synopsis : sullen julie james , still haunted by nightmares of the killer ben willis from
i know what you did last summer , perks up when her new best friend karla wilson wins a trip for four to the bahamas .
arriving at the start of the hurricane season , julie and karla run around in very tight clothing and realize they 've walked into a trap set by the rainslickered slasher with a huge hook for a hand .
comments : i may be showing some pop culture illiteracy here , but i have never seen an episode of the fox tv series " party of five .
"
i am only vaguely aware of the show 's premise , and my knowledge of it comes from brief commercials
i half - paid attention to while watching the tube .
" party of five , " i do know however , seems to be the starting ground for actresses in the teen horror genre .
neve campbell , scream queen of the 90s and star of scream , scream 2 , and the craft , is a regular of the show .
so too is jennifer love hewitt .
lo and behold , following in the footsteps of campbell , hewitt now has a horror franchise of her own : the i know what you did last summer line .
though the original film , released last year , was watchable enough , this insipid sequel had me looking at the theater 's glowing red exit sign longingly throughout .
jennifer love hewitt is a very good - looking young leading lady ; however , unlike neve campbell , hewitt struggles with acting .
she just is n't convincing in this film ( and she was n't in the original either ) .
this puts many young males , including myself , in a paradoxical quandary : she 's very attractive , but the annoying , spoiled , valley girl - type character she tries to play here is annoying to the extreme and ruins many of the scenes which emphasize , exploitatively , her figure .
add to the mix the equally pleasant yet irritating brandy , another rising teen tv star , and you get one frustrated male audience .
i 've spent so much time on hewitt and brandy for a reason .
i still know what you did last summer , though cashing in on the success of the original , ultimately serves as a vehicle for these two young actresses .
nothing else here is original or interesting .
this movie , in fact , makes other recent so - so horror films like urban legend and john carpenter 's vampires seem like stunning works of high art .
i still know relies heavily on tired slasher film cliches : an isolated location , a storm , parentless teenagers , false alarm nightmares , lots of blue - lighted darkness scenes , a garbed slasher who walks around in the background without the characters seeing him , knives and other sharp instruments lying around everywhere , etc .
you get the picture .
the entire audience knows all the secondary characters introduced in the film are going to receive the business end of the killer 's hook .
they may as well have huge targets painted on them .
like scream and its numerous knockoffs , these secondary characters are supposed to serve as comic relief .
unfortunately , i still know 's characters are n't all that funny
.
in particular , one character , a chain - weed - smoking guy , is obnoxiously annoying and certainly does n't die soon enough .
the death scenes , by the way , are relatively violent for a theatrically released horror film .
several of them are uncomfortable to watch , and they reminded me of the sickening gore scenes in hellraiser :
bloodline , a truly sadistic movie .
this , too , did not help the supposed humor i still know was shooting for .
and what is the deal with the slasher himself ?
i know that the slasher film is not a particularly intelligent genre , but ben willis has got to go down as one of the most silly slashers in mainstream horror .
come on , the guy looks like the gorton 's fisherman , and his gruff voice makes him sound like a disney pirate . though his lightning - lit appearances ellicited much - needed laughter in the theater , his appearance borders on the absurd in the horror film , and that 's
* really * saying something .
so , all that 's left to talk about here is jennifer love hewitt and brandy .
both prance about in tightfitting , revealing outfits or in various states of undress , yet neither of them ever actually do a nude scene .
hewitt , however , does do a post - shower scene in which her thin bathrobe is quite . . .
titillating .
this scene alone made this one - star turkey earn two stars under my rating system .
otherwise , hewitt and brandy both grate on the nerves .
early in the film , for instance , brandy wins the trip to the bahamas .
she and hewitt jump around and scream and screech for what seems like forever .
i needed extra - strength tylenol after that part .
oh , and the film 's conclusion
, talk about repetitive !
people who saw i know what you did last summer will predict i still know 's ending at least 5 minutes before it happens .
boring !
i saw this movie with my brother at the local downtown movie theater .
admission is only one dollar on wednesdays , and we often go see bad movies on these days just to ridicule them .
it 's usually a fun thing to do along with the rest of the audience , who do n't seem to mind participating in a mass " mystery science theater 3000 " -type viewing .
i still know what you did last summer , however , produced several lengthy uncomfortable silences from the audience , underscoring how bad it * really * is . if it were n't for the main actresses ' revealing wardrobes , i 'd have had a very , very hard time sitting through this lame sequel .
i ca n't imagine trying to watch it on video ( horror films seem 10 times better in a theater because they rely heavily on audience participation ) and would n't recommend it to people , unless they 're horror film fanatics or huge fans of hewitt and brandy .
i read on a website somewhere that another sequel is already in the works .
what a depressing thought .
hewitt apparently needs to spend more time on tv figuring out how to act .
rated r , this film contains lots of violence , several gory scenes , and a couple nubile , horny teenagers -- though the sex act itself is always thwarted .
i 'd say this is unsuitable for kids , but teens would n't have a problem sitting through it , especially since they obviously compose the film 's target audience .
Output: N