I Know What You Did Last Summer - Plot

Plot

After winning a beauty pageant, Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar), along with Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), Barry (Ryan Phillippe), and Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) go out of town to celebrate. Returning in Barry's new car, they hit and apparently kill a man, who is unknown to them. They dump the corpse in the ocean and agree to never discuss again what had happened.

One year later, Julie is returning home from college. She has not spoken with Helen, Barry or Ray since the accident. Upon returning home, Julie receives a letter that says "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER!" Panicking, Julie goes to see Helen at Shivers, a department store where she works. Julie shows Helen the letter and they decide to visit Barry. After going over the incident, Barry accuses Max. The trio go to see Max (Johnny Galecki), but Barry insists on going in the factory alone. Barry persuades Max to go into the back room and angrily attacks him, telling Max he should keep his mouth shut. Julie finds Ray working on the docks. Ray tries to make up with Julie but she runs off. Inside the factory, Max is brutally murdered with a meat hook to his neck by an anonymous figure. The killer attacks Barry next, running him over with his own car. The killer is shown wearing a black raincoat and wielding the meat hook.

Julie arrives at the hospital to see Barry and finds Helen and Ray there. Julie believes the man they hit was named David Egan, because a newspaper article a few weeks after the accident mentioned his body washing up on shore. Helen and Julie go to visit Missy (Anne Heche), David's sister. The duo is convinced that she is innocent. Missy tells them she had a visit from a man claiming to be David's friend named Billy Blue.

At Helen's home that night, the killer breaks in, hiding in her closet. The next morning, Helen wakes up with the crown on her head with most of her hair cut off to bits with "SOON" written in lipstick on her mirror she screams out in horror and smashes the mirror. Julie gets a call from Barry, who tells her to come to Helen's. On the way, Julie hears rattling in her trunk. She opens the trunk to find it full of live crabs and Max's dead body. She shuts the trunk, runs to Helen's and brings her and Barry to her car, but the body and crabs have disappeared. Julie is convinced the killer took the body and that they are not safe. Later they run into Ray back at the house, in which Barry punches Ray in the face, fell to the ground and tells them he got a letter. Julie decides to see Missy again while Helen and Barry watch each other's backs at the parade.

Julie meets Missy again and Missy admits that David committed suicide that night. David had been wracked with guilt after accidentally killing his fiance, Susie, in a car accident on the same road on the same night a year before. Missy shows Julie an alleged suicide note written in the same style as Julie's letter from the killer. Julie tries to explain that she was in a car that hit and killed David that night, but Missy becomes irate and tells Julie to leave.

At the Croaker pageant, Helen sees Barry murdered by the killer during a performance of Irene Cara's "Fame" by one of the beauty pagent entrants who had entered the year before. However, neither the killer nor the body are found afterwards. A police officer (Stuart Greer) drives Helen home. The killer lures the cop into an alley and kills him after tricking him into believing that his car has broken down. Helen runs to the store where Elsa is working, but the killer finds both of them and, whilst Elsa is locking the back door, he kills Elsa. Helen manages to elude the killer by jumping out of the window into a dumpster and she flees through the back alleys to the parade. Helen then turns around and is then stopped by the killer who shoves her into a stack of tires and slashes her to death, her screams are to no avail as the noise of the parade drowns them out.

Julie learns that the killer is Ben Willis (Muse Watson), a fisherman. He murdered David Egan after David and Ben's daughter Susie were involved in a car crash near where the four teenagers hit Ben. Susie was killed in the accident and David was unharmed. Ben blamed David and killed him a year later, making it look like a suicide. On the way home, Ben was hit by the group.

Julie goes to see Ray on his boat and tells him the story, but he does not believe her. Julie notices the name on his boat is "Billy Blue", the same name used by David's friend who had visited Missy, and accuses him of the murders. He chases her but is knocked unconscious by a man who tells Julie to get on his boat. After she does, she learns he is Ben Willis, the real killer. She is chased around the boat while Ray regains consciousness and steals a boat to save Julie. In a room full of ice, Julie finds Helen and Barry's bodies. Ray climbs aboard and is almost killed by Ben, but is caught in the boat's net. He climbs back aboard and saves Julie. Ben gets his hand caught in a rope and Ray hoists him into the air where Ben's hand is cut off by the pulley and Ben falls into the ocean. On land, Ray tells Julie that the reason he went to see Missy was because he was guilty and had to know who they hit. He tells her he loves her and they embrace. When a policeman asks for any reason why Ben would want to kill them, Julie and Ray both say they don't know. Ben's body is not recovered.

A year later, Julie is in her sophomore year of college and is planning a trip to New York with Ray. Julie receives a cell phone call from Ray as she is in the bathroom turning on the shower. She steps out to take the call, and she receives a letter resembling the one she had got from Ben, but it only contains a pool party invitation. Julie returns to the bathroom, which has now filled with steam. On the shower door, "I STILL KNOW" is written. Ben jumps through the shower door and attacks her. Julie screams, and the credits begin with the popular song, "Hush" by Kula Shaker.