I Know What You Did Last Summer: The Southern Gothic Slasher (3/11/19)

As an avid fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it was my love of Sarah Michelle Gellar that lead me to watch I Know What You Did Last Summer this past weekend, but it was my total enjoyment of 90s Teen Horror that kept me watching. However, before I even registered the North Carolina license plates, I was noticing the ways in which this film fits into the ever-fascinating genre of Southern Gothic horror. Born and raised in North Carolina myself, I have always had a personal interest in the Southern Gothic, and will take any opportunity to analyze film through that lense. So hear me out. How is IKWYDLS Southern Gothic?

One of the hallmarks of the Southern Gothic, is themes of the past coming back to haunt you. From the title alone, it is clear that this theme is heavily referenced throughout the film. Before the slasher-ing begins, the movie focuses on the ways in which their high school hit-and-run ruined the potential for the lives of Julie, Helen, Ray, and Barry. Julie is flunking out of college, Helen failed to find fame in New York, Barry is directionless, and aspiring writer Ray has become a fisherman, like most of the inhabitants of their coastal town of Southport, North Carolina. It is suggested that characters attribute their misfortune to the karma they accrued by (supposedly) killing a man, and covering up the crime. And then of course, their victim comes back to literally terrorize them.

This film also explores the way that violent histories repeat themselves. The date on which the kids strike Ben Willis with their car, is exactly a year after David Egan accidentally killed his girlfriend, Ben Willis’s daughter Susie, on that very road—as well as the night David Egan (maybe) took his own life. The Southern Gothic genre is chock full of narratives which address the cyclical nature of violence as well, often placed in the context of magical realism. And while slasher films such as this may seem to be set in reality, they tend to employ traits of magical realism. The never-dying antagonist, who always seems to be omnipresent in the lives of his victims, leaving threats in improbable places, and able to kill unseen by anyone other than the teens he terrorizes, would probably never be able to exist in reality. Yet we as viewers are so eager to suspend our belief to watch the gorey story play out.

This film also captures the aesthetic elements of the Southern Gothic. Obviously, IKWYDLS is set in the South, but the working class finishing town, the decaying Egan house (complete with creepy butchering shed out back), and the rural town traditions of the parade and beauty pagent, all possess a distinctly Southern aura, as well as an implicit ominousness. The final set-piece itself, with the concluding confrontation between The Fisherman and Final Girl Julie on a fishing boat, drives home that this story is fundamentally Southern. In my opinion, the Southern Gothic is one of the most rich sub-genres of Gothic horror, of which IKWYDLS is a wonderful example, and I greatly look forward to it being explored in popular media in the future!