Starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Freddie Prinze Jr. Directed by Rated R, for violence, language and sexual situations Running time 100 minutes We give this film a rating of 2 out of 10

(Oct. 17, 1997) -- I know what a bunch of teen actors did last summer. They made a crappy slasher flick.

I Know What You Did Last Summer has been heralded as a follow-up to last year's phenomenal Scream, the most successful slasher flick in a decade, both financially and artistically. All the hype about Summer is the result of its being written by Scream writer Kevin Williamson, who is supposed to be leading a revival in gore fun.

Unfortunately, Summer is more reminiscent of the drivel that followed in the wake of Halloween, the teen slasher breakthrough from the '70s. It is formula all the way. The wit, pop-culture exploitation and dizzy self-satirizing of Scream are gone, except for some odd lines here and there that fall like lead hatchets. Instead we get trite upchuck scenes, standard false shocko moments and a mystery that's no mystery at all.

By the way, next time you're trapped on a boat about 50 feet from shore with a psycho killer, JUMP OFF THE BOAT AND SWIM TO SAFETY! Just a suggestion.

As if you couldn't guess, four grads named Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Barry (Ryan Phillippe) and Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr., yes, the son of Freddie Sr.) make a mistake one summer, whomping a man with their car as he crosses an island highway, apparently killing him. Since they're drunk and stupid, and this is a slasher flick, they decide to dump his body in the ocean rather than call the cops.

They're just about to throw the body off a pier when it comes alive and grabs at them. So they throw it over anyway.

Gee, I don't know, they throw a live guy into the sea and we're supposed to be surprised when he comes back to haunt them.

Which he does. A year passes and the four have seen their lives turned sour, mainly as a result of the secret they've held inside. Brainiac Julie is on the verge of flunking out of college, beauty queen Helen has gone bust seeking stardom in New York and is back working in the family store. Good-hearted Ray is working on a fishing boat, jerk Barry is still adoring himself. The couples have broken up.

And when Julie comes home on school break, she gets a mysterious note saying -- duh -- "I know what you did last summer." And the terrorizing begins, the chief terror being you have to sit and watch this thing for an hour and a half.

Within 15 minutes of the start of this movie, you know what main characters are going to die, you know what the main instrument of death is going to be (one of those nasty hooks used to move blocks of ice) -- and you know who is going to be wielding it. It's all by the numbers.

There is one scary thing about I Know What You Did Last Summer.

It ends primed for a sequel.