My Review of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)

 

Written by Trey Callaway

Directed by Danny Cannon

Julie (to the Fisherman): "Just. Fucking. Die!"

On to the sequel. The end of the first movie set it up and time has passed by. Our leading lady, Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) has been attending summer classes in Boston. She's also been having nightmares about the Fisherman (Muse Watson) terrorising her.

Not only that but Julie was seemingly at odds with Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.). He wanted to spend time with her and propose. Instead Julie decided to take a summer break to the Bahamas with college friends, Karla Wilson (Brandy), Tyrell Martin (Mekhi Phifer) and Will Benson (Matthew Settle). The first two were a couple and the latter had a crush on Julie.

Being in the Bahamas should've been a good time. Instead, it was constantly raining and after putting poor Ray in the hospital, the Fisherman thought to take a trip to finish Julie and her friends off. Of course there were some random characters to kill off first. 

These characters included stoner Titus (Jack Black), the almost all knowing Estes (Bill Cobbs) and bitchy bartender, Nancy (Jennifer Esposito). Out of the new friends group, the increasingly unsympathetic Tyrell ended up getting a gruesome death by the third act. He was pretty horrible to Julie as the bodies began to pile up on the resort.

Then there's the reunions that Julie not only had with Ray but also the one with Ben Willis. Oh and it turned out that Will was actually Ben's son and a bit too eager to help his father out with the revenge plan. It's a reveal that should've had a major impact but it's so anticlimactic along with the murderous father and son's comeuppance.

As for the remainder of the movie, Karla was fortunately alive (I did like her character) and Julie and Ray were now living together. There was another sequel hook made but this one felt more goofy than actually foreboding. It also never really came to pass.

- There was a third movie unrelated to the first two. I've seen it and it's awful but I'll review before I get to the new one.

- Knowing the capital of Brazil really would've messed with Ben and Will's great plan, huh?

- Standout music: Lamb's Gorecki and Imogen Heap's Getting Scared.

- Chronology: A year since the events of the first movie. It was also a year when this sequel was released.

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer made for a serviceable but hardly exciting sequel. There's a few semi decent moments but it doesn't do a lot to make you care about any of the characters or even the killers themselves.

Rating: 5 out of 10