★
Directed by: Sylvain White
Written by: Lois Duncan, Michael D. Weiss
Starring: Brooke Nevin, Ben Easter, Torrey DeVitto and David Paetkau
Throwback Film Review by: Rachel Pullen
I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer Movie Review
After watching this film, I did something…I googled the eight elements of filmmaking, and sure you could say I should know them by heart considering I do this thing where I write about films, but hey my brain is full of other things, like the names of all the generation 1 My Little Ponies.
And why did I do that you may ask, well I had watched something so bad, so lacking in direction, that I believe not one of those basic elements had been met…so let us talk about I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer.
This film follows the story of four teens who decided that after the fisherman killings from the previous films they would prank their fellow chums at the carnival and stage a fake killing which appears to be done by our rain slicker, hook-wielding pal, but things go very badly wrong when the dude who was playing the victim misses the drop point and falls on to a tractor, killing him on site…the kids are like “aw fuck”, bolt, have a campfire and vow, like the teens before them, to never talk about what happened that summer…how fresh, how innovative…said no one ever.
And as you can guess, the teens, one year later, are hounded by texts and notes, someone knows what they did last summer and is pissed, so they all meet up again to try and protect themselves from the stalker.
Of course, our fishy friend takes them out one by one and the teens feel more and more backed into a corner until it results in a showdown with the killer, only wait…the fisherman seems to not go down, not by bullet or stab wound, why?
What’s going on? Oh, he is the zombie version of the fisherman from the previous films, cool.
No…not cool, you must tell us how the zombified body of a dead fisherman was able to come into the land of the living and start killing a bunch of teens…how? But apparently, we, as viewers just must accept that and move on, who cares how he got there or how bad he smells, the point is that he is there, otherwise who else is gonna kill these teens?
As you can tell plot and character development was not covered, in fact, audio was poor and cinematography took on the style of that dreadful film Feardotcom, whereby the directors think having some flashy, jarring edits to the shots will create more impactful jump scares, no it just hurts the human eyes, can you see why I looked up the elements of film now?!
https://youtu.be/yiAlcLlJpQE
Yes, it had come to my attention within the first 20 minutes of this film that it was going to be bad, not even bad enough that you can consider it good, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer is just another lazy teen slasher flick devised to cash in on a popular genre at the time.
But let’s not be a Debbie downer, what can we take away from this film? What did I have to hold on to during the whole 92 minutes it ran for?
Ok first, that early 2000 fashion.
This flick is rich in some classics, wide belts, fedoras, beads, yeah, it’s a wild ride for the costume department. Hollywood attempts at dressing a goth chick make a fun appearance again, always one of my fav challenges for the fashion team, so close but so far…quality.
And as well as that you could always use this film as a blueprint on how not to make a film. I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer is a tool for any upcoming horror filmmaker, watch this flick, do not do what this flick did, and you should be on your way to making something successful.
So here we are kids, what a wild time it has been, we have learnt so much, like how fish and murder go together, how crimes in the summer are never forgiven, and how if you run over a fisherman you better believe he isn’t gonna let that go any time soon. Oh and, how did the zombie version of the fisherman have the capabilities to send message and texts to the teens? Does he have a ghost phone and ghost stationery? So many unanswered questions guess I am off to kill a fisherman and await his ghost to find out.
#RachelPullen
