I never knew you like this

[EngLearner]

Source: "The Stake Killer", a movie (timestamp: 19m50s).

A group of young people went for a hike in the forest. They bumped into a ranger there who said that if they needed any help, he could help them. The ranger noticed that Mike was smoking and told him that it wasn't permitted to smoke in the forest, to which Mike reacted very rudely: he said some bad things to the ranger. That all happened while it was light. When it got dark, the young people found a spot where they decided to spend the night. At that spot, they had the following conversation:

Guy #1: "Mike, what was that about?"
Mike: "What?"
Guy #1: "The guy that tried to help us."
Girl #1: "There was no need to act so aggressive. I never knew you like this."

We use the past perfect when there's an action or state in the past that comes before another action or state in the past, so I wonder if this sentence would make sense in the context given:

Girl #1: "There was no need to act so aggressive. I'd never known you like that."

Why did the speaker choose the simple past?

 

[emsr2d2]

You'd have to ask the scriptwriter why they chose that. I would say "I've never known you be like that" or "I've never seen you like that".

 

[teechar]

I would say "I've never known you be like that"

That's not right.

 

[5jj]

It's OK in BrE.

 

[probus]

It's OK in BrE.

It's also fine here in Canada, although it would be more common with "to be" than with just plain "be".

 

[teechar]

I would have expected "never known you'd be like this" or "never known you to be like this".

 

[probus]

To me those two differ slightly in meaning.

 

[teechar]

To me those two differ slightly in meaning.

Yes, they do.

 

[EngLearner]

I see nobody likes the original. Is the simple past "knew" correct in it at all in this context?

 

[5jj]

I, a speaker of BrE, would not use the past simple in that utterance.

 

[jutfrank]

The script seems to have been written by a non-native speaker. I'd ignore it.

Also, quite bizarrely, it sounds like a German cast, and it's set in Germany, but everyone is speaking English.

 

[Skrej]

As another example of poor grammar, at 20:38 when she's flirting with the guy she says "I could need some warmth tonight too", which is erroneous.

At times the audio doesn't quite sync with their lip movements. It's almost like it's dubbed or something, although it matches most of the time.

It's a cheesy low budget b-movie horror film, possibly dubbed. Watch it for the joy of experiencing bad movies, if you enjoy that sort of thing, but as Jutfrank said, ignore the English. Nobody watches these sorts of films for the dialogue anyway.

It's not even worthwhile as a slasher film because they didn't even have the budget for gory murder scenes - the kills are all cutscreen.

It was probably shot with an Iphone and some editing software over a long holiday weekend.

 

[EngLearner]

There was no need to be so aggressive. I had never known you to be like that.

Is the past perfect "had never known" incorrect here? There's a reference point for it after all: when he was being rude to the ranger, she was surprised because she had never known him to be like that.

 

[Skrej]

You're over-analyzing this. It's a crappy movie with bad English. Leave it at that.