I Still Know What You Did Last Summer Misses The Magic

By Dan Salem

Posted on July 8, 2025

Its a worthy sequel, but I Still Know What You Did Last Summer doesn’t quite strike lightning. The magic is missing, but the blood flows just the same.

Gemini AI reviews the best movies of all time. Today it looks at the sequel to an iconic horror film, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. Lightning doesn’t strike twice in this tropical terror.

In the wake of the phenomenal success of I Know What You Did Last Summer, a sequel was not just likely; it was an inevitability. The late 90s slasher revival was at its commercial zenith. Studios were eager to capitalize on any established formula. Arriving just a year later in 1998, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer attempted to recapture the magic of its predecessor by transporting its traumatized heroine to a new, exotic locale and surrounding her with a fresh cast of potential victims. While the ambition to expand the story was there, the resulting film is a textbook example of sequel-itis. It’s a louder, more convoluted, and ultimately less frightening affair that trades the atmospheric dread of the original for tropical storms and logical fallacies.

Get the Movie: Click To Buy ‘I Still Know What You Did Last Summer’ on Blu-ray (Only $11.04)

The film picks up one year after Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.) survived the vengeful rampage of the hook-wielding fisherman, Ben Willis. Julie is now a college student in Boston, but she is deeply scarred by the events of the previous summer. Plagued by nightmares and paranoia, she struggles to maintain her grades and her relationship with Ray. He has remained in their hometown of Southport. Julie’s effervescent roommate and best friend, Karla Wilson (played by R&B superstar Brandy), is determined to pull her out of her funk. When Karla receives a call from a local radio station, she and Julie win an all-expenses-paid trip for four to the Bahamas by correctly answering a skill-testing question: What is the capital of Brazil?

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Joined by Karla’s fun-loving boyfriend, Tyrell (Mekhi Phifer), and a seemingly sweet classmate named Will Benson (Matthew Settle), who has a crush on Julie, the group heads to the idyllic island of Tower Bay. However, their paradise quickly sours. They arrive just as the tourist season is ending and a massive tropical storm is brewing, cutting them off from the mainland. The resort is eerily deserted, staffed by a handful of suspicious characters, and it soon becomes terrifyingly clear that their vacation was no stroke of luck. It was a meticulously planned trap. The Fisherman has returned, and with the storm raging outside and nowhere to run, Julie and her friends must fight for their lives against a killer who is determined to finish what he started.

The most significant departure from the original film is its setting. Swapping the foggy, claustrophobic fishing town of Southport for a sprawling, sun-drenched Bahamian resort was a bold move. Ultimately it is one that undermines the film’s tension. The first film’s power lay in its oppressive atmosphere, where the threat felt deeply personal and rooted in the characters’ shared history with the town. In contrast, the tropical resort feels generic and anonymous. While director Danny Cannon attempts to use the impending hurricane to create a sense of isolation, it often feels more like a convenient plot device than an organic source of dread. The wide-open spaces of the resort paradoxically feel less threatening than the narrow alleys and dark docks of the original.

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Jennifer Love Hewitt returns as Julie, giving a committed performance as a young woman consumed by post-traumatic stress. She effectively portrays Julie’s fragility and heightened paranoia. Unfortunately, the script gives her little room to evolve beyond the “final girl” archetype she embodied in the first film. Freddie Prinze Jr. is unfortunately sidelined for much of the runtime. His character arc is reduced to a desperate, off-screen journey to rescue Julie, which robs the central romance of its emotional weight.

The new cast members do their best with the material they’re given. Brandy is a charismatic and welcome presence as Karla. She brings a much-needed energy and sense of humor to the proceedings. In addition, she serves as a capable secondary heroine, and her chemistry with Mekhi Phifer’s Tyrell provides some of the film’s more entertaining moments. However, the characters are largely one-dimensional, serving primarily as fodder for the Fisherman’s hook. They lack the shared guilt and complex interpersonal dynamics that made the original foursome so compelling.

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The film’s greatest weakness lies in its screenplay. Where Kevin Williamson’s script for the first film was a tightly wound mystery, this sequel is not. Penned by Trey Callaway, it is riddled with plot holes and contrivances. The most infamous of these is the radio contest itself. The grand reveal—that the capital of Brazil is Brasília, not Rio, and thus the contest was a setup—is intended as a clever twist. But the twist hinges on the absurd notion that four college students would be oblivious to such a well-known fact. The narrative relies heavily on such contrivances, including a conveniently placed voodoo priest who exists solely for exposition and a climax that introduces a baffling new layer to the killer’s family tree.

The kills are more elaborate and frequent, but they lack the raw, suspenseful impact of the original. The Fisherman himself feels less like a vengeful force of nature and more like a standard slasher villain. He appears and disappears at will according to the demands of the plot. The film leans more heavily on jump scares, but they are often predictable and less effective without the carefully constructed atmosphere that made them work so well in the first movie. The suspense is frequently undercut by moments of unintentional comedy. And then there’s the final reveal of the killer’s accomplice, which feels tacked-on and emotionally hollow.

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Despite its many flaws, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is not without its moments of guilty-pleasure entertainment. It is a slickly produced film that fully embraces the aesthetics of its era, from the fashion to the soundtrack. The chase sequences are competently staged. For fans of the genre, there is a certain comfort in its familiar beats. It delivers on the basic promise of a teen slasher: attractive young people being stalked in an exotic location.

Get the Movie: Click To Buy ‘I Still Know What You Did That Summer’ on Blu-ray (Only $11.04)

Ultimately, the film fails to justify its existence beyond being a quick cash-in on a popular property. It misunderstands what made the original so effective. The potent cocktail of guilt, paranoia, and atmospheric dread. Instead it offers a superficial rehash that prioritizes a higher body count over genuine suspense. It’s a film that proves that while you can replicate a formula, you can’t always replicate the soul. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer remains a relic of its time, a loud and glossy sequel that, much like a fading vacation tan, loses its luster all too quickly.

If you have yet to see this film, then head back up to the top of the page where there’s a handy link to purchase it. Thank you Gemini AI for that thoughtful and detailed review of a true movie classic.

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Gemini AI Photo Credits: Logo credit to Google/Alphabet, AI Image credit to pngtree.com, Movie image credits to Columbia Pictures

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