‘Without exaggerating too much, this is by far one of the worst films I’ve ever had the misfortune to sit through’
I’ll Always Know What you Did Last Summer, 2006
Directed by: Sylvain White
Starring: Brooke Nevin, David Paetkau, Torrey DeVitto, Ben Easter
The direct-to-video third and final instalment of the I Know What You Did Last Summer series takes place some years later, with Ben Willis (now played by Don Shanks) more of a myth, after a prank goes wrong and someone dies. Akin to the first film, the gang, consisting of Amber (Brooke Nevin), Colby (David Paetkau), Zoe (Torrey DeVitto) and Lance (Ben Easter), cover up the fact that P.J.’s (Roderick Orton) death was because of a prank, instead allowing the town to believe he died as a result of the mythical Fisherman killer. The following year the four begin being tormented by the Fisherman killer leading up to July 4th.
I spent ages after seeing this film trying to come up with anything positive to say and the only thing I could think of was that Ben Willis’ story is more true to the first film than in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. By that I mean he only really targets those who wronged P.J.’s memory by covering up his death, with others only dying if they’re caught up in the action; whereas I Still Know had Ben Willis murdering everyone without rhyme or reason. But that’s about it for the positives.
Without exaggerating too much, this is by far one of the worst films I’ve ever had the misfortune to sit through. It takes a lot to get a one-star grade on my website (with this film being only the 6th out of 227 to do so), as it needs to not only be a terrible movie, but come equipped with terrible, a terrible script and a terrible visual presentation (the latter where even poor films manage some points): this movie smashes all four categories out of the park. The script is as dull as dishwater; with the same characters and character relations being created once again from the first film (two lovers split up in the following year, the guy friends lose contact, the girl friends lose contact), and it takes far too long getting into the action. Normally I love a set-up, but when the script is so poor and you know going in it is a cheaply-made slasher film, you just want the action to start immediately; instead we get an awful lot of teasing from Ben Willis before any murders finally start to happen.
However, those moments of talking become desired when the action finally does start. How anyone thought using the jump-edit style of presentation, mixed with strange flashing pictures and slow-motion scenes followed by sped-up scenes, was a good idea is beyond me. It’s so awkward and horrible to look at, and, to make it even worse (if possible), it makes it rather confusing to see what’s exactly going on. With so many cuts and strange edits we can’t exactly be certain if Ben is there or if they’ve been murdered. It’s impressive that any editor can ruin a killer murdering teenagers in a slasher film, but credit to you, David Checel.
Another extremely poor addition to the script (and I use the term ‘script’ loosely, as I doubt Michael Weiss’ script (Michael Weiss who has written scripts for Jarhead 3: The Siege, The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power, Hostel: Part III and The Butterfly Effect 2 proving he loves jumping on a dying franchise) was anything relating a proper film script) was the strange idea to have Amber this amazingly beautiful woman, at least in the eyes of nearly everyone in the film. While the franchise has been built on beautiful people being murdered, and a few romantic triangles scattered around, in this film Amber has the attention of Colby, Roger (Seth Packard) and a policeman. Nearly every male character (and the Sheriff looks at them a lot in a strange manner) in this film is attracted to Amber (one scene even has a policeman compiling a report after a body, Amber’s friend Lance, is found murdered, only for him to immediately hit on her . . . during a murder investigation). It added nothing to the overall film and just came across as laughably poor.
You may be wondering how Ben Willis is in this film (considering he’s been run over, ditched in a lake and shot many, many times in the two films prior to this), and that’s because he’s now a ghost. Haunting teenagers who wrong someone in their death. Seeing that takes away any credibility the first film had (although the second tried its best to remove most of the credibility, too); it was a tale of revenge against selfish teenagers but has now become a film about a spirit appearing every July 4th to kill teenagers.
I went into this film in a similar fashion to I Still Know, expecting a poorly written film but one still relatively fun with murders and crazy villains, but even with that mindset this film is a train wreck. Littered with jump scares (even in scenes without any fear, just a man walking to a car window) and awful, awful editing, combined with the expected poor ‘script’ (from the franchise killer, Michael Weiss) and just a boring plot make this easily the worst instalment in the franchise (an impressive achievement considering the misery that was I Still Know.
Personal: * Acting: * Writing: * Presentation: *
Overall Rating: *
Steve James 