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Lois Duncan

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Posted on August 18, 2025

“What Are You Waiting For?”: Talking I Know What You Did Last Summer

Podcast

In this episode, we’re talking all things I Know What You Did Last Summer.  Loosely based on the novel by Lois Duncan, this story of adolescent guilt and moral consequence has demonstrated remarkable cultural longevity but why? We’re breaking down this legacy sequel with spoilers, so stay tuned.

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Works Cited

Khalid, Haliyana, and Alan Dix. “I Know What You Did Last Summer: What Can We Learn from Photolog.” ECSCW Conference, 2007.

Loock, Kathleen. “Reboot, Requel, Legacyquel: Jurassic World and the Nostalgia Franchise,” 173-88, Daniel Herbert and Constantine Verevis (eds), Film Reboots, Edinburgh University Press, 2020.

Och, Dana. “Beyond Surveillance: Questions of the Real in the Neopostmodern Horror Film.” Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015, pp. 195-212.

Patterson, Valerie O. “Writing Books that Hold Up, from Pay Phones to Cell Phones: An Interview with YA Suspense Novelist Lois Duncan,” North Carolina Literature into Film, vol. 21, 2012, pp. 123-32.

Schneider, Steven Jay. “Kevin Williamson and the Rise of the Neo-stalker.” Post Script, vol. 19, no. 2, 1999, pp. 73-87.

Down a Dark Hall
Posted on August 18, 2018

Down a Dark Hall: Female Gothic and ‘The End of Men’

Dawn Keetley

Down a Dark Hall is directed by Spanish filmmaker Rodrigo Cortés who directed the critically-acclaimed Buried (2010). The screenplay is written by Michael Goldbach and Chris Sparling and based on the 1974 novel by the young adult author Lois Duncan (who also wrote, among others, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Killing Mr. Griffin).

In a plot reminiscent of The Craft (1996) or American Horror Story’s third season, “Coven” (2013-14), Down a Dark Hall centers on five girls with troubled pasts who arrive at Blackwood Boarding School, sent their by their parents as a kind of last resort. They are the only five students in a vast isolated mansion presided over by the mysterious Madame Duret (Uma Thurman), who soon makes it clear that the girls have special abilities that she intends to foster. And, indeed, the girls soon display talents they didn’t know they had. Protagonist Kit (AnnaSophia Robb) blossoms into a master piano player; Ashley (Taylor Russell) starts writing brilliant poetry; Sierra (Rosie Day) paints captivating landscapes; and Izzy (Isabelle Fuhrman) transforms into a math genius. Their new abilities come with a price, however, as the girls get sicker and strange figures start haunting the long dark halls of Blackwood.

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