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Posts Tagged ‘4th of July’

I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (historic second review)

Wednesday, July 5th, 2023

I’ll tell you one thing I did 17 summers ago: I reviewed the straight to video sequel I’LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (2006) for the Ain’t It Cool News, a popular movie websight of its time. So you could read that review if you want a young man’s perspective on the DTV finale to the I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER trilogy. It was a funnier review than this one will be. But now I’m all those summers wiser, I come to these things more prepared and with the advantage of chronological distance. This is my first time watching and writing about the three movies back to back – important summer holiday horror scholarship.

The first part of this series had a quick turnaround – part 2 came only 13 months after the first one. But it didn’t do as well, so they struggled to figure out a followup, and it took them 8 years to settle on what they did here. There are no returning cast members, but then again, they might not have wanted them. Outside of the SCREAM series you didn’t usually see the good guys return in a horror sequel, especially if they were no longer teenagers. So for this one they made up a new set of characters to go through similar events, this time in the sunny farm town of Broken Ridge, Colorado. (Actually filmed in Utah.) (read the rest of this shit…)

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

Tuesday, July 4th, 2023

I remember seeing I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER when it came out. I believe I enjoyed it for what it was – it had the appropriate ratio of competence to goofiness for a slick studio teen slasher sequel in the post-SCREAM era. I did not know or remember that it made less than the first film did on a bigger budget. Of course, this was 1998. They had not yet run over the home video industry, thrown it in the sea and vowed to never speak of it again, so that was where horror movies would thrive, and it at least made enough to justify a DTV sequel.

Things were different then. Horror was more disreputable, even when it was expensive and starred beautiful people from TV shows. Critics had taken to SCREAM, but of course they were gonna hate the goofily titled sequel to SCREAM’s less show-offy, more traditional cousin. But fuck ‘em. This is a solid slasher sequel. Not in the sense of “this is one of the all time great horror movies,” but in the franchise slasher sense of “we took this format and put some enjoyable spins on it and there are some cool touches and some enjoyably dumb ones so I can rewatch it every once in a while and still enjoy it.” That’s what I wanted, and this delivered. (read the rest of this shit…)

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Monday, July 3rd, 2023

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER is a major pillar in the late ‘90s streak of newfangled glossy studio teen slasher movies. It was released less than a year after SCREAM, two months before SCREAM 2, and three months before Dawson’s Creek started airing, so it was the first real test of whether or not SCREAM was a fluke for screenwriter Kevin Williamson. He’d already been hired and written this loose adaptation of the 1973 young adult suspense novel by Lois Duncan before SCREAM, but when that was a hit all the sudden it became a priority. Williamson was still involved, seeming to have a hand in choosing the director and cast, according to interviews.

Set on two consecutive 4th of July holidays in the small fishing town of Southport, North Carolina, it’s the story of fresh high school graduates Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt, CAN’T HARDLY WAIT), Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr., DELGO), Barry Cox (Ryan Phillippe, 54) and Helen Shivers (Sarah Michelle Gellar, SOUTHLAND TALES) accidentally running over someone late at night while driving home from drinking on the beach. Worried about their lives being ruined by manslaughter charges, they decide that rather than report it they should dump the body in the water and swear to never speak of it again. As kids do. (read the rest of this shit…)

China O’Brien II

Friday, May 18th, 2012

tn_chinaobrieniiIt’s the 4th of July, and Sheriff O’Brien is receiving a plaque from the mayor for lowering the crime rate in Beaver Creek to one of the lowest in the state. Well, enjoy it while it lasts, mayor, because a couple at this very picnic are about to be tracked down by a team of ex-military drug smugglers who want their suitcase full of $5 million in cash.
(read the rest of this shit…)