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Twenty Years Later, Let’s Revisit ‘I Still Know What You Did Last Summer’

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Released this week in November 1998, the Danny Cannon-directed I Still Know What You Did Last Summer arrived just after October but before the holidays truly began, a release date that sums up the movie at its core: a sugary and nutrition-free piece of leftover Halloween candy. When my mom took me to see it on opening night, I loved it. But 20 years and some taste developments later, its cracks show even more glaringly than those of its predecessor. While neither are “good” movies, necessarily, I Still Know is wildly flimsier than its ’97 parent.

So how does it hold up (or does it even), 20 years later?

While I Still Know fulfills the three rules Randy Meeks lays out in the movie’s closest contemporary, Scream 2 — bigger body count, more elaborate deaths and a near-superhuman killer — it also utilizes (and stumbles on) some other sequel rules. In some of the same ways The Strangers: Prey At Night did earlier this year, I Still Know follows up its slightly bleaker and more serious forefather by going in a slightly campier direction. This isn’t to say the movie knows it’s being campy, but it is, in spades, either to its benefit or detriment, depending what you like. Within the first 35 minutes, Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) has a Nightmare On Elm Street-style in-class freakout, is introduced to Jack Black’s cringe-worthy Jamaican character, and hallucinates seeing the Fisherman in a bumping nightclub. And I could write an entire book on the fact that the Fisherman programs the words “I STILL KNOW” into the lyrics on a karaoke machine. Chef’s kiss. Honestly, I’m not interested in a sequel that isn’t slightly camp. The best ones are.

Like Scream 2, I Still Know offers a much more diverse cast and also focuses on how traumatic events have affected the first film’s main survivor. In many ways, it does it better. In place of a charming and beautiful Sarah Michelle Gellar and a tempestuous and beautiful Ryan Phillippe, the movie introduces the gorgeous and magnetic late 90s duo of Brandy and Mekhi Phifer. Much as Helen and Barry suck up the screen in I Know, Julie is once again upstaged by the witticisms and coolness of Carla and (thankfully, less abusery) volatility of Tyrell.

Slasher sequels rarely get characters right — and I’m including my beloved Scream 2 in this basket — but I Still Know gives us fresh new characters and also delves further into the after-affects of the first film on the Final Girl. For all of the “survivor navigates trauma” posturing that occurred during the press tour for the newest Halloween movie, the movie didn’t actually touch upon it in any real way. Scream 2 Sidney, meanwhile, seems to have all but dealt with (or at least to have successfully shut away) any residual trauma and is enjoying college life with new friends and a new boyfriend. Julie, on the other hand, is plagued by nightmares, has become a shut-in and is dangling over failing out of school by a thread. By movie’s end, we see Julie back to a happy life back with Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) but ultimately unable to ever fully put away the horrors of what has happened to her.

The movie’s setting also lends itself to the big tonal shift between the first and second movies. While the first film took place in a coastal town in the dead of dry summer, the sequel relocates the cast to a tropical island in the middle of hurricane season. This lush, paradisiacal backdrop quickly turns into a canopy of doom for the characters and helps I Still Know set itself apart both stylistically and tonally from the first movie. In some of the same ways that Alien and Aliens are two different flavors (please excuse the comparisons of those two movies to either of these), I Know and I Still Know operate on complimentary but different planes. I Know feels claustrophobic and intimate, as if the characters are being watched from cut-out eyeholes in paintings on the walls. It feels like a horror movie. I Still Know, on the other hand, feels wide and expansive, as if the characters are being watched from the clouds above by some wrathful god. While higher in deaths, it’s shorter on scares and again, to invoke Alien/Aliens, feels like a transition from horror to thriller/action. Even Aliens’ tagline works here: “This Time It’s War.

In her quest for survival, Julie rises from the innocuous (and boring) smart girl of the first movie to Jennifer Love Hewitt’s best version of a Julie James-Ellen Ripley. I Still Know Julie isn’t scared, she’s mad. As the terror builds to finale, Julie brandishes an axe, hisses through a “tough face”, and ultimately finishes the Fisherman by pelting him with bullets, grunting “JUST. FUCKING. DIE.” No Sigourney or even a Laurie in Halloween: H20, but definitely the most interesting and powerful that character ever was.

The movie is ultimately not successful, due to too many loose plot holes, coincidences, bad side-characters and completely brainless occurrences. It’s a movie that asks us to believe that Ben Willis/the Fisherman recruited his bland son to assume the name of Will Benson — get it? BEN’S SON — and enroll in Julie’s college, befriend her and her friends and pretend to like her, all so that father and son could fake a radio station giveaway to get Julie onto a remote island and kill her. This is so elaborate and unnecessary that it either ruins the movie for you or — as in my case — is part of the appeal.

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is frothy and over-the-top and mostly fun. It manages to be only just good enough to be remembered, if only for nostalgia’s sake. It’s not quite good, but it is a good-bad sequel. And sometimes, that’s just enough.

Editorials

‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel

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leprechaun returns

The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.

The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.

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Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).

It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.

The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.

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Pictured: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, and Sai Bennett as Lila, Katie and Rose in Leprechaun Returns.

The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.

Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.

Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.


Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Leprechaun Returns movie

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

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