I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)
One year after the brutal murder of her friends by psychotic fisherman Ben Willis, Julie James continues to struggle with the trauma and grief. When her BFF Karla wins a holiday to an island in the Bahamas, Julie hopes the change of scenery will help her put the nightmares behind her. However, someone is waiting for her on the island. Someone who still remembers the events of last summer, and the summer before. Someone who wields a hook and craves bloody vengeance and will stop at nothing to obtain it… Get ready for some sun, sea, solitude... and slaughter!
Written by Trey Callaway and directed with stylish aplomb by Danny Cannon, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer might arguably be a generic slasher sequel, but it’s also a highly entertaining, well-made and atmospheric slasher sequel. Not only does it have a great cast (including Mekhi Phifer, Bill Cobbs, Jeffrey Combs, Jennifer Esposito, Jack Black and 70s soul singer Ellerine Harding), but an interesting location, engaging heroine and more suspense than you can shake a large hook at.
The opening scenes succinctly catch us up with Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and demonstrate she’s clearly still traumatised from her bloody ordeal a year ago. The scene in the church centres the themes of guilt and buried trauma and conveys Julie’s inability to move on from the past (as well as providing the first of many jump scares). She confides to her friend Will (Matthew Settle) that she feels paranoid and is having horrific nightmares. Her trauma has caused a rift with frustrated boyfriend Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) and her friend Karla (Brandy) tries her best to help Julie move on. There’s a genuinely touching moment when Julie gazes at a photo of former bestie Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar), who was murdered the previous year, as Hooverphonic’s mournful and melancholy ‘Eden’ swells on the soundtrack. Now we’re all caught up with Julie, the action relocates to an idyllic, tropical island resort in the Bahamas (depending on your knowledge of geography, the details of how and why the girls win this holiday may or may not set alarm bells ringing), and director Cannon begins to slowly crank up the uneasy tension.
The island setting not only ensures there is no escape for the hapless characters, it also imbues the film with a heady Tropical Gothic ambience. A Bahamas Gothic, if you will. Like its predecessor, I Still Know is also immersed in Gothic themes, not least the past (in the form of psychotic fisherman Ben Willis [Muse Watson]) returning to haunt the present, the suppression and eventual revelation of dark secrets, and much psychological turmoil and thunderstorms. The island setting also speaks to notions of that which is hidden, submerged and unknowable, and ideas of past and present, real and imagined, are also manifested by the coastal backdrop. There’s even a little Voodoo thrown in, courtesy of spooky hotel porter Estes (Bill Cobbs). In one telling moment, a character is glimpsed watching Night of the Demon (1957) on TV: a film whose protagonists are also chased down by something inescapable, utterly inevitable and seemingly unstoppable.
Cut off from the outside world by a raging storm and failing power, and with Julie’s suspicions that Ben Willis is lurking on the island disbelieved by all, the bodies soon begin to pile up. As this is a slasher sequel, the body count is much bigger than before, with the hapless hotel staff also falling victim to the psychotic fisherman. A craftily signposted twist adds an extra jolt to the third act, as the sadistic mind games of the previous film are repeated. It isn't enough for Willis to merely kill Julie and co., he wants them to suffer, and to see it all coming. To anticipate it. Several moments of ludicrousness, including a fright during a karaoke session, and an incident involving someone trapped in a sunbed (guys, maybe just switch it off?) don’t detract too much from the mounting tension. Besides, there isn’t time to dwell or ponder. Cannon’s slick direction and swift pacing serve to usher us past the persistent cliches and steadily on towards a thrilling denouement: the inevitable confrontation between good and evil, Final Girl and Maniac, in a storm-lashed cemetery, no less. All the while John Frizzell’s score, which incorporates zithers, dulcimers and eerie vocal arrangements, conjures a creeping dread.
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer was unfairly slated upon its initial release. But you know what? It’s a thoroughly decent sequel that still proves thrilling and fun nearly thirty years later. It has likeable leads, a dastardly villain, an engrossing story and lashings of storm-tossed atmosphere. Sure, it sticks to the conventions of the slasher film as though for dear life (hey, there’s comfort in the familiar) and lacks the emotional impact of the first film (RIP Helen), but it’s all so hell-for-leather and drenched in atmosphere, chances are you won’t even have time to get hung up about the cliches and plot-holes. It's a full-blooded follow-up and a bloody good time.
