it worked, but it was not working for me this time.

Todd: No. Me neither. And just the fact they were interrogating her. I mean, doesn’t she wonder why there these these strangers who shut up at their at her house because their car broke down are asking her all these detailed questions about her brother? Mhmm. And then she’s, like, begging them to stay after as they decide they need to leave suddenly.

Craig: Yeah. Like, she needs friends.

Todd: The only new information Todd get out of that is this Billy Blue thing. Yeah. Later that night, we go to back to Helen. Right? Yeah. Yeah. She’s at her house and she comes in and there’s a bunch of stuff where you can see that there’s a there’s a shadow, following her into the house. Her dad’s downstairs, but he’s watching TV and stuff and nobody notices that this, clearly, this guy with a rain slicker is creeping into the house while she’s getting ready for bed and apparently ends up in the closet. And it’s a well actually, it’s a well filmed scene like everything else. You know, it’s it’s pretty suspenseful. What’s the payoff? In the morning, she wakes up, and her hair’s all chopped up.

Craig: He cut her hair.

Todd: Oh my god. The beauty queen’s hair has been cut

Craig: to shribbons. Really? Really?

Todd: Why? You know? And then is he still in the closet? How does he get out of the house? I was asking all of these kinds of questions as well. This guy’s got a lot of time, and he doesn’t have a very good plan, I think.

Craig: Yeah. Well and he, you know, he must have, like, a side job at, like, Vidal Sassoon or something because it still looks fabulous. It still looks fabulous. Like, it’s just a cup like, he just took a little bit off the tips.

Todd: He layered

Craig: Oh, god. It’s so funny. And then it’s that scene. Okay. So Helen calls Julie. Julie starts racing over and she hears something in the trunk, I guess. So she pulls over. It’s a scraping sound.

Todd: It’s supposed to sound like the scraping of the hook or something, you know, and I thought that was a clever.

Craig: Yeah. And she she opens up the trunk and Max, Johnny Galecki, is dead in there and he’s covered in all these crabs and like, it’s gross. It’s scary. Cool. Whatever. So she just runs the rest of the way to Helen’s house.

Todd: Which is like across the street.

Craig: Right. Oh, yes. That’s important. Like, it’s like right there. Berry’s there with her and so she brings them back. And this part still I remember it bothering me at the time, but to this day it bothers me because she brings them back and she throws open the trunk and not only is the body gone, but any evidence of there having been anything in the trunk is gone. Now like, I could understand if there was just a dead body in there, you know, maybe somebody could have driven up and I guess in the middle of the day somehow covertly pulled a dead body out of the car. But it was full of ice and live Craig.

Todd: Like Yeah. It’s not even bad.

Craig: Take it to the detailing shop real

Todd: quick before she got back? Did he swap hers out for a car just like hers that had a cleaner trunk? Like, no matter what he had to do to make this even possible, it was in the middle of a suburban neighborhood in the middle of the day where it just so happens that nobody happens to be standing around or walking outside at that precise moment. Oh, it’s so stupid. That’s really dumb.

Craig: Oh, god. Okay. And then there’s I I feel like the scene that they showed in the trailer, like, if if you ever see anything about this movie, this is the scene you see with Jennifer Love Hewitt standing in the middle of the road screaming, like,

Clip: Todd are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? Come get us, man.

Craig: And then Craig shows up and Barry punches him because they think that maybe he’s behind it or something. But then Craig says, no. It couldn’t have been me. I got a letter too. And there’s a really funny quote. Ryan Phillippe has one good line in the whole movie.

Clip: Oh, Oh, you got a letter. I got run over. Helen gets her hair chopped off. Julie gets a body in a trunk, and you get a letter? That’s

Todd: balanced. Oh, it’s funny. So then their plan and this is also so convoluted. At some point, Helen’s sister has come in and asked if she can go and help her at the store. And Helen says, no. I can’t today because, you know, I have to participate as the previous winner of the crown in this Croker parade

Craig: for the 4th floor. That can be done about it. Nothing can be

Todd: done at all. It’s so important.

Craig: I have to go. It’s the rules.

Todd: And so they decide that they’re going to use this parade. They’re like, the killer will be there. We’ll draw him out. This is how we trap him. What? How?

Craig: Yeah. He’ll probably be there because everybody in town’s gonna be there. Yeah. It’s it’s a fishing town. So odds are there’s gonna be somebody there in a fishermen slicker. Which they point out about Ray at

Todd: some point. Right? Everybody knows you have her slicker, Ray. But then then the lame red herrings just continue. So the she’s floating through the town in the on the top of this parade. In the meantime, Ryan Felipe’s character’s standing on the front, like, looking left and right, left and right as they pass by. Oh, no. There’s a guy in Craig slicker and a hat. There’s a guy in a rain slicker and a hat. There’s a guy in a rain slicker and a hat. The only people wearing hats in this entire outdoor middle of the day parade, far away from water are people in rain slickers with the same hat on that the killer has. Yeah. There’s no need to wear a hat. These are hats for when it’s raining. It’s not raining. Why are so many people with rain slickers and hats standing out in this crowd at this moment? Anyway, of course, he runs off and he jumps and he try tracks on the first guy he sees, and it’s an old man. And he runs and he looks at somebody else, and it’s not them.

Craig: Helen eventually actually sees the guy and the guy, like, flashes the hook at her, but, you know, it’s it’s also dumb. Nothing comes of it. Meanwhile, Julie goes back to Missy’s to do further investigation, and as it turns out, Missy says, my brother didn’t get hit by a car, he killed himself. And and she’s, like, what do you mean? Like, he even left a note, and so Missy shows her this note, and it’s one of those I know what you did notes. You know, it’s the same kind of note, that they got. And she’s like, this isn’t a suicide note, it’s a death threat, and then immediately she figures it all out. Now, of course, she doesn’t reveal it all to us right away. What she figures out is that okay. So

Todd: Help me with this because I’m still confused. Okay.

Craig: Alright. So the guy, David, this guy who they thought was the killer, remember he had been in that car accident with his girlfriend and the girlfriend had died. Well, the girlfriend’s dad is the fisherman and the fisherman killed David on the same night that they then hit him with the car.

Todd: They killed him after he killed David. Exactly. Or didn’t kill him as it turns out.

Craig: Right. Or didn’t kill him. Right. But Julie figures it all out, but, you know, she has to get back to town to tell everybody. Meanwhile, we go back to the the new Croaker Queen competition, which I thought was so funny because, like, apparently, the outgoing Croaker Queen sits on stage for the duration of the thing. Like like, this like, this girl’s up there doing her talent, and Sarah Michelle Gellar’s just sitting there on stage, like, rolling her eyes like, oh my god.

Todd: It’s so funny. Which you’ll notice actually in the initial Kroger Queen pageant, the outgoing one wasn’t sitting there.

Craig: Right. It’s it’s totally for convenience because while she’s sitting there, her ex boyfriend, they’ve kind of rekindled their romance at this point. He’s standing up in the balcony. She sees him get killed by the fisherman with the hook, and she’s screaming and trying to get to him and people are holding him back, and the the local cops, like, what’s going on? Why are you acting crazy? And, like, he just totally dismisses her, like, oh, you silly girl. Like The whole time. And, like, they go upstairs and, like, he looks around for, like, one second. Doesn’t even turn the lights on or anything. No. You you must just be crazy. But then this okay. I have I will give the movie credit for this because it leads to my favorite part. The cop is gonna give her a ride home, and he puts her in the back of the cop car and they hit like a detour, which, you know, should be a red flag, but, you know, they’ve got parades and stuff going on. So, you know, kind of makes sense. And so then they have to go through this alley. And in the alley, they see somebody who seemingly has car trouble and the cop gets out Todd, you know, see what’s going on. And of course, we know it’s the fisherman and soon, Helen realize it and she starts screaming and, the fisherman kills the cop, which starts out this scene that I actually think is a great scene. And maybe if I didn’t love Sarah Michelle Gellar so much, I wouldn’t be so enamored with this scene, but I love it. She she she totally flips her Buffy switch

Clip: and,

Craig: and and kicks out the the cop car window, which I kinda think is impossible because I think those are kinda, like, shatterproof or whatever. But anyway, she she gets out. She runs in her gown to her family store and the guy’s, you know, I don’t know, maybe 50 yards behind her, and she’s banging on the door because it’s locked and her bitchy sister is in there, and the sister’s just taking her time to get to the door. Meanwhile, we see the fisherman getting closer and closer, like he’s he’s catching up. But finally, the sister gets her in there and Helen’s like, somebody’s attacking me. You know, lock the doors. I I’m gonna call the police. And so the sister locks one door, but then when she goes to lock the other door, the fisherman’s already got in, and he kills the sister, which I was glad because she was mean anyway. Yeah. But but then, there’s this great, he chases Helen all through the store, and she’s being totally resourceful and, like, you know, pulling herself up the cargo elevator and, like, you know, climbing things and running all over and she’s always one step ahead of him. And eventually, she has to go out a window, but it’s on the second floor and the killer, like, comes to grab her through the window and she jumps down and she falls on her back in the alley, and she she gets up and she’s running through the alley and I just, I love this part so much. She’s running through the alley and she turns a corner and she sees the parade right in front of her and she starts running towards it. And when she’s maybe, I don’t know, 10 feet from immersing herself in these people, she stops and she turns around. There’s nobody behind her, but she turns back around and they kill her there’s, like, these piles of tires on either side of the alley. The killer jumps out from one of those, grabs her, and they start fighting. And Helen is the only one in the whole movie who puts up a fight, and she puts up a hell of a fight trying to fight this guy off, but eventually, she gets killed. But what I love about this is that this all happens within feet of this huge, you know, public event that’s going on, but I totally believe that this could happen.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Because, you know, it’s Todd, you know, the the parade is just going by, so anybody who is going by would really just only be catching glimpses of what was going on in this dark alley. And she fights and fights and fights, but eventually, he kills her, which makes me sad. But I love that scene. I think it’s so good.

Todd: It’s a pretty tense scene, and you’re wondering if she’s gonna make it. And she’s but, you know, everybody else has just been whacking your dead, but she at least, you know, has she’s the one who has this really nice long drawn out battle before we get to the, you know, the battle at the end. Right. But the town itself is either completely full of festivity and excitement and noise and fireworks or 100% desolate. Yeah. You know, depending on which street you turn down.

Craig: And and this pretty much leads up to the end. Julie, I feel like I don’t even know who she’s looking for, but, she ends up, finding Rey on the boat, on his boat. God bless Freddie Prinze junior. He’s a a cool guy. He’s a nice guy, but he’s really only got one character. Like

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: He’s just kind of this dopey, handsome, nice guy. But, like, she finds him and he’s like, oh, everything’s gonna be okay. Just come on the boat with me. And, like, he’s acting shady AF. And, so of course, you know, I don’t think that we as the audience are supposed to believe that he’s the killer because we’ve seen the killer doing other things. I don’t know. But she thinks he is, so she runs away, and he starts chasing her, which is the smart thing to do if somebody thinks you’re shady. And, he get he gets knocked out by this guy. And this guy is like, oh, I’ll help you. Just get on my boat. So she happily gets on his boat. And when she gets inside his cabin, she sees, you know, all these newspaper clippings, pictures of her and her friends, and so it’s obviously him. And he’s the killer. And then that it just it’s a it’s a good 5 minute cat and mouse scene with him chasing her around the boat, and, you know, I I I guess it’s tense. It’s a little drawn out for my liking, but Mhmm. And you know, and then it’s, you know, that thing where the bad guy is chasing the heroin, and the the boyfriend’s trying to help and, like, he’ll show up and he’ll fight the bad guy for a second, then the bad guy throws him off the boat, but, like, he gets caught in the net so he can crawl back in. And He ends up getting a motorboat. He’s off the boat at some point. He ends

Todd: up getting a yeah. It’s all at the end of the day, he use somehow tosses some rigging over this guy’s hand as he’s about to raise his, his hook Yeah. To to kill her finally. And, then he tosses it another direction or flips some switch or something, and the guy gets yanked up into the rafters or whatever you call it, up into the rigging. And then, it jerks his hand with the hook clean off Mhmm. Which then causes him to fall completely down into the water Mhmm. And away. So you get this, oh, gee. I wonder if there’s gonna be a sequel, you know. We

Craig: never see

Todd: this guy completely dead, but left there ominously as this hook with this hand still attached, and, you know, that’s just kind of a throwback to that urban legend they were talking about in the very beginning conveniently.

Craig: There’s a silly little scene with the 2 of them, the boyfriend and girlfriend, where they’re, like, oh, as it turns out, we didn’t really kill anybody. So now life can go back to normal. Like, okay. I mean, your 2 best friends just got brutally murdered, but it’s fine.

Todd: Clearly clearly, the guy the stranger that they murdered, and covered up is, is is is a lot more distressing to them than their 2 best friends.

Craig: And then we get 1 year later again, and Julie is at college, and she’s back to her old perky self. Thank goodness. And you know, she’s in a towel with her assets on full display and

Todd: Not full display, dude. I’m afraid. Just gotta point that out for everybody who’s rushing to download this movie. Yeah. That’s true.

Craig: It it it’s yeah. Very PG 13, but and she’s talking to Ray on the phone and they’re talking about how they’re gonna be getting together and then she gets a mysterious note and, she’s all scared and she opens it up and, it’s just an invitation to a pool party.

Todd: In the same handwriting.

Craig: And she she’s, you know, she goes back into the showers, which she’s left on, and so it’s all foggy in there. And she sees written on the shower door, I still know. And then we just get a quick flash of what looks like the fisherman jumping out and shattering the shower door jumping out at her, and that’s the end. And then I’m pretty sure in the sequel they just ignore that end cap because there was a sequel, a direct sequel for which, Sarah Michelle or not Sarah Michelle Gellar. Excuse me. Penhead. What’s her name? Jennifer Love Hewitt. She came back. I don’t remember if any of the rest of them came back. I don’t remember if Freddie Prinze Junior came back, but Brandy was in it and you know it it did pretty well too, I think. I saw it. I don’t remember anything about it, except for like they got invited to like some Island resort or something and then the mayhem started again, but and and then there was also there was there were 3 of them in total. I don’t I don’t think that the third one was a direct sequel. I think it followed all new characters, but I never saw it. So I can’t say with any certainty And I saw just when I searched on IMDB, there’s a new one in development and I don’t know if it’s a sequel or if it’s a remake of the original, but, there’s there’s something in development right now. So I don’t know, maybe the saga will continue. I don’t know, what are your final thoughts, sir?

Todd: Well, the, you know, the idea, the premise, this whole notion that started out in the book, you know, where these people have the secret because they did something bad and they tried to cover it up, and now it’s gonna come back to haunt them 1 year later is cool. Yeah. You know, it’s really cool. I just think this is a kind of a dumb dumb implementation of it. I don’t know. There’s so many ways it could go, and I didn’t feel like there was a lot of suspense because you’re going through most of the movie and people are not dying. They’re just, like, getting spooked. So you’re kinda wondering what are these motivations, and it kinda throws its hand it shows its hand a little bit in showing you that the killer is not clearly not one of them. Right. You know? There’s there’s never any reason to suspect them because we see so much of the killer’s physique and his hands and stuff, that, you know, it’s never a question that it’s somebody else doing it. And so all of these things that are a little more typical of these movies that kind of throw a lot of things in a doubt, kinda keep you wondering, keep you questioning, like Scream did, for example. Yeah. This movie has none of it, you know, and so I didn’t really feel a lot of suspense. I was kinda just waiting for it to be all over so I could hear what actually happened, who’s the the one that’s stalking them, and when is he gonna get it done already, You know? That was kinda my thing. And and, and like you said, like, it’s just it’s so paint by numbers that the characters are pretty unbelievable at times. And Heche’s character’s so comically Overdrawn. Comically out of place Yeah. In this movie, you know, that it just there’s so many it’s just kind of a mess, I guess. It’s kind of a mess and it unfolds as a mess as the movie goes along. And so it’s hard to really take it seriously or care about what’s going on, in my opinion.

Craig: Yeah. I think so Todd. For whatever reason, I really think that it worked in 1997. I don’t know, like horror was going through kind of a interesting the good news about it was that it was kind of coming into the main stream with with movies like Scream, and all, you know, a million movies that followed that,

Todd: like Urban Legend and

Craig: The Faculty and, like, all, you know, and, like, all, you know, is centered around these young people and I I, you know, I appreciate that for for what it did for the genre at the time. You know, people were getting kinda hyped up about horror movies and they were making a lot of money in the theater and, that’s good. I I just don’t think that it just hasn’t aged well, but the nineties were just kind of lame period. Like In so many ways. We I know we get like you and I especially and I’m sure that other generations will, you know, feel differently about different decades or whatever, but you and I are always so nostalgic about the eighties. I imagine that there will be generations who will be nostalgic about the nineties, but I just think the nineties were just kind of lame in general. Yeah. This this is so nineties. It’s so polished and pretty and vapid and dumb.

Todd: I think at that time, we were just excited to see, what had previously been a sort of gritty, extremely low budget, you know, thrown together movies that you would laugh at as much as you would, you know, be scared by.

Craig: Right.

Todd: Just be updated in a in a very solid, very style very deliberately stylistic way with big name actors and actresses. Everybody looking Todd, slick production. And and and this the plot of Scream was still is still so great. And Scream 2 is almost even better than the first one because it builds on it. But then, you know, the movies that follow in it are kind of a mixed bag plot wise even though they were able to kind of take that excitement and that that momentum that we got from, hey, this is this kinda cool new genre that we’re getting or updating of the genre we’re getting from Scream and kinda milk it a little bit. We I guess we just kinda ate it up because we were happy to see those kind of movies for a short time.

Craig: I think so. Yeah. I don’t know. I I don’t wanna be too hard on it because like you said, I mean, it’s it’s got a lot going for it. It is really slick, you know. It’s it’s there is clearly money behind it. Big I mean, these were some of the most famous, especially these young people, some of the most famous young people of the day contributing to this film into the genre and so I, you know, I I I can appreciate it for the time capsule that it is, but, you know, in hindsight watching it 20 years later, pass. Yeah.

Todd: Never gonna watch it again. Me neither. Can’t recommend it. Not excited to do the sequel. Well, thanks again for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. We have one more episode in our summer fun month. And then, beginning next month, we’re gonna be doing all requests. So we’ve amassed a nice little pile of requests, and they’re still coming in. If you wanna get your request in and we get enough of them, who knows? We might do 2 months. We’ll see. Yeah. Just go to our Facebook page. Look for 2 guys and a chainsaw, and, like us on there. Leave your comments. Leave your request. You can also find our website, 2 guys dot redfortynet.com, where we also post written movie written movie reviews, and we have a huge back catalog of previous episodes to get you all caught up. Until next week, I’m Todd, and Craig. With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.