Name: Retro Film Review: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)
Item: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
Rating: 15
Author: @drax

(source:tmdb.org)

(SPECIAL NOTE: Capsule version of the review is available here.)

I Know What You Did Last Summer was rather uninspired attempt to exploit the new popularity of teenage slasher horror films parodied by Scream. Uninspired or not, that film earned enough money to warrant inevitable sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, directed in 1998 by Danny Cannon.

The protagonist of the film is Julie James (played by Jennifer Love Hewitt), young woman who is still traumatised by the killing rampage she has survived in her native North Carolina town two years ago. The murdering psychopath has been killed, but Julie is still tortured by nightmares and fears that he would come back. In order to cheer her up, her room mate Karla Wilson (played by Brand Norwood) invites her and her boyfriend Will Benson (played by Matthew Settle) to Bahamas. While the trio, joined by Karla's sex-obsessed boyfriend Tyrrell (played by Mekhi Phifer), comes to tropic resort, Julie's old boyfriend Ray Bronson (played by Freddie Prinze Jr.) begins to suspect that their old nemesis might be alive. His attempt to warn Julie fails because of the hurricane that has cut the resort from the rest of the world. What was supposed to be tropical paradise quickly becomes another nightmare for Julie.

There are many things wrong with this film, starting with title – I Still Know What You Did Three Summers Ago should have been more appropriate. Lack of inspiration and disregard for arithmetic, geography, logic and common sense can be found in the rest of the script. British director Danny Cannon, obviously convinced that this film is beyond salvation, doesn't try too hard and this film follows the teenage slasher formula that had given bad name to entire genre. The only difference is in the lack of more explicit blood, gore and nudity - the very thing that most fans of the genre had appreciated in its golden age. Scenes featuring Jennifer Love Hewitt in swimsuit might be pleasing to the male section of the audience, but in the end they would only remind them that they are now living in much different times than early 1980s. In our age, spending time to uninspired films and their even less inspired sequels is luxury few audiences can afford.

RATING: 2/10 (-)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on October 9th 2004)