I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer

Review By: Stephen Snart
StephenSnart@TheCinemaSource.com

While the original I Know What You Did Last Summer may not represent the pinnacle of the late 90s post-Scream resurgence of the slasher film, it’s still one of the better films from that craze. Its virtue was being a heavily disguised morality tale where even the protagonists can’t find retribution. In its chilling final frame, not even the perky Jennifer Love Hewitt could be admonished of her sins. Of course, the money-hungry and god awful sequel retroactively negated the original film’s integrity but as a stand-alone film, it was an entertaining thrill-ride that even had a shred of morality – something rare in the dead teenager genre of the 90s.

Almost ten years since the original scared up over $70 million dollars at the box office, we get the absurdly titled I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. The opening credits say that it’s “Based on Characters Created by Lois Duncan,” who penned the novel that the original film was based upon, but I’m not entirely sure which characters this refers to. The events of the third film take place in a small Colorado town as opposed to the quaint fishing village of the first film and it’s not even like a Halloween sequel where the characters are distantly related to people from the first film. The only verbal connection is the myth of The Fisherman. Teens talk flippantly about a mysterious man in a slicker who hunts down kids who harbor deadly secrets every July 4th.

A few mischievous locals decide to resurrect the mythology and stage an elaborate hoax at the town’s annual carnival. The prank consists of Roger (Seth Packard) spooking the townsfolk by donning a black slicker and wielding a hook that he bought off Ebay for $39. The conceivably harmless tomfoolery goes awry when one of their friends accidentally dies. Roger and his cohorts - the bird-brained, good girl Amber (Brooke Nevin), her ditzy boyfriend Colby (David Paetkau) and Zoe (Torrey DeVitto) a wannabe rock star who has a serious lack of edge – make a pact to keep their rouse a secret.

A year passes and the former friends rarely see each anymore but their past comes back to haunt them when Amber receives 50 text messages from a blocked number, all with the same foreboding message: “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” It’s good to see that the assailant has progressed along with the 21st century, getting rid of those pesky handwritten notes in favor of the electronically reproducible text message. Next, the gang begins receiving fleeting visits from The Fisherman. He toys with them by leaving nasty