in october of 1997 , audiences were dazzled by the horror surprise hit i know what you did last summer .
the film went on to gross over 70 million dollars in the u . s . , and even developed a cult following , much like the previous year 's 100 million dollar grossing scream .
when the trailer hit theaters in september attached to urban legend , it looked like a wonderful follow - up .
did it live up to the first film ?
the answer is no .
jennifer love hewitt returns as julie james , a survivor of the serial killer that attempted to kill her and her friends a year before .
she has been so upset since the incident .
nightmares haunt her all over the place , but she has to move on .
she know attends college , and is best friends with a funny , outgoing girl named karla ( brandy ) , who is trying to hook julie up with will benson , played by newcomer matthew settle .
karla 's boyfriend is tyrell , the funny , outgoing type , who is played by soul food 's mekhi phifer .
freddie prinze jr . also returns as ray , julie 's boyfriend from a year ago .
one morning , julie and karla are called up by a local radio station who are offering four tickets to the bahamas if they can correctly identify the capital of brazil .
of course , they answer it correctly , and they are off to the bahamas .
julie wants ray to come , but he declines the offer , so karla secretly invites will instead to help boost her plan of hooking him up with julie .
after they arrive at their hotel , it is just them and the staff on the island .
it starts off as the weekend of their dreams .
something just had to come to mess up the one care - free weekend of julie 's life though .
ben willis ( muse watson ) is back , and he is n't letting anyone survive this time .
will ray come to the rescue before he can kill them off one by one ?
jennifer love hewitt and brandy turn in respectable performances .
brandy in particular was impressive , considering this is her first feature film .
you could see that the characters were horrified , and they would do anything possible to survive .
matthew settle and freddie prinze jr . are a completely different story .
let 's start with settle .
matthew is completely fake in this film .
you could not believe a word coming out of his mouth .
you could tell he was acting , and its reasons like him that this one is n't as good as the first one .
he does do a good job towards the end , but that does n't clear up the scars he already left on the film .
freddie prinze jr .
is almost as bad as matthew settle was .
he is almost completely unbelievable , and the majority of his lines are completely meaningless and out of place .
we do n't see him as much as settle , otherwise he could have done just as much damage as settle did .
mekhi phifer is alright as tyrell , but yet again the dialogue is out of place .
the plot of i still know turns out to be a pretty good one
at the end of the movie .
i like where the filmmakers went with this second installment , but maybe if it occurred in the same town as the first one , it would have been a bit better .
the cinematography and setting of their island are simply wonderful .
there are a lot of very nice shots around their hotel .
the sound is pretty good , but still not as creepy as the first film 's .
jennifer love hewitt 's song , " how do i deal " is also played for about thirty seconds .
i still know what you did last summer is nothing compared to the first film .
the first film was very suspenseful , and it contained some very memorable scenes .
the last fifteen minutes of i still know what you did last summer really picked up , and almost reached the same level as the first film .
before this part in the film , there are many unnecessary deaths and fake scares .
that is okay though , because the film is still very much fun
and there are a few suspenseful scenes .
i think the reason this film was n't as scary as the original was because in the first one , the killer terrorized the people involved in the incident .
he made them suffer for what they did .
in the second film , ben willis just kills anyone he feels like .
he does n't stick with ray and julie , who were the ones he is actually after .
he had to go after karla , will , and tyrell .
if the characters he stalked were in some relation to the incident that went on when he was ran over by julie , ray , helen , and barry , it could have been much better , and it would have made a lot more sense .
the bottom line- not a disappointment , but
a third in the series would be out of hand .
Output: P