I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

 

After the success of Scream in 1996, screenwriter Kevin Williamson became a hot name in Hollywood. In late 1997, he penned two box office hits that were released two months apart, I Know What You Did Last Summer (released on October 12, 1997) and Scream 2 (released on December 12, 1997).  I saw both movies in the theater with my friend Will and we felt a sense Deja vu while watching Scream 2 - there is a scene where the protagonist, Sidney, and her friend, Hallie, are trapped in the back of police car (after the killer has murdered the officers escorting them) and attempt an escape before the killer regains conscious. "Why does this scene look so familiar?" I asked Will.  Then we remembered that I Know What You Did Last Summer has a similar scene where Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is trapped in the back of police car, after the killer has murdered the officer escorting her, and she must escape before he catches up with her.  Kevin Williamson had plagiarized himself. Granted, Scream 2 ups the stakes.  A month later, Williamson would find success on television with the premiere of Dawson's Creek (I had a female classmate who was obsessed with the show and would constantly talk about how "realistic" it was).  It is interesting to note that in I Know What You Did Last Summer, the four principal characters (Julie, Helen, Barry, and Ray) go to Dawson's Beach to fornicate and engage in other debaucherous behavior.  Williamson was already looking ahead to the future.  

While the Scream movies are meta-slashers, I Know What You Did Last Summer is a straightforward horror movie. It is Kevin Williamson's equivalent of a cinematic campfire story - there is even a scene where Ray is telling his friends a classic urban legend ("The Hook") over a bonfire. His friends dismiss his claims that "The Hook" is based off a true story, but their lives soon turn into the horror story that Ray was narrating. Like most campfire stories, there is an underlying message to I Know What You Did Last Summer - don't drink and drive. Our protagonists initially take this lesson to heart - they drove to Dawson's Beach in Barry's car, but he is so shitfaced that Ray ends up driving.  While Ray is focused on the road, Barry becomes belligerent in the back seat and ends up spilling his bottle of booze all over Ray, who gets temporarily distracted and ends up hitting a pedestrian. If Barry had not behaved like a rowdy douche nozzle, there is a good chance the four of the would have lived normal lives. The four of them debate on what to do with the body; Barry, Ray, and Helen manage to peer pressure Julie into going along with their plan of dumping the corpse into the ocean. After they have committed the deed they make a pact to never talk about it again. 

Flash forward to a year later - Julie is on her summer break from college and reluctantly returns to her home town. She immediately receives an anonymous note that reads, "I Know What You Did Last Summer." It turns out Helen, Barry, and Ray have also received similar letters and they must figure out who is behind them before it is too late. 

It is apparent that Williamson's sympathies lie with his two female protagonists, Julie and Helen. Barry is an incredibly unlikable character: he has a violent temper, bullies the weak, and is dismissive towards Julie and Helen. Ray has the least amount of screentime of the four and barely registers as a character - he is assigned the thankless role of the red herring. Neither of them seems all that effected by the incident; Ray becomes a fisherman (like his father) and Barry continues to be a self-centered dipshit. 

Julie is the character we immediately sympathize with; after the accident, she wanted to go to the cops but was shot down by Ray and Barry. It is Barry and Helen who end up pushing the body into the ocean while Ray and Julie look on. This incident has haunted Julie throughout her freshman year of college - she spends most of her free time in her dorm, doesn't make any new friends (with the exception of her roommate), and struggles in her courses. It also has affected her physical appearance; she is extremely pale, has rings under her eyes, her hair is oily (due to a lack of washing) and she is very thin. She has also cut off all contact from her Helen, Barry, and Ray.  When Ray tries to have a heart to heart with Julie, she shoots him down by saying, "I don't blame you, but I don't want to know you, either." This makes sense; every time she sees Ray she is reminded of that horrible night.  

Jennifer Love Hewitt is well cast in the role of Julie; she brings such a vulnerability to the character that the audience immediately wants to protect her (well, at least the males in the audience. I can't speak for the females). It was also this movie that spawned websites devoted to Hewitt's ample cleavage. I was eighteen when this movie came out and I will admit that my attention was often focused on Hewitt's bouncing bosom - to the point that I missed out on a few scares. "HUH? What just happened?" In 1997, Jennifer Love Hewitt was the IT girl for dudes my age. I know, I should be ashamed and I am... any ways, back to the review.  Julie is the intellectual one of the group - her first instinct is to unmask their stalker is and the only way to do that is by figuring out who David Egan (the guy they supposedly ran over) was. Julie is a good little two shoes at the beginning of the movie; when her nerdy classmate, Max, asks her out on a date, she is too polite to give him a full rejection and tries to give him a noncommittal answer (note to men who are reading this: if a woman responds to a question with "maybe," she means "no").  However, as the movie progresses, Julie gets tired of running from her problems and decides to face them head on, regardless of the consequences. She does make a critical mistake by doubting Ray and trusting a complete stranger, but she is much wiser person by the movie's end. 

In what was a novel idea at the time - she types David Egan's name into an online search engine and is able to pull up articles about the deceased David. She learns he was engaged to Suzie Willis, who is the daughter of Ben Willis (the man they really hit with their car and who is responsible for the threats on their lives).  Suzie was killed in a car accident and Ben blamed David for his daughter's death. He murdered David on the 4th of July and then was run over by Ray after having dumped David's body into the ocean. 

Helen is a tragic character.  Before the accident, her ambition was to move to New York and become an actress. She did move to New York, but she couldn't cut it in the big city and wound up back in her hometown (Southport).  She is now content with working fulltime in her father's department store; even though she is constantly hounded by her older sister, Elsa. She is the type of girl who turn heads in her small town (she is the reigning Southport beauty queen), but in New York City she is just another face in the crowd. It was during this time that Sarah Michelle Gellar was starring in Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and she is cast against type as the slightly ditzy Helen (she also played one of Ghostface's victims in Scream 2). It is actually Helen who drives most of the third act; as the reigning beauty queen she is obligated to ride on a float in 4th of July parade and crown the new beauty queen. Julie and Helen are hoping that her appearance in the parade will draw out the killer (who always wears a slicker) and then Barry can apprehend him. This plan, of course, fails and Barry is murdered in the balcony while watching the beauty contest. Helen doesn't make it either - she is only a few feet from safety when Ben Willis catches her. Like I said, Helen is the most tragic character in the movie; she begins the movie full of life and one incident (caused her dumbass boyfriend) ruins everything and, despite her best efforts, she fails to change her untimely fate. 

Though, if you go by the sequel, it seems like Julie is destined to spend the rest of her life fighting off the unkillable Ben Willis (the guy is constantly put through the ringer but always gets back up again. He is embodiment of the Chumbawamba song, "Tubthumping").  Though, if Ben Willis' main motivation is revenge, why does he murder Max and Elsa? The police officer makes sense as he is in Ben Willis' way, but he goes out of the way to murder Max and Elsa. Also, his plan requires a lot of foresight - what would he have done if Julie decided not to come home for summer break? It is also odd that he behaves less aggressively towards Ray than he does the other three. Also, how in the hell did he survive being hit by a car at a high speed and being weighed down in the ocean? He seems to be relatively unscathed by the accident. There is no noticeable limp and, other than a scar on his forehead, no disfigurements. Muse Watson, with his gravelly voice and imposing figure, is a great screen villain. It is a shame that he has very little screen time (in both Last Summer movies). 

Roger Ebert very famously gave I Know What You Did Last Summer a one-star review. His biggest complaint seems to be that it was formulaic and lacked the cleverness of Scream. While Roger Ebert isn't wrong, he also ignores that it is a fairly well-made thriller;  efficiently directed by Jim Gillespie, who manages to move things along at a fast pace. It is also interesting to note that this was Gillespie's only major directing credit - the only other notable movie on his resume is the obscure Sylvester Stallone thriller, Eye See You.  I Know What You Did Last Summer is not a perfect horror movie, but I do have a soft spot for it - I watch it every couple of years, and it takes me back to 1997 when I was senior in high school, the Green Bay Packers were Super Bowl champs (I'm a Wisconsin Boy), and the world didn't seem too complicated.

Cast: Jennifer Love Hewitt (Julie James), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Helen Shivers), Ray Phillippe (Barry Cox), Freddie Prinze Jr. (Ray Bronson), Muse Watson (Ben Willis), Anne Heche (Melissa 'Missy' Egan), Bridgitte Wilson (Elsa Shivers), Johnny Galecki (Max Neurick), Deborah Hobart (Mrs. James), Stuart Greer (Officer), Jonathan Quint (David Egan).
Director: Jim Gillespie
Writer:  Kevin Williamson. Based off the Lois Duncan novel.
Running Time: 100 minutes. 

Sorority Row (2009)/The House on Sorority Row (1983)

What separates a “good” Slasher film from a “terrible” one is the level of talent involved with the project – a genuinely talented filmmaker can take a fairly routine script and elevate it to a higher level.  Imagine if Psycho would have been directed by a studio hack instead of Alfred Hitchcock? It would not be regarded as the classic it is today and would, more than likely, been lost to time.  The House on Sorority Row and its remake, Sorority Row, are not in the same class as Psycho, but both are a cut (pun intended) above your standard Slasher movie. 

The most striking thing about both films is that they are fairly well directed and have some truly haunting visuals.  The House on Sorority Row is merely passable for its first seventy minutes, but is redeemed by its truly tense finale.  It ups the stakes by not only having the heroine (Katherine) fight off the killer, but doing so in a drugged out a state – she is injected with a tranquilizer by Dr. Beck, who wants to use her as bait to trap the killer. The movie effectively blurs the lines of reality; Katherine constantly has to fight off hallucinations brought on by the drug, while doing her best not to get caught by the killer.  Its fairly reminiscent of the dream sequence in the Brian DePalma movie, Sisters – this is not too surprising as the director, Mark Rosman, was an assistant to DePalma for a brief period of time. The House on Sorority Row also borrows heavily from the Bob Clark classic, Black Christmas, especially with the reveal that the killer has been living in the sorority house attic the entire time. The remake never matches the original's intensity, but there some genuinely eerie visuals - I especially like the shot of the girls walking through their sorority house to find it has been completely trashed and, thus, resembling a complete hell on earth. It's an appropriate setting for the heroine, Cassidy, to nearly lose her soul.  It's evident that the director, Stewart Hendler, knows his stuff. 

Sorority Row is a loose remake of the 1983 film – the plot point it lifts from the original movie is a sorority prank that goes horribly wrong.  In the original movie the prank involves the strict house mother, Mrs. Slater, who objects to the girls throwing a graduation party at the sorority house. The prank goes horribly awry, when Vicki, the party girl of the group, accidentally shoots Mrs. Slater with a gun. The girls, after deliberating for a few minutes, decide to cover up the murder and, for the time being, dump Mrs. Slater’s corpse into the swimming pool until they can figure out what to do with it. The girls go on with their graduation party, despite being completely on edge, and are picked off one by one by an unseen killer.  

In the  remake the prank is far more elaborate (and nonsensical) -  Megan wants to get revenge on her cheating boyfriend, Garrett, so she, along with her sorority sisters, come up with one of the most contrived revenge plans in film history:  Megan’s friend, and Garrett’s sister, “Chugs” gives Garrett a couple of pills to slip into Megan’s drink to make her more co-operative, and while the two of them are making love in her bedroom, Megan starts to have seizure and begins to foam from the mouth. Garrett thinks the drugs have killed her and rushes to get her sorority sisters. This is, of course, a ruse to teach Garrett a lesson.  Jessica, the alpha sister, convinces Garrett that they must cover up the "accident", and so they drive to an abandoned well to hide the “body.” Meanwhile, Megan tries to hold back her laughter. The rest of the girls are a bit disturbed by Garrett’s hysterical behavior and want to call the prank off, but Jessica talks them out of it. When they arrive at the abandoned well, Jessica suggests they look for sharp objects to chop up Megan’s body with, and, not surprisingly, everything goes to hell when Garrett impales Megan with a tire iron.  The girls decide to dump Megan’s body in the well with Cassidy being the only hold out in the group.  

This part of the movie is extremely flawed and strains credibility, for a couple of reasons:

1) How far was this prank supposed to go?  You would think that Megan faking a seizure and foaming at the mouth would have been adequate enough. Garrett is absolutely freaked out by this and is a blubbering mess. It is also revealed that Garrett’s cheating was a result of Megan cheating on him first. So neither party is entirely sympathetic.
2) Why do the other girls so along with Jessica?  The other girls (Cassidy, “Chugs,” Ellie, and Claire) are all unnerved by Garrett’s hysterical behavior, yet still go along with the prank because they don’t want to let Jessica down. This makes sense for the characters of Claire and Ellie, but Cassidy is a fairly strong willed, and compassionate, person, hence it is completely out of character for her to go along with the cruel prank. She most certainly would have blown the whistle once she realized how dangerous it was getting.  It makes even less sense for “Chugs,” considering that she is Garrett’s older sister and, despite him being a complete tool, does genuinely care for him. She should have stopped the prank once she saw the toll it was taken on her brother’s mental state.  Why does Megan lay still the entire time?
3) Why do the girls leave Garrett alone? Given Garrett’s state of mind, it would have made sense to have someone stay by his side the entire time, yet the girl’s leave him all alone, while they pretend to search for a “sharp object.”  This is maybe the most bone headed movie in movie history.  I understand that there is no movie without Megan’s accidental death, but it’s hard to suspend my disbelief for this scene. It is the weakest link in the entire movie and I nearly turned the movie off at that very moment. Thankfully, it does improve as it progresses.

Sorority Row, while based off the 1983 movie, greatly owes its structure to the 1997 Slasher, I Know What You Did Last Summer.  Both movies feature an accidental death and a cover up, and then flash forward to a year later (well, technically nine months in Sorority Row, but close enough). In The House on Sorority Row, the events happen over the course of one day. The heroines in both movies (Cassidy in Sorority Row/Julie in Last Summer) are adamant about calling the police after the accident has occurred, but are overruled by their friends. They are still racked with guilt over what happened the previous year and are reluctant to delve into their past (Cassidy reluctantly agrees to go to her sorority house’s graduation party, while Julie is reluctant to go back to her hometown after finishing her first year of college). The heroines in both movies have kept their distance from their one time close friends (Cassidy has moved out of the house and donates her time to charity work, while Julie has locked herself in her college dorm room). There's a lot of misdirection in both movies, especially in the reveal of the killer (though, the reveal in Sorority Row is more indebted to I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, only done in far more competent manner). In Sorority Row, the characters receive sinister texts from the killer, while in Last Summer, they receive letters. 

Sorority Row greatly benefits from its leading actress, Briana Evigan. She gives a very compassionate, and sincere, performance as Cassidy and helps elevate the movie from being unbearable to totally watchable.  Though, she is greatly assisted by Leah Pipes as the extremely bitchy, Jessica. There is a nice dynamic between the two characters – Cassidy is a borderline saint, while Jessica is a complete narcissist.  However, it is to the movie’s credit that even Jessica, despite her callous behavior, is a sympathetic character.  Her reason for wanting to cover up Megan’s death is that her boyfriend, Kyle, is the son of a Senator seeking the Vice-Presidential nomination, thus any scandal linked to him might ruin his bid.  The acting in the original is a bit spotty at times, but Kate McNeil gives a rather effective performance as Katherine - she extremely convincing in the movie's climax, where Katherine is on the verge of losing her mind. 

It also helps that Sorority Row has a sense a humor about itself. There are a lot of funny dialogue exchanges through out the movie, but my favorite one has to be:

Jessica: Please God, don’t let me get killed. Please God, don’t let me get killed.
Cassidy: Stop giving him ideas. 

Plus, any movie that casts Carrie Fisher as a shotgun wielding house mother can’t be all bad. The main flaw of the original is takes itself a bit too seriously and all the characters are rather dour. It gets a lot of stylistic points, but a sense of humor would have elevated it to classic status. 

Credits:

Sorority Row (2009)
Cast: Briana Evigan (Cassidy), Leah Pipes (Jessica), Rumer Willis (Ellie), Jamie Chung (Claire), Audrina Partridge (Megan), Margo Harshman (Charlene “Chugs”), Julian Morris (Andy), Caroline D’Amore (Maggie), Carrie Fisher (Mrs. Crenshaw), Matt O’ Leary (Garrett), Matt Lanter (Kyle), Maxx Hennard (Mickey), Nicole Moore (Joanna), Ken Bolden (Dr. Rosenberg), Rick Applegate (Senator Tyson).

Director: Stewart Hendler
Screenplay: Josh Stolberg, Pete Goldfinger
Running Time: 100 min

The House on Sorority Row (1983)
Cast:  Kate McNeil (Katherine), Eileen Davidson (Vicki), Janis Zido (Liz), Robin Meloy (Jeannie), Harley Jane Kozak (Diane), Jodi Draigie(Morgan), Ellen Dorsher (Stevie), Lois Kelso Hunt (Mrs. Slater), Christopher Nelson (Dr. Beck), Michael Kuhn (Peter), Michael Sergio (Rick), Charles Serio (Eric).
Director: Mark Rosman
Screenplay: Bobby Fine, Mark Rosman
Running Time: 91 min.

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)

WARNING: This review has nothing but SPOILERS in it! So, if you haven’t seen the cinematic atrocity that is I Still Know What You Last Summer, then I suggest you skip the review altogether. On the other hand, if you have seen, or really don’t care, then please read on. 

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is one of the most ridiculous sequels in the Slasher genre, which is saying quite a lot.  It is so bad that it makes the first movie look like an absolute masterpiece. What ever flaws I Know What You Did Last Summer had, it was at least a serviceable horror film with solid performances from Jennifer Love Hewitt and Sarah Michelle Gellar, and a few scares to boot. There was at least an attempt by the filmmakers to build suspense and give the characters an arc; the sequel tosses all of that out the window and replaces it with a higher body count and a horribly contrived script.  The first film was riding on the coattails of Scream; when Wes Craven’s self aware horror film became a huge hit at the box office, and with critics, it led to an entire spawn of copy cats, I Know What You Last Summer being one of them. The other connection that the first film had with Scream is they shared the same screenwriter, Kevin Williamson.  The movie proved to be a hit at the box office, if not with the critics, and domestically grossed $72 million against a $17 million budget; a sequel was only inevitable. It certainly didn’t hurt that I Know What You Did Last Summer left itself open for second movie.

In an interview for Cinefantastique (December 1998), one of the producers, Stokely Chaffin,  plays down the slasher element and laughably attempts to sell it as a psychological thriller,
 “Plus there is a thread of surreal weaving in and out of the story. Is what seems to be happening really happening? How much of what is going on is a projection of Julie’s emotional state?”
This might be true if many of the scare scenes were shot from Julie’s point of view, but this is not the case, and too often the audience is tipped off to the reality of the situation.  There is a fairly silly scene in a night club where Julie sees Ben Willis, the killer, standing by the  railing on the second floor, staring at her. This could be dismissed as a hallucination, except that a second later Julie is in the foreground facing the camera when, suddenly, Ben Willis’ shadow materializes in the background.

 Of course, this begs the question, “How does a middle aged man wearing a slicker not call attention to himself in a night club?”  In the first film the slicker made sense as it was set in a fishing community and practically every other citizen wore one.  In the sequel, it is baffling as to why Ben Willis would still don it, considering that it has no practically purpose - his identity is well known to Julie, so it is not like he is trying to retain his anonymity.

Also, Ben Willis’ master plan is overly complicated and makes no sense; Julie and her roommate, Karla, receive a phone call from a local radio station and will win an all expense paid vacation to the Bahamas, over the 4^th of July weekend, if they can name the capital of Brazil. They, wrongly, guess Rio de Janeiro, but the deejay says they are correct and sends them the tickets. Of course, this turns out to be an elaborate ruse by Ben Willis to spring his trap on the unsuspecting Julie.  Think about that for a minute – Ben Willis’ gives Julie and friends an all expense paid trip to the Bahamas just so he can exact his revenge on her!  Couldn’t he have just snuck into her dorm room and bumped her off there?  Where is he getting the money to fund such a scheme?  What if Julie had other plans and couldn’t go on the trip? It is an extremely flimsy framework to hang your horror film on. It even makes less sense once it is revealed that Will Benson, the dreamy boy that has eyes for Julie, is, in fact, Ben Willis’ son (“Benson. Get it? Ben’s son!”), and has been in on the ruse from the get go – he supplied the voice of the obnoxious deejay.

In the same Cinefantastique article, director Danny Cannon explains, “The idea of a residence being menacing has been a pet project of mine for a long time, because I’ve always been fascinated by the haunted house idea. I wanted to stay away from the typical haunted house, though. You know the kind I’m talking about: some gothic monstrosity with the turrets and gloomy clouds constantly overhead. I had to try something different.” 

 Unfortunately, for Cannon and company, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is essentially your average slasher movie, complete with a thunderstorm, set on a tropical island; there is absolutely nothing that differentiates it from previous efforts.  If Cannon wanted to make a “haunted house” type movie, then why have the plot be so needlessly complicated? Instead of Julie and friends “winning” a trip to the Bahamas, why not have Will invite his friends to spend the weekend at his house?   While Julie has no romantic interest in Will, she does regard him as a FRIEND (the true horror to any male watching the film), so it isn't a stretch to believe that she would be willing to go along, especially after her fight with Ray.

The last scene of the movie only expose how ridiculous Ben Willis’ master plan was all along;  he rather easily sneaks into Julie and Ray’s house (some how having survived being shot EIGHT times), hides under their bed, and drags Julie underneath before she has time to react.  Why didn’t he do that in the first place? He could have saved himself a lot of time, money, and effort. Not to mention, there would have been a significantly smaller body count.  Many people have interpreted this ending as a being a dream, but I highly doubt that as it is clearly set up that Ben Willis is physically in the house;  the camera lingers over a track of muddy boot prints that Julie some how fails to notice.  Plus, someone closes the bathroom door while Ray is brushing his teeth.

I must admit that I loathe this ending, as well as similar endings in other horror films.  The original Halloween had an open ending, but that was genuinely creepy; the thought that Michael Myers is still out there is scary.  He could strike at any minute.  The ending to I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, however, is silly and just a cheap shock – it’s the equivalent to being started at a haunted attraction when a teenager in zombie make up jumps out from behind the bushes. It may get a jump out of you, but it has no real lingering effect.  Were the filmmakers setting up a third Last Summer movie?  Jennifer Love Hewitt, in her interview with Cinefantastique, seems to suggest this,

“The ending of the film is something I don’t believe anybody is going to be laughing at, though. It’s a real shocker. Depending on how well I STILL KNOW does at the box office, there just maybe a third film in the series – maybe I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER AGAIN.”   Sadly, there was indeed a third film in the series, the direct to video, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, though Hewitt was not involved with that movie.  Good for her!  

The first film benefited from its rather simple premise; a group of friends, after a night of partying on the beach, accidentally run over a pedestrian and, fearing the repercussions it might have on their futures, dump the body in the ocean, promising each other never to talk about it again.  A year later, Julie, reluctantly returns to her hometown after finishing her freshman year of college and receives a letter that reads, “I know what you did last summer.”  The rest of the film concerns the efforts of Julie and friends to find out the identity of their stalker before it is too late.  It is a movie that is not without its flaws, but it is slickly made that it is easy to overlook them.  I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, on the other hand, is so absurd that you will either find it funny or extremely irritating.  I belong in the former category.

Ben Willis also has some incredible foresight; in order for his scheme to work, he must get Ray, Julie’s blue collar boyfriend, out of the way.  Julie initially invites Ray to go on the Bahama trip, in hopes that they can patch up their relationship. At first, Ray is absolutely against it, slightly peeved that Julie was so quick in turning down his offer to come back home on the fourth, but having no qualms in going to the Bahamas with her friends.  However, his best friend/comedy sidekick, Dave, tells him to lighten up, and convinces Ray to drive up and surprise Julie.  The two of them get in Ray’s truck, and, after a “hilarious” sing a long to White Snake’s “Here I Go Again,” come across a body lying on the side of the road. Ray pulls over to investigate, much to the displeasure of Dave.  Sadly, Dave’s apprehension proves to be correct as it turns out to be one big trap. The body is really a mannequin and Ben Willis takes no time in disposing of Dave. He then gets in the pick up truck and runs Ray off the road. Ray survives the ordeal and ends up in the hospital.  Again, it is incredibly uncanny that Ben Willis knew which route Ray and Dave were going to take.  What would he have done if Ray had not changed his mind? Did Ben Willis set up this trap knowing Ray would come this way or did he just assume it? What if he set up this trap and Ray never came? Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?  What if someone else happen to pull over before Ray?  It is a scene that offers up more questions than answers. 

In this movie’s defense, this kind of scene springs up in practically every Slasher movie. The most famous being the canoe scene in The Burning. In that movie, a group of camp counselors on a raft come across a supposedly abandoned canoe in the lake and paddle over to retrieve it.  They get closer and closer, and suddenly the killer, Cropsey, springs up from the canoe and kills them with a pair of garden shears.  After this viewing this scene, I kept asking the following questions: How long was Cropsey in that canoe?  How did it not tip over when he sprang up to surprise the counselors? What if the people on the raft said, “To hell with the canoe,” and kept on padding?  However, the difference between The Burning and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is that in 1981 this scene was genuinely surprising and blindsided many people in the audience, but by 1998 it had become a cliché.

I personally theorize that Ben Willis is really a fallen super hero, it would explain not only his incredibly foresight, but his amazing regenerative powers as well.  Throughout the course of the two movies the following happens to be Ben Willis:

1)      He is run over by a car at a high speed and then dumped into the ocean.

2)      His hand right hand gets lopped off and once again he is dumped into the ocean.

3)      He is shot EIGHT times by Julie, falls into an open plot in the rain, and slowly gets consumed by mud.

Yet, not only does he survive these ordeals, but has a speedy recover each time.  There is no hint that he is supernatural entity, therefore he must be a mutant; one of Charles Xavier’s pupils that turned bad and made it his goal to torment humankind. It explains so much!  Also, if Willis’ main beef is against Julie, then why does he bump off the entire hotel staff?  What does he hope to gain? After all, the entire point of his plan was to get back at Julie, so there is absolutely no reason for him to be taking his wrath out on everyone else. 

Jennifer Love Hewitt was a rather effective heroine in the first movie, however, in the sequel her performance is far more pronounced; it often feels like she’s doing a parody of her character in the first film. She does a lot of screaming, shouting, and is very high strung through out; there are very few subtleties in her acting. In the first film, there is this brief moment when Julie is being hit on the geeky Max (Johnny Galecki) and while she puts on a friendly demeanor, you can tell she is uncomfortable simply by her body language, and by the look she gives Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar).  Julie is a goody two shoes and it is simply not in her character to tell anyone off, no matter how annoying that person might be.  The whole point is that the character actually gets stronger as the movie progresses, whereas in the sequel, she pretty much remains paranoid and angry; there is no room for character development. 

Freddie Prinze, Jr. was rather ill served by both of the Last Summer movies; in the first movie he is a red herring and the audience is misled into believe that he had in part in writing the letters.  In the sequel, his role is reduced to that of an extended cameo – the movie occasionally cuts back to Ray as he scrounges the resources that will take him to Julie; he pawns the engagement ring he bought Julie for a gun and manages to commandeer a boat. His total screen time adds up to a little over ten minutes.  The only reason Ray is in the sequel is to provide the gun that Julie uses on Ben Willis at the end, otherwise, he is a fairly useless character.

Though as pointless as Ray is, he is not nearly as inept as Julie’s best friend, Karla, played by popular singer, and Moesha star, Brandy.  The characters two defining characteristics are that she is sassy and a complete enabler; she encourages Julie to cheat on Ray with Will. Brandy does the best she can with the material that is given her, but there is very little for her to do, except scream and offer up a few quips.

I like Mekhi Phifer as, Karla’s constantly befuddled boyfriend, Tyrell. He is a perfect audience surrogate - he shifts from sheer disbelief to complete frustration at all the nonsense that is going on right in front of his eyes.  You’re not the only one, Tyrell!  He is also given the best line in the entire movie, “All I know this is the worst vacation of my life. I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m fucking horny, and I aint seen one goddamn psycho killer.”

Matthew Settle is appropriately bland in the early scenes, but once Will Benson's true identity is established, the limitations of his acting are cruel exposed; he sports a Cheshire Cat grin, does a lot of shouting, and offers up a few quips. It is  reminiscent of Timothy Olyphant's performance in Scream 2; the only difference being that Olyphant has a much greater screen presence.

There are few other flourishes that I like, particularly Jeffrey Comb’s offbeat performance as the uptight hotel manager – his awkward exchanges will Julie and friends are easily the highlights of the movie.

Muse Watson is a genuinely creepy villain and has great screen presence, unfortunately, his screen time is limited to the last minutes.  Jack Black has an amusing cameo as a stoner pool boy, who, when he’s about to meet his untimely end, tells Willis, “Don’t do that!”  The opening, in which Julie goes into a confessional and discloses her sins to a priest, is genuinely unnerving and fairly well played by Hewitt.  A nice sense of dread hangs over the proceedings, unfortunately, the filmmakers ruin it when it is revealed that the priest is really Ben Willis and that, in a not surprising twist, the whole thing was a nightmare.  Unfortunately, the bad greatly outweighs the good and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, despite what  its director and producer claims, is your quintessential Slasher movie with very few surprises and even less scares.

Credits

Cast: Jennifer Love Hewitt (Julie), Freddie Prinze, Jr. (Ray), Brandy Norwood (Karla), Mekhi Phifer (Tyrell), Muse Watson (Ben Willis), Jeffrey Combs (Mr. Brooks), Matthew Settle (Will), Bill Cobbs (Estes), Jennifer Esposito (Nancy), John Hawkes (Dave), Jack Black (Titus – uncredited), Benjamin Brown (Darick).

Director: Danny Cannon
Screenplay: Trey Callaway.
Running Time: 100 min.