I don't know why it usually happens that the films that once exploded the ratings of popularity reach my attention only after a considerable period of time, several years to be exact! So it was with 'Cruel Games' (which, by the way, starred the same Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe), and with 'Mermaids. I only watched 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' at the end of just last summer, even though I had often heard of it before and knew roughly what the plot was about. Such youth stories have always intrigued me.
Watching this film, I realized that I've lost a lot by not doing it earlier. It's a great movie. A typical American horror film, but still it has that zest which makes you not tear yourself away from the screen throughout the movie.
The plot intrigues, first of all, because we do not know until the end who the sinister 'fisherman with a hook' is.
The acting is terrific. Everyone is just wonderfully cast. Jennifer Love Hewitt - as the model girl used to everything in life having to go by the rules, was great. Ryan Phillippe did a great job playing the carefree, perpetually drunken bully looking for an adventure on his head. Freddie Prince Jr. was inimitable as the proper, humble hard worker. Well, as for Sarah Michelle... She is one of my favorite actresses, her acting always leaves me only admiring her. Her roles are always so believably and vitally played. And the role of the beautiful Helen is no exception.