A group of four teenagers named Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt), the shy brunette who is the main character, Helen Shivers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), the beautiful beauty queen of her high school who has a bratty sister, Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.), the fisherman kid, and Barry William Cox (Ryan Phillipe), the football jock who swears constantly, return from a 4th of July party in Barry's car and accidentally run over a man named David Egan, who has "Sara" tattooed on his arm. They call an ambulance from a pay phone, thinking he is seriously injured, only to receive a letter the next year stating, "I know what you did last summer". Then Julie and Helen meet David's sister Missy Egan (Anne Heche), and find out that they didn't hit Egan. Then, a psychotic man hits Barry with his own car, who luckily survives. Helen gets her hair cut off by the maniac's scissors, and calls up Julie and Barry who go over Helen's house to check up on her. Max, one of Julie's "friends" gets hooked in the jaw with the maniac's hook, and Julie finds his body in her car's trunk. The friends suspect Ray, the only fisherman of the group, but also got a letter, but Barry thinks it is definitely him. Julie researches with Helen, who finds out that they hit Ben Willis, a local fisherman, whose daughter was Sara Willis who was in a car with David Egan when Egan committed suicide that same night they hit Willis. At Helen's college beauty contest, Barry is murdered by the killer, and Helen is taken with a cop who doesn't believe Helen who saw Barry get murdered, he stops in an alley, gets out and is murdered by the "stranger" who turns out to be none other than Willis himself. Helen escapes the car and goes to her family shop, where her bratty sister Elsa (Bridgette Wilson) is. Elsa goes to lock the shop's back door when her throat is slashed, and she is dragged away into the bathroom. Helen finds it, and is soon chased by Willis. She goes through a long chase scene through the alleys, when…
