A killer dressed in a slicker as the Fisherman is killing a group of friends during the Fourth of July in the fishing town Southport. Who is this killer and why does he come after Julie and her friends?

The Setting

Julie James and her boyfriend Ray Bronson and her fiend Helen Shivers and her boyfriend Barry Cox celebrate not only the Fourth of July but also that Helen has just won the pageant. They go to the beach, drink and make out. On their way back they hit a pedestrian who walked in the middle of the road. Because it’s Barry’s car and he is very drunk, they are afraid that nobody will believe that Ray was driving and didn’t have a drink at all. 

When another car drives by, driven by Max Neurick, who’s not on good terms with the group, they get really scared. When he leaves, they put the body in the trunk and take it to the pier and to drop him into the sea. But as Helen shoves him over the edge, the man grabs Helen. To their horror he is still alive, but Barry pushes him into the sea. They swear they will never speak of this again.

The Characters

A year later Julie returns to Southport for the Fourth of July. A lot has changed. She has broken up with Ray. Helen gave up her dream to become an actress in New York and now works at the family store Shivers. Barry is still a rich kid but he and Helen also have broken up. 

When Julie gets a letter that says “I Know What You Did Last Summer” she’s afraid that somebody has seen them. So she goes to see Helen, Barry and Ray. Julie has found out that three weeks after their accident, a man called David Egan washed up. It was called an accidental drowning. But somebody must know the truth. Because Barry gets a Polaroid picture with “I Know” written on it. Helen gets her hair cut off in the middle of the night while she was sleeping and on her mirror is written “Soon” in red lipstick. 

They have to find out who is tormenting and threatening them before the truth comes out. But then the killings start. Because it’s nearly the Fourth of July again. 

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Let the killings begin

• Death no.1: Max is killed while working in the fish shop by a man dressed as a Fisherman in a slicker. His weapon of choice is a big fish hook.
• Death no.2: Barry is killed on the balcony while watching Helen passing her crown to the next queen. Helen sees the Fisherman behind Barry, but when she raises the alarm and she and the sheriff go looking for Barry, they find the balcony empty and no signs of a struggle. 
• Death no. 3: The sheriff drives Helen back to her home, but they have to take a detour through an alley. There a man in a slicker has some car trouble. The sheriff gets out to have a look, but gets gutted by the Fisherman. 
• Death no. 4: Helen manages to escape the police car and runs to Shivers. Her sister Elsa is still there and opens the door. Safely inside, Elsa is killed by the Fisherman.
• Death no.5: Helen runs for her live and manages to escape the store. She is almost out of the alley and sees the marching band walk by, but the Fisherman has caught up with her and kills her.

The Killer unmasked

In the meantime Julie does some research about David Egan. Exactly a year ago, before the accident, David and his fiancé Susie Willis drove into the sea. She drowned, but he was unharmed. She goes to see Missy, David’s brother and she tells Julie that David committed suicide. He even left a note. That note however is written on the exact same paper as the threatening letter Julie got. And the writing is also exactly the same. This wasn’t a suicide note, but a threat. She finds out that Susie had a father named Ben Willis. 

When she goes to see Ray to tell him everything, she also discovers that he went to see Missy a couple of weeks after the accident posing as a good friend of David’s, named Peter Blue. Julie doesn’t trust him and runs. A fisherman knocks out Ray and tells her to go hide in his boat. But on that boat she sees all kinds of newspaper clippings and photos. She’s on the boat of Ben Willis. When he arrives on board he tells her that if you want to kill somebody, make sure they’re really dead. 

So it was Ben Willis who was walking on the road and was hit by them and not David Egan. But David Egan didn’t die of a suicide or accidental drowning either. It was Ben who killed David, because he blamed him for the death of his daughter Susie. The group didn’t really kill anybody. It was Ben Willis all along. 

When she runs from him she finds all her dead friends stored in the icebox below deck. Ray comes after them, climbs on board and after a fight, Ben is hauled up by the rigging and gets his hand severed before he is thrown into the sea. His body is never found. 

Read more about I Know What You Did Last Summer:

• Who is the Killer in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)