Rotten Tomatoes
10%
A year after Ben Willis killed Helen and Barry in Southport, Julie James is taking summer classes in Boston and still having nightmares about that night. Her roommate Karla Wilson answers a call from a local radio station and wins a trip for four to Tower Bay in the Bahamas. Julie invites Ray Bronson, who is still working on the docks back home. He says no at first, then changes his mind and drives toward Boston with his coworker Dave to surprise her. On the road they stop for what looks like a body. It is a mannequin. Ben Willis steps out and kills Dave with his hook, then chases Ray in a truck. Ray gets away by tumbling down a hillside and ends up in the hospital.
The next morning Julie, Karla, Karla's boyfriend Tyrell Martin and their friend Will Benson leave for the trip and check into the hotel at Tower Bay. Ray sneaks out of the hospital, pawns the engagement ring he had bought for Julie and trades it for a revolver. That night at the hotel bar Julie sings karaoke and the words on the screen change to "I still know what you did last summer." She runs to her room. Will tells her he likes her.
Willis kills Darick the dockhand, then slashes the housekeeper Olga and drags her into a room. While the others sit in the hot tub, Julie finds Darick's body in her closet. By the time she brings the others, it is gone. The manager, Mr. Brooks, does not believe her, and tells them nobody can leave because of the storm. Titus Telesco, the stoner pool boy, is murdered by the pool. Ray, who has survived his injuries, sets out to rescue Julie.
The next day the group finds Julie trapped in a tanning bed Willis has locked and pulls her out. They find Olga, Titus and Mr. Brooks dead, the two-way radio smashed and the boats gone from the dock. Julie finally tells them what she and her friends did two summers ago. In the room of Estes, the bellhop, they find voodoo charms. Estes says he was trying to protect them. He realized their answer to the radio contest question was wrong, which means someone rigged the prize to get Julie to the island. He tells them the story of Ben Willis, whose wife Sarah was found murdered, supposedly killed by Willis after he caught her cheating.
Estes disappears and Will goes looking for him while Ray reaches the island by boat. Back at the hotel Julie, Karla and Tyrell find the bartender Nancy hiding in the kitchen. Willis kills Tyrell there. The women hide in the attic, where Willis attacks Karla, and then flee to the storm cellar, which is full of his victims. Will bursts in and brings them back to the hotel, bleeding from the stomach and saying Estes attacked him. Nancy and Karla go for a first aid kit and find Estes impaled with a harpoon. Willis kills Nancy and goes after Karla. Alone with Julie, Will admits the blood is not his. He was the voice on the radio, and he killed Estes.
Will drags Julie to the island graveyard and tells her he is Ben Willis's son. Willis attacks Julie. Ray arrives and fights Will. Willis swings at Ray and stabs his own son by mistake. While Willis is grieving and turning back to kill Ray, Julie shoots him dead. Karla turns up alive at the hotel and the coast guard rescues the survivors.
Some time later Julie and Ray are married and living in a new house. While Ray brushes his teeth, Julie sits on the bed, glances in the mirror and sees Willis under the bed. She screams as he drags her under. The 2025 sequel later treats this scene as one of Julie's nightmares.
Story notes
- Survivors: Julie James · Ray Bronson · Karla Wilson
Release facts
- Runtime: 100 minutes (Box Office Mojo and Wikipedia). The AFI Catalog lists 101 minutes.
- Rated: R for intense terror violence and gore, strong language and some drug use
- Budget: $24 million per The Numbers. Box Office Mojo lists $65 million.
- Domestic: $40,020,622 per The Numbers ($40,002,112 per Box Office Mojo)
- Worldwide: $84 million per Variety (2014), as cited by Wikipedia. Box Office Mojo lists only $40,003,659 worldwide, which is essentially the domestic total.
- Studio: Mandalay Entertainment. Copyright is registered to Global Entertainment Productions GmbH & Co. Medien KG. The AFI Catalog lists the United States, Mexico and Germany as countries of origin.
Columbia released the film November 13, 1998. It opened in 2,443 theaters with $16,520,038 and finished second behind The Waterboy. It peaked at 2,473 theaters and after a 15 week run had about $40 million in the United States. Variety later put the worldwide total at $84 million. It opened in Mexico on February 26, 1999 and Germany on April 29, 1999.
Critics were much harder on it than on the first film. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 10 percent from 61 reviews with an average of 3.5 out of 10, and its consensus calls it the kind of rehash that gives horror sequels a bad name. Metacritic gives it 21 from 19 critics. CinemaScore audiences gave it a B, a notch higher than the original's B minus.
A few critics liked it. Leonard Klady in Variety said it had enough shocks to satisfy its young audience. Dave Rickett at CNN thought it was better than the original and kept you on the edge of your seat. Dan Tobin in The Boston Phoenix also rated it above the first film, though mostly because he disliked the first one. E! gave it a B+ and said Cannon had made a sequel a cut or two above the original. Leonard Maltin, reviewing the first film, called it a classic compared to this one.
Jim Gillespie said in 2017 that he did not like the premise, felt it was not the right story and thought it hurt the franchise.
Reviewing the 2023 4K for Blu-ray.com, Martin Liebman called the film one of the very worst teen slashers to get a theatrical run, but said the new transfer was a massive improvement over the 2009 Blu-ray.
The reviews were savage and near unanimous. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus calls it "exactly the kind of rehash that gives horror sequels a bad name," and going from 47 percent to 10 percent is one of the steeper drops between a horror film and its own sequel. The common complaint was that it reran the first film in a more expensive location with no new ideas. There were dissenters. Leonard Klady in Variety allowed that it delivers enough shocks for its audience, Dave Rickett at CNN went further and called it the better film, and Justin Kerswell at Hysteria Lives gave it three and a half out of five as an unapologetic guilty pleasure. It opened at roughly the same level as the first film and then fell off a cliff, finishing at $40 million against the original’s $72.6 million, on a bigger budget. Its legacy is as camp rather than as horror. Jack Black, the karaoke, the hurricane and the sheer implausibility of the twist have all become affectionate touchstones, and it has aged into a genuine cult favorite in a way nobody reviewing it in 1998 would have predicted.
Scores
Metacritic
21
CinemaScore
B
Deleted Scenes & Trivia
- Jack Black plays Titus Telesco, the pool boy, and gets no screen credit.
- Hewitt, Prinze Jr. and Muse Watson are the three actors who return from the first film.
- Stephen Gaghan was named as co-writer in early trailers even though Mandalay went with Callaway's script over his New Orleans version. He won an Oscar for Traffic in 2001.
- Danny Cannon went on to direct and produce the pilot of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in 2000 and executive produced CSI: Miami and CSI: NY.
- The AFI Catalog lists Germany, the United States and Mexico as countries of origin, with copyright registered December 31, 1998.
- Budget figures disagree. The Numbers says $24 million and Box Office Mojo says $65 million.
- Domestic gross figures differ slightly: $40,020,622 at The Numbers and $40,002,112 at Box Office Mojo.
- The tanning bed scene came from a high school summer job Trey Callaway had painting a tanning salon logo in Tulsa.
- Brandy has said that Karla's survival was written into her contract.
- In July 2024 director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson posted that this film is canon for her 2025 legacy sequel, as Bloody Disgusting reported. The new film treats the final under-the-bed scene as a nightmare.
- Filming ran from April 27 to July 3, 1998, per IMDb, a little over four months before the film opened.
- Jack Black’s uncredited turn as Titus Telesco, the dreadlocked pool boy and drug dealer, is the most quoted thing in the film and a large part of why it has a cult following. He is billed nowhere.
- The karaoke scene, where Julie sings while the on screen lyrics display the film’s own title, is the single most cited example of how knowingly silly the film is.
- Danny Cannon went from here to the CSI franchise, directing the pilot and executive producing.
- Jeffrey Combs was already a horror institution from Re-Animator. His casting is nearly the only genre pedigree in the production.
- Muse Watson is the only performer in the first two films to play the same character in both, and the only actor to play Ben Willis on screen until 2025.
- It opened at number two behind Adam Sandler’s The Waterboy and fell to number five within a week, a far faster collapse than the original, which held number one for three weekends.
- The empty coffin and the hand reaching out from under the bed were setting up a third theatrical film that never happened. The next entry went direct to video eight years later with an entirely new cast.
- The 2025 sequel retroactively made that final shot a nightmare.
Connections
- Direct sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), set one year later.
- Followed by I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006), which has no returning cast. Wikipedia says it was first proposed as a continuation of this film.
- The legacy sequel I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) follows on from this film, with Hewitt and Prinze Jr. returning, and ignores the 2006 film.
- Based on characters created by Lois Duncan in her 1973 novel.
Sources
- I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Wikipedia
- AFI Catalog of Feature Films: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
- TMDB: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998) Cast and Crew
- Box Office Mojo: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
- The Numbers: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
- Bloody Flicks: Writer talks I Still Know, 20 Years Later (Trey Callaway interview)
- Variety: Summer II Cannonized
- Variety: I Still Know to star Settle (March 19, 1998)
- Variety review by Leonard Klady
- Reel to Real Filming Locations: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
- The Source: Brandy reflects on taxing filming and her character's survival clause
- Blu-ray.com: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer 4K Blu-ray
- Blu-ray.com: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer Blu-ray (2009)
- Danny Cannon, Wikipedia
- Rotten Tomatoes: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
- Bloody Disgusting: I Know What You Did Last Summer Legacy Sequel Will NOT Erase the Events of I Still Know
- IMDb: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998) full cast and crew
- IMDb: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer filming locations
- Bloody Disgusting: 88 Films I Know What You Did Last Summer Trilogy Blu-ray Box Set
- Blu-ray.com: I Know What You Did Last Summer / I Still Know What You Did Last Summer double feature
- Open Library: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer screenplay (ISBN 0671034561)
