If you made a word cloud out of every review of 1998’s I Still Know What You Did Last Summer from across Rotten Tomatoes (7%), IMDb (4.7/10), Letterboxd (2.4/5), and Metacritic (21/100), it would basically spit out a blank sheet of paper with the word “STUPID” written across it in 182 point font and maybe a small “Jennifer Love Hewitt” somewhere in the corner.
I Know What Stupid Thing You Did Last Summer
To be fair, the film – the first sequel to the 1997 post-Scream slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer – comes by its reputation honestly. It follows Final Girl Julie James (Hewitt) and her new college friends (Brandy, Mekhi Phifer, some white guy) to an off-season resort in the Bahamas on a summer vacation that the girls won in a radio contest where they got the capital of Brazil incorrect (a fact that becomes a clue to the shady nature of the trip, but not until over an hour later).
While Julie is busy being stalked by a hook-wielding killer for the second time in as many years, the film presents viewers with a fantasia on the theme of stupid. This includes a threat-via-karaoke-machine, the reveal that the guy who goes by the name “Benson” is (you guessed it) Ben’s son, and a very early performance from Jack Black in a bad wig (in the sense that he has locks and also they’re terrible).
Hell, the title’s not even correct. The event that the killer is getting revenge for actually happened two summers ago.
A Flawed Yet Fascinating Slasher Sequel
It’s a ridiculous movie. A poorly plotted rushed production that wastes the strong hook (if you’ll forgive the pun) of the original. And yet, if one sits back and lets the good times roll, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer has a lot to teach us about the right way to watch a stupid movie.
I Still Know is one of the best films to teach us this lesson thanks to its position in history. Despite not having a whiff of humor, it came out smack dab in the middle of the meta-slasher boom, where a killer couldn’t just go around carving up co-eds without a couple of winks to the camera. 1996’s Scream helped teach slasher fans how to be a savvy audience, giving viewers the exact tools they used to rip this shockingly straight-faced film to shreds.
Its reputation never recovered. And I’m not saying it should have. But what I am saying is that audiences can’t help but bring their biases into films. It’s only natural. There is no such thing as an objective experience of a work of art. Art wouldn’t be fun at all if there were.
To that end, with a shift of expectations, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer can be utterly transformed. Mostly. It won’t suddenly become All About My Mother or anything. What I’m talking about is more like the difference between “Luke Skywalker was misused in The Last Jedi” and “It’s actually very fun that he drank colorful milk out of a space cow just to scare Daisy Ridley away.”
Stupid is As Stupid Does
The argument that “that movie was so stupid and thus you shouldn’t watch it” unravels when we ask one simple question: Would I Still Know What You Did Last Summer be better if it wasn’t stupid?
It was a 1998 slasher movie with a surprisingly low body count, an even lower gore quotient, and a co-lead (returning cast member Freddie Prinze Jr.) who barely interacts with the actual plot. What would it be about if the killer didn’t hack a karaoke machine to blare “I STILL KNOW” at Julie while she’s singing “I Will Survive?” Let’s be honest. It would have replaced all the scenes of rampant silliness with an even larger number of anodyne sequences where pretty people wander down dark hallways while the wind gently whooshes in the background.
The film may be making stupid choices, but at least it still makes choices. Sure, this resulted in far too much spice being tossed into the mix. It happens! But it’s better than having no flavor at all. If you’re the type to be first in line for a slasher sequel, you’re probably also the type to rewatch horror franchises over and over, so you know that encountering flavor is never a given. Just look at this film’s sequel, 2006’s I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. A bowl of alphabet soup that spells out that title would offer more substance to the viewer than actually sitting down and watching the movie.
Stupidity as a Feature, Not a Flaw
If one approaches the film with the idea that stupidity is a feature, not a bug, it entirely reshapes the experience. I Still Know isn’t just a movie that makes stupid choices. It’s a movie that makes stupid choices with gusto, committing itself body and soul to every last second of its stupidity under the misguided but earnest assumption that it’s keeping you on the edge of your seat.
That kind of zest still won’t float everyone’s boat, and that’s fine. But to err is human and to forgive, divine. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer offers us a chance to be divine and to have a blast while doing it. You just have to take the lesson it teaches to heart and approach it with the same commitment to its own unique energy that it brings to the table.