Quality Proportionate to Title Length

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm a sucker for a slasher movie. So when I got a pass for a free screening of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (what a terrible title!), I jumped at it.

It's been one year since Julie James (the ever-busty Jennifer Love Hewitt) tackled the maniacal hook-handed psycho in the first film. While Julie has gotten her life together enough to go to college, she's still plagued by horrific nightmares about the Gorton's Fisherman. This leads to relationship problems with her boyfriend (the first film's only other returning cast member Freddie Prinze, Jr.).

Julie's best friend (the truly annoying and space alien-looking Brandy - never trust a celebrity with one name) wins a trip to the Bahamas . . . The perfect place for a four teen slaughterama! So Julie, Brandy, Brandy's boyfriend, and a guy with a crush on Julie go to a near-deserted island resort that can only be reached by boat . . .

After establishing that the island resort is conveniently A) deserted, B) totally isolated, and C) about to get hit with a phone and electricity-paralyzing storm, we get down to the serious business of dispatching all of the truly interesting characters in the film. I think that there's an inverse proportion horror movie rule here: the blander the character, the more likely they are to survive until the end of the film. How else could you explain the early deaths of Jeffrey (Herbert West, Re-Animator) Combs as the wacky hotel owner and Jack Black, one half of Tenacious D? These guys provide the best moments in the film and yet they're only on screen for a fraction of the time that Brandy is.

But I'm getting off the subject. I'll admit that I liked I Know What You Did Last Summer despite the fact that it was wholly unoriginal and derivative. So what do you expect in the sequel? Something even more pedestrian and derivative? Something with less logic but more blood and a higher body count? I Still Know has got both of those in spades.

What I Still Know . . . suffers from is worse than "sequel-itis," it's Scream 2-itis. Meaning that none of the main characters returned in the Friday the 13th series (and if you think the Summer series is any better than the F13 series, you're crazy), so you still had enthusiastic young actors to kill. The precedent set with Scream 2 is to fill the sequel with as many returning cast members as you can. This leads not only to bloated budgets, but then you've got overpaid actors that appear to be on autopilot.

While the body count in I Still Know . . . is certainly higher, the scare factor has decreased dramatically. In place of the modicum of suspense the first film had, we've just got a ton of "it's just a dream," "it's just a cat," and "John Carpenter screamers (i.e. a shadow flashes by in the background accompanied by a shrill keyboard squeal)." And although the killer has a few lines of dialogue, he's got less personality (and lumbers slower) than an undead, mute, hockey mask-wearing undead psycho whose name we all know.

Basically, I Still Know . . . delivers slightly less than your lowest expectation. Urban Legend was better because it didn't KNOW that it had a boxoffice ace-in-the-hole. The filmmakers had to make a slight attempt at entertaining you. I Still Know . . . seems to be saying, "Okay, zit-face here's your damn sequel - now give us your allowance."

If you're going to spend your hard-earned cash on a horror movie sequel, go see Bride of Chucky - an infinitely better film.

- Punky McScrubb