Review #146: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Danny Cannon (Director): Judge Dredd (1995), Goal! (2005)

Jennifer Love Hewitt (Julie James): IKWYDLS

Freddie Prinze Jr. (Ray Bronson): IKWYDLS

Brandy Norwood (Karla): Arachnophobia (1990), Moesha T.V. series; musician “Brandy”

Mekhi Phifer (Tyrell): Dawn of the Dead

Muse Watson (Ben Willis): IKWYDLS

Bill Cobbs (Estes): Trading Places (1983), The Cotton Club (1984), The Color of Money (1986), New Jack City (1991), The Bodyguard (1992), Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), Night at the Museum (2006)

Matthew Settle (Will Benson): U-571 (2000), Band of Brothers and Gossip Girl T.V. Series

Jeffrey Combs (Mr. Brooks): Re-Animator series, Guyver (1991), Trancers 2 (1991), House on Haunted Hill 1 (1999) & 2 (2007), FeardotCom (2002)

Jennifer Esposito (Nancy): Summer of Sam (1999), Dracula (2000), Don’t Say a Word (2001), Crash (2004), Samantha Who? & Spin City T.V. series

I.K.W.Y.D.L.S. Link

(The first movie)

Trailer:



Plot:

One year following the events of the first movie (that’s two years since hitting the dude) Julie James still is having trouble dealing with the events. Who could blame her? It’s not every day that you hit a psychotic fisherman and then tosses him into the ocean only to have him seek out revenge on you and all your friends.

Julie has been attending (and failing) summer school at college. She has been haunted by nightmares of Ben Willis, the revenge seeking and fish-hook swinging maniac. All of a sudden it is the Fourth of July weekend (the anniversary of all the events), and her roommate, Karla, has won an all-expenses-paid vacation for four to the Bahamas by answering a trivia question from a radio contest.

The winning question from the contest was: “Name the capital of Brazil.” Karla answers, “Rio de Janeiro” and wins a trip for four. Unfortunately, little does she know that she has answered the question wrong…Brasilia is actually the capital of Brazil. Something fishy is going on here.

Karla invites her boyfriend, Tyrell and…of course…Julie to go with her to the Bahamas. It’s up to Julie to invite the fourth person to go with them. Julie offers the last invite to Ray (her surviving boyfriend from the last movie), but he is angry with her and turns down the invite. So what’s the little vixen gonna do? Invite one of her guy “friends” (Will) from college to go with. Tramp! Whore!

The four head on down to the islands for their weekend getaway. Once they arrive and check into the fabulous Bahamas island resort, they learn that everything is not what it appears, and they have fallen prey to a bum radio contest. The resort is entering their “storm season” …a.ka. hurricane season…and everyone has packed up and left for the summer only leaving behind a handful of staff.

Trying to keep their spirits up, the four look at the situation as an opportunity to have the resort to themselves. Julie starts witnessing bizarre things and has trouble differencing them between her and her dreams. The resort staff slowly disappears one by one, leaving Julie and company trapped alone on the island in the middle of a hurricane along with a murderous fisherman named Ben Willis.

Meanwhile, Ray regretting turning down the invite to the island decides to head down any way with a buddy. Along the way, Ray falls prey to a roadside trap laid down by Ben Willis that leaves him hospitalized and his buddy dead. Ray flees the hospital and tries to make his way down to the Bahamas to warn Julie and friends before its too late.

Villain:

Returning for a second go-around at Julie is Ben Willis. Ben supports his favorite costume, a long dark blue fisherman’s rain slicker with a hood and a pair of black boots. Ben had his right hand lopped off at the end of the last film, so now in place of his severed right hand he supports a mean ole’ fisherman’s hook. Think of it being like Captain Hook. To my delight, he uses that hook to dispense many victims.

This franchise has tried to make its success on the “who dunnit” guess the killer twist and this film’s no different. We know who the main killer is, even though the film throws in twists and turns to conceal his identity, but we are also treated to a second killer.

* Spoiler * Highlight to Read * The second killer is Will Benson, Julie’s “guy” friend. See what you get for inviting someone other than your boyfriend! There’s even clues in his name like…Ben-son as in Ben’s son…as in Ben Willis’s son. Will as in Willis. If you need me to spell this out any more than you’re an idiot. * End spoiler.

Cast:

Jennifer Love HugeTits returns to play the role of the emotionally tormented Julie James. If you’ve seen the first movie…then it’s the same damn repeat performance in this one. “Oh. I can’t keep the secret to myself anymore. It’s tearing me up inside. I’m just falling apart emotionally and physically. I’m so troubled, feel sorry for me. Boo hoo.”

Very little has changed from one performance to the next. On the bright side, Jay-Love does wear nice bikini outfits. On the not-so bright side, but we love to make fun of this scene in other movies…Julie does that damn walk out into the open, spin around with her arms wide open and call out the killer scene again. “If you want me…come and get me!”

Freddie Prinze Jr. returns as Ray. Yippee. At least he took a “backseat” in this film (a.k.a = less screen time). That’s good, because I hate this dweeb. Ever since this douche bag stole my girl (Buffy) and made me and my friends see his sh*tty movie, Wing Commander (because it showed the trailer for SW: Episode I before it), I haven’t been a fan of Freddie.

Other key cast members include R&B musician, Brandy (Pictured left). She plays the role of Karla, Jay-Love’s roommate. Mekhi Phifer plays Tyrell her boyfriend and Re-Animator star, Jeffrey Combs plays a bit part as Mr. Brooks the hotel clerk. Even Jack Black made his way into the film as the island’s Mary-Jay-Wana expert.

SFX/Gore:

Just like a good sequel should do, STILL KNOWS ups the antee in body count. There are ten deaths in the film which is a great improvement over the disappointing five deaths from the first film. Double the pleasure, double the fun…right? Ben’s fishhook hand supplies most of the carnage.

My favorite death in the film is * Highlight to Read * Tyrell’s death. The group has learned of the killer and has taken refuge in the resorts kitchen, and Tyrell sits on the counter ranting on how bad his weekend has been when Ben Willis drops down from the ceiling and strikes his fish hook into the back of Tyrell’s head and out to the front of his throat. It was pretty cool because it was unexpected. I like it when the film does stuff like that. Right when you least expect it…someone bites it. *End.

TNA:

Don’t rent I STILL KNOW if you’re expecting to see a lot of TNA action. The audience is treated to a lot of stimulating eye candy in the forms of Jennifer Love HugeTits, Brandy and Jennifer Esposito. Since it’s an island resort, we are treated to seeing the duo of Brandy and Love HugeTits walking around in skimpy bikinis. Needless to say we get a couple of great looking tummy shots. Nice. Jay-Love pictured below...isn't she absolutely gorgeous?

As for the ladies you are treated to the looks of Freddie Prinze Jr., Mekhi Phifer, Matthew Settle and Jack Black (Pictured right). Well maybe not the last one, but you get to see a shirtless Mekhi Phifer in a Jacuzzi.

T.Gun’s Take:

Hell the first movie made $72 plus million in theaters across the U.S. alone, so why wouldn’t you want to follow that film up with a sequel? Just over a year later, our thoughts and prayers were answered…well not really, I’m still waiting for a three-some with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Sarah Michelle Gellar…the series second movie hit the big screen.

This time it’s called, “I STILL Know What You Did Last Summer”. Oooh…STILL, very bold…very brave…very clever. Putting sarcasm aside STILL splashed onto the screens and made a decent chunk of change (~$40 million) and can be considered a successful film.

I STILL KNOW is pretty formulaic in just about every aspect of the film. It offers hardly anything new to the series and is nothing more than just a slaughterfest of the first film in a different setting. Even the twist at the end isn’t really a big deal or a “jaw dropper”. By this time (late 90’s) all these teenie bopper films have been throwing films with some type of twist at the end.

I STILL KNOW is a sequel that takes the death toll higher (which it should anyways) and is basically just another typical slasher film with characters we’ve seen before. With all that said, I can’t really bash the film all that much because what I just wrote is 90% of the horror films I like. I’d be a hypocrite if I singled out this film. I just leave it at that.

One thing that I will point out about the flick is that it has a Karaoke machine sing-along moment in it. Jay-Love gets up on the stage and guess what song she pounds out? The song all movies think they’re clever using…Gloria Gaynor’s ♫ “I Will Survive” ♫. Upon thinking about it, was this one of the first movies to make this song popular at karaoke bars? It can’t be…can it? Most of the other movies I’ve seen that’s tried this trick came out afterwards.

If you want to see a mindless slasher movie with good production quality, then this might be a good waste of time for you to check out. It’s not as good as the first movie, but it still is worthy enough to waste a good ninety minutes. It may even be a good “date” flick with a girl who has little appetite for horror movies. But you’d probably want to check out the first flick beforehand.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on November 13, 1998 and made $39.9 million at the Box Office ($16.5 opening weekend)
-The capital of Brazil is Brasilia; Rio de Janeiro was the capital from 1763 to 1960, but the capital was changed
-Jack Black has an uncredited role as Titus Telesco (the pot smokin’ and dealin’ dude in the Hawaiian shirt)
-Film was shot at El Tecuan Mariana Resort Costalagree in Jalisco, Mexico
-Magic 96.7 is the radio station’s call sign that Karla wins the trip from