After Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven revitalized the teenager horror style with the launch of the Scream movie sequence in 1996, the primary movie to capitalize on the success was the 1997 teen slasher movie I Know What You Did Final Summer time, which was scripted by Williamson, primarily based on Lois Duncan’s 1973 novel of the identical identify. Boosted by its proximity to Scream, audiences gravitated towards I Know What You Did Final Summer time with its premise of 4 teenage associates who’re stalked by a hook-wielding killer one 12 months after overlaying up a automotive accident during which they supposedly killed a person. The success of the movie necessitated a 1998 sequel, I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time, during which the 2 survivors of the primary movie, performed by Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr., are terrorized at a secluded island resort within the Bahamas.
Boring, contrived, and completely predictable, the sequel’s solely motive for present is that its predecessor was a box-office success. Certainly, I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time is so insubstantial and irrelevant to each its predecessor and the horror style that it’s considerably baffling as to why the brand new movie treats the universally despised 1998 sequel as canon. In reality, I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time would not quantity to being a lot of something.
A ten% Rotten Tomatoes Score Is Too Excessive for ‘I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time’
It Was a Full Catastrophe
Whereas Scream 2 improved upon its predecessor by combining suspense with a scathing satire of movie star and the media, I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time, for which Scream creator Kevin Williamson was absent from the scripting course of, doesn’t comprise an oz. of ambition or originality. The cynical development of the sequel is established throughout the first 5 minutes, which opens precisely one 12 months after the occasions of the 1997 movie and introduces Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Julie James as a school scholar in Boston, the place she’s haunted by nightmares and separated from boyfriend Ray Bronson, performed by Freddie Prinze Jr.
After the sequel opens with a nightmare sequence involving Julie and the killer from the earlier movie, Ben Willis, Julie is paired in a scene with a seemingly pleasant fellow faculty scholar who seems within the guise of a confidante and potential love curiosity. Nonetheless, because the viewers is aware of that Julie will find yourself with Ray, given Prinze’s star billing, it’s instantly apparent that the one function this different man, Will Benson, serves is as a secondary villain alongside Willis, who’s also called the Fisherman. Certainly, the sequel’s chapter of creativeness is most obvious with the plan that Willis hatches to lure Julie to her demise.
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As an alternative of simply killing Julie in her dorm room exterior the view of her associates, the seafaring Willis concocts a phony radio contest for which Julie and her roommate, Karla, performed by singer Brandy, win a free journey to a distant island resort within the Bahamas, after Karla solutions a skill-testing query, to call the capital metropolis of Brazil, incorrectly. After flying to the Bahamas, Julie and her associates take a ship to a distant island resort that is almost abandoned because of hurricane season. With solely a skeleton crew employees, led by a snooty supervisor, the massacre ensues, regardless that Julie is the one character on the resort whom the Fisherman has an outlined motive for killing.
Probably the most ridiculous plot factors contain Ray, who, throughout the radio contest announcement, is working as a fisherman in Southport, North Carolina, the place the occasions of the primary movie happen. Because the killer orchestrates Julie’s Bahaman demise trip, Ray makes an attempt to make his approach to Boston to reunite with Julie, solely to be attacked by the killer. After being hospitalized for his accidents, Ray flees the hospital and makes his approach to the Bahamas, the place he hijacks a ship after which arrives on the resort, simply in time to save lots of Julie. Whereas the thought of an omniscient, invisible killer is a staple of the slasher style, I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time takes it to such a ridiculous excessive that it borders on insulting the viewers’s intelligence.
‘I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time’ Almost Killed the Franchise
The unique I Know What You Did Final Summer time grossed over $72 million on the home field workplace, changing into the highest-grossing non-Scream franchise horror movie of the teenager horror increase interval from the late Nineties to the early 2000s. I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time, launched roughly 11 months later, concluded its theatrical run with a home whole gross of roughly $40 million. Whereas the sequel wasn’t a monetary catastrophe, its important failure critically broken the franchise’s credibility, leaving it dormant for almost 25 years.
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Following I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time, the following installment within the franchise was the 2006 standalone sequel I’ll At all times Know What You Did Final Summer time, which is about within the fictional city of Damaged Ridge, Colorado, the place a quintet of teenage associates are hunted by a hook-wearing killer one 12 months after overlaying up a buddy’s prank-related demise. The 2006 installment was adopted by the 2021 eight-episode tv sequence I Know What You Did Final Summer time, which performs a contemporary tackle the unique novel by following a gaggle of teenage associates who’re stalked by a mysterious killer one 12 months after overlaying up a deadly automotive accident on their commencement night time.
The New Movie Falls Into the Similar Lure as ‘I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time’
Probably the most thrilling facet of the brand new model of I Know What You Did Final Summer time, which serves as each a legacy sequel to I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time and a reboot of the general franchise, is the prospect of authentic franchise stars Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt reprising the roles of Julie James and Ray Bronson, the final survivors of the 1997 Southport bloodbath. Julie and Ray function mentors within the new movie, during which a quintet of Southport youngsters discover themselves being focused by one other hook-wielding killer after overlaying up their involvement in a deadly automotive accident. Nonetheless, whereas the reunion of Hewitt and Prinze elicits emotions of nostalgia, their restricted roles are extra symbolic than important, and nothing else concerning the new sequel is especially compelling, not to mention scary.
Certainly, as the widely unfavourable important critiques for I Know What You Did Final Summer time clarify, the brand new installment suffers from a extreme lack of logic, pacing, and suspense. Just like the 1998 sequel, the brand new movie, set 28 years later, makes the killer’s id painfully apparent early on. Sadly, the 1998 sequel and the 2025 legacy sequel by no means discover an thrilling hook to justify their feeble existence. I Nonetheless Know What You Did Final Summer time is out there to hire on Prime Video and Apple TV.