Good afernoon, House of Madness deadites:
Today we received our first ever request for a specific movie review, and here in the House of Madness we not only cater to such desires, we do so enthusiastically, and only ask for your credit card info, your social security number, the deed to your house, and a case of Mountain Dew Code Red in return. Sounds fair to me, so I'll draw up a contract and.......... Ok, my team of undead legal advisors just informed me that this practice is only acceptable in the inner regions of Hell, and a few small parts of Toronto. Sounds like corporate bullshit to me, but we have no use for such trivial items in our gift shop of madness anyways. Onward and downward I always say!
Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and friends Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.), and Barry (Ryan Phillippe) are headed to the beach for a day of sanding and tanning. As they're driving along, they accidentally hit a pedestrian, and assuming he's dead, start to panic. Their friend Max (Johnny Galecki) passes by, and Julie assures him all is fine, and everything is under control. After Max departs, the group decides the best course of action is to dump the body in the water, and rid themselves of this nightmarish day. I mean, it was an accident, right? One little problem, the person whose face they introduced to their front bumper isn't dead, and for some reason doesn't like the notion of being buried alive at sea. What a fuckin weirdo! The man then attacks Helen, there's a struggle, and he plummets down into the water below afterall. I love when a plan comes together! After nerves settle, anxiety lowers, and tight tank tops are adjusted, the friends all decide to move forward like the incident never happened, and agree never to speak of it again.
A year goes by, the group have all gone their separate ways to college and work, while nobody seems the wiser. When Julie arrives home for the summer, she receives a strange letter with no return address that simply says "I know what you did last summer!". Well fuck, that's an onion in the ointment, why can't good friends get away with murder just this one time!? Julie calls Helen, and the pair decide to show the note to Barry. Upon reading, Barry instantly suspects Max as he's the only other person that witnessed anything that fateful day a year ago, so it's time to pay him a visit, and ensure he accepts his free ticket to Shutthefuckuptown as he threatens him with a hook. Instead of adhering to Barry's brilliant advice, Max is soon killed by an unknown assailant wearing a rain slicker and garnishing a hook. Hmmmm, that's a bizarre coincidence. As our suspicions tingle, Barry is attacked later that night at his gym locker, upon reading "I KNOW" on the inside of the door, and his assailant flees after stealing Barry's car and jacket. Ever since car manufacturers refused our warnings and began production on those hook friendly steering wheels, car thefts have skyrocketed 63%.
After doing some research, Julie believes the man they wronged was a local named David Egan, so her and Helen pay a visit to his sister Missy (Anne Heche) to gather some intel. Missy is devastated by David's death, but doesn't offer much information other than a visit from David's friend Billy Blue to pay his respects. Later that night as Helen is sleeping, someone breaks into her house, cuts off her hair, and writes "SOON" on the mirror. I don't know about you, but I was curious as to what Sarah Michelle Gellar would look like with short hair anyways, so this scene was basically a win win for me. The next morning, Julie finds Max's body wearing Barry's jacket stolen from his locker, covered with crabs inside the trunk of her car, and quickly calls her friends in a manic state. When her friends arrive, the body and crabs are missing, and Ray is confronted because of his work as a fisherman, but Ray has received a threatening letter of his own, according to him. One thing is certain, this movie has more red herrings than Captain Highliner in his prime.
As Barry and Helen are taking part in the 4th of July parade, Julie goes back to visit Missy, who reveals David allegedly committed suicide because of the overwhelming guilt he felt over the death of his girlfriend Susan, and shows Julie his note. The writing on his suicide note matches the writing on the note Julie received, which can only mean it was a death threat, and not a suicide note afterall. Later, at a beauty pageant, Helen witnesses Barry being murdered on a balcony, and grabs a police officer to rush and investigate. No sign of Barry or the killer. This is starting to get weird, why couldn't they have just chopped up and eaten that guy they ran over like normal first time murderers? Better safe than sorry, Helen accepts the policeman's offer to escort her home, when he is lured into a side alley, and murdered. Helen makes a break for her family store where her sister Elsa (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras) is closing shop for the night, praying this insane game of 'body count' has come to an end. Instead, Elsa is next on the chopping block. Thanks sis! In a last ditch effort to make her own escape, Helen runs upstairs and jumps out the window, only to become yet another notch on the killer's bedpost.
The next day Julie finds an article which mentions Susan's father Ben (Muse Watson), and realizes from the picture that Ben was the man they ran over, moments after he killed David in retaliation for his daughter. If you're like me, and like to try and guess the killer at the beginning of every slasher movie, I can honestly say I got this one right, because every time a new character was introduced on screen, I pointed and shouted "THAT'S THE KILLER!!!!". Took a while, but in the end I was right, as usual. Julie heads to the dock to share the news with Ray. As she approaches, she notices his boat is called 'Billy Blue', so Julie high tails it away from him and hides on what she thinks is a good samaritan's boat, as Ray is knocked unconscious by her knight in slimy armour. Once Julie is on board, she finds all kinds of goodies, including photos and newspaper clippings of her and her friends, and pictures of Susan. After realizing the fisherman is Ben Willis, Julie runs below deck and discovers the bodies of his victims, her friends included in his collection of corpses. Ray comes to, cuts off Ben's hand in their violent struggle, and sends him overboard, saving Julie and ridding everyone of that psycho murderer once and for all. Afterwards, Ray and Julie both tell police they have no idea why they were targeted, and their story is convincing enough that the matter is considered closed. See? A year later and it's STILL the perfect murder which turned out not to be a murder and only cost them a few friends in the process. Good thing nobody else knows, or still does..........
This movie is pretty corny, but if my wife can make me watch "Aquaman" 32 times claiming it has nothing to do with Jason Momoa, then I can say I'm comfortable with my high-ish rating of this film, and it has nothing to do with Jennifer Love Hewitt or Sarah Michelle Gellar, you KNOW?
Madness Meter: 5.9/10
NB
