I know what you did last Summer is a cautionary urban legend that take place in North Carolina and is about what happened to four high school seniors, after they violated the Ten Commandments in the Bible. Berry Cox, Helen, Julie, and her boyfriend Ray go to a beach to celebrate the 4 July, in 1996. Helen was just crowned as she won a beauty pageant. As Julie, Ray, and Barry watch her get her crown, Ray comments on how big her breast are, and Barry tells him, “She does exercises to pump them up.” Ray and Julie are in a relationship, and Helen and Barry are in a relationship, and by talking about another man’s woman, Ray is committing adultery, which is a violation of the seventh commandment. Barry is a rich kid and has a brand new 1996 BMW 328i sedan, with factory chrome rims, leather, and tinted windows. The car is on fleek! While at the beach, Barry has a few drinks. This particular 4^th of July is supposed to represent the Sabbath, although it takes place on Thursday, 4^th July 1996, in the film. They are having fun and telling horror stories about a man being decapitated, and ended up with a bloody hook for a hand. Ray thinks these are true stories and explains that, “Urban legends are American folk lore, they all usually originate from some real incident!” The teens blow him off and Julie decided to lose her virginity to Ray. This is a violation of the fourth commandment of God, which states, “Honor the Sabbath day, and keep it holy” premarital sex is considered a sin.

After the night presses on, everyone is ready to leave, Barry’s friends do not want him to drive home, so his girlfriend Helen convinces him to let Ray, who has not been drinking, drive his brand-new BMW. However, Barry knows he is not supposed to let anyone drive his car, he even replies, “Nobody drives my car, but me.” The BMW is a phallic symbol and by letting Ray drive it, he is symbolically allowing himself to be castrated. Barry is also disrespecting his father, by allowing Ray to drive his car, which is a violation of the fifth commandment, which states, “Honor thy father and mother, and your days on this Earth will be long.” The teens should have called someone to pick them and the car up, as it was about a $60,000.00 car. As Ray is driving, Barry pops his head out of the sunroof, and they hit a man crossing the road, Barry gets blood all over his face. By driving Barry’s BMW, Ray, who is from a humble background, violates the second commandment, which states, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.” In this commandment, the Lord condemns the worship of idols Ray is worshipping Barry’s phallic symbol by driving a car that was not meant for him, and that is why he accidentally hits the man who was crossing the road.

The teens then get out of the car, Barry screams, “Jesus Christ, my fucking car! My dad is going to kill my ass.” Julie takes a few steps away from the car, finds a man’s rain boot, black in color, on the side of the road, she screams, “Oh my God! Oh my God! This isn’t happening!” Just then, Barry and Julie violate Commandment three, which states, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain.”  As the teens are in a panic, Ray walks over the to the body and looks at his face, “I think he’s dead. His face is all messed up. What was he doing out here?” The teens drag what they think is a lifeless body down the pier, they have just violated the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt now kill.” As the teens are trying to figure out what to do about the body, another teenager Maxx comes along the road driving his truck. Maxx, however, does not see the man Ray hit with Barry’s BMW and Maxx comments on how the car, “Don’t look so new anymore” and tells Ray, “You almost got that rich boy act down.” Ray also broke a commandment in the Bible, he drove Barry’s BMW and this violates the tenth commandment, “Thou shalt not covert—envying something that belongs to another.”

After Maxx drives away, everyone convinces Barry that he will be charged with murder because it is his car that hit the man, even though he was not driving. Ray tells Barry, “There is liquor all over the car, no one will believe I was driving. You will go to jail for manslaughter.” The entire group just violated the ninth amendment to the ten commandments, which states, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” No one wants to dump the body in the ocean, and Ray says, “Pretend it is an escaped lunatic with a hook hand, and we are doing everyone a favor. Helen is the only one brave enough to push the body in the ocean, as she does, the man comes back to life, for a moment, and grabs the homecoming crown off of her head. Barry has to jump in the water in retrieve the crown. The man the teens hits violates the eighth commandments by stealing Helen’s crown off of her head, “Thou shalt not steal,” and he pays for this sin later in the movie. After the body is dumped in the ocean, everyone, but Julie agrees not to mention the crime ever again. However, because Julie is tripping and acting skittish, Barry grabs Julie by the arms and makes her promise to take the secret and lies to the grave with her. Ray convinced Barry he was going to be charged with a crime because Ray is poor and did not have family or money to get out of it. Julie was worried that she would lose her scholarship. Helen is also rich, like Barry, but was trying to look out for him.

The friends all lose touch, Julie goes away to college and does poorly. A year later, when she returns home, she finds a letter, when she opens it, the letter says, “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Then Maxx, the nosy teen, is the first to be killed by the serial killer. Not only did the group violate the ten commandments, but by losing her virginity on the beach, Julie opens up Pandora’s box, which releases evil unto them. It is so secret or lie that Helen loves her hair, after the teens know someone is stalking them and knows what they did, she returns home. While she is pouring herself a soda, someone sneaks into her house, and she unknowingly follows him up the stairs, as her sister, Elsa is talking to her and asking her to come to work to help open the store, Helen refuses and sits on her bad and keeps brushing her long golden locks. Elsa tells Helen, “You and your hair—just so pathetic. So very pathetic.” Helen violates commandment one, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” When she wakes up the next day, someone cut her highly coveted hair off, and when she looks in the mirror, the word “Soon,” is written across it. While at the gym, Barry takes a shower, then he gets out of the shower to find his jacket has been stolen out of a locker, and that there is a picture of his car with the words “I Know,” written on it. As he tries to find out who is stalking him, Barry goes outside, and someone gets in his BMW and hits he with it, Barry flies through a wall, blacks out and wakes up in the hospital. The movie goes on to detail how these teens are all tormented and murdered by a fearsome creature. “Children should be here having fun, partying, running people over, and getting away with murder.”