Review of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

Introduction

Teen horror is a popular genre of movie – helped in the last few years by the success of Scream amongst others. I Saw “I Know What You Did Last Summer” at the cinema and found it to be an entertaining movie, despite being basically drivel!

The sequel, entitled “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” is a classic case of the moviemakers being surprised at the success of the original and deciding to come up with an outlandish plot to enable them quickly make a sequel and cash in. In this case, Julie James (Hewitt) and her flat-mate (Norwood) win a holiday in Barbados where the killer from the first film stalks them, despatching hotel staff and guests in suitably nasty ways.

Video

Video comes in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and is of high quality throughout. Much of the film is shot at night or in low light and the picture retains the detail and clarity whilst displaying no noticeable problems.

Effects wise there is little other than the various killings, most of which involve the viewer involuntarily saying “ouch” etc!

The most satisfying visual element of the movie is of course Jennifer Love Hewitt who is gorgeous - her on-screen presence goes some way to make up for the lameness of her character.

Audio

Audio comes in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is of a high standard. The movie starts with the Dolby Digital Helicopter trailer and the opening credits feature some nice voices moving around the room. Throughout the rest of the movie the music and effects use all available channels and help to create the tense atmosphere required for horror movies.

Features

There’s a featurette, trailers, music video and filmography on offer.

The featurette is a 5 minute back-slapping exercise and basically an extended trailer containing little of interest.

Jennifer Love Hewitt’s music video “How Do I Deal” is surprisingly good – the song is not bad, she can sing well and of course she looks great in the video!

Conclusion

Overall, like the first film, this one is entertaining drivel. It is classic teen hack and slay stuff – a crazed madman kills everyone off one by one, walks everywhere but manages to catch everyone who runs and of course there’s a major plot twist to ensure that you are paying attention.

A reasonable cast is let down by a dubious plot but everything is held together by the action scenes which usually involve a chase followed by someone getting killed.

Good picture and sound aren’t helped by the very basic set of extras so you’re probably better off renting this movie rather than buying it unless you can pick the DVD up cheaply