The I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise began in 1997 as a slasher flick starring a hooded man in some sort of raincoat that carries out his murders using a hook. Though the first movie was a critical flop, it was a commercial success, and has since become a pretty famous movie in the slasher community. Even if the first movie isn’t that good, it’s still got its fair share of fans, who are no doubt eagerly awaiting the upcoming remake by horror maestro Mike Flanagan.

Flanagan is known for his horror films and Netflix miniseries, all of which have been critically successful, so the future of the franchise looks bright. In anticipation for this upcoming film, which coincidentally comes out this Summer, here is a ranking of all three films in the franchise thus far. Note that other forms of media, i.e. foreign rip-offs or the TV series will not be included in this ranking, as this will focus exclusively on the canon films.

3

‘I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer’ (2006)

Directed by Sylvain White

I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer is an absolute travesty of film, and one wouldn’t be wrong to call it one of the worst movies ever made. It boasts an astounding 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and for good reason. Everything about the movie reeks with the campy awfulness of kitschy 80s and 90s slasher films, which are their to show off gore effects, bring cheap jumpscares, make money, and not much else. There is very little substance to the movie, and the minute amount of story that is there doesn’t make any sense and is a major deviation from the entire premise of the original, especially in its God-awful “twist” ending.

What sucks the most is that this movie came out eight years after the previous one, and that the second film set such a low bar that it was practically a tripping hazard at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Yet, here is the third film, holding its breath and swimming underneath that bar. This was supposed to be the conclusion to the franchise, which it was, but still, one would think it would try to end on a high note rather than going out the way it did: like a fart in the wind. With how abysmal this movie is, it’s not at all shocking that filmmakers were afraid to touch the IP for nearly two decades after it came out.

I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer

Release Date

June 24, 2006

Runtime

92 minutes

Cast

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  Brooke Nevin

  Amber Williams

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  David Paetkau

  Colby Patterson

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• 

2

‘I Still Know What You Did Last Summer’ (1998)

Directed by Danny Cannon

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer didn’t exactly give the audience high expectations during its inception, because the first movie was only so enjoyable, and even then, to a pretty niche fanbase, so how good could the second one, released just one year later, realistically be? Sure, nobody expected it to be anything super amazing, but nobody could have anticipated how truly awful the second film in the franchise was. Lacking any of the spirit of the original and abandoning all previous qualities, this second movie is an absolute train wreck. It’s not even one of those movies where you can kick back, have a drink, and laugh at how bad it is, because even that would get miserable pretty quickly.

Not even the presence of Jack Black could save this pathetic excuse of a slasher flick, as it receded into clichés, played into cheap money-making tricks, and made very little effort to actually be good. But at least there was a tiny bit of effort to keep the momentum going, unlike the third and final film. The narrative in this one wasn’t nonsensical, it was just boring, but at least the film still has the decency to still feel like part of the same franchise, if only barely.

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

Release Date

November 13, 1998

Runtime

100 minutes

1

‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ (1997)

Directed by Jim Gillespie

You can’t beat the original. Actually, in this case, you probably can, considering this movie was far from groundbreaking, and wasn’t loved by everybody. Overall, while it does have fans, it received lukewarm reviews, with many placing it in the “meh” category of horror cinema. Sure, there are a lot of better horror films out there, but at least I Know What You Did Last Summer has some enjoyable moments and things that made it somewhat famous in the world of cinema.

The movie was loosely based on a 1973 novel of the same name, but like many book-to-movie adaptations, the similarities between the two are very few and far between, and share similarities in name only. In spite of its mixed reviews, it became one of the highest-grossing slasher films of all time, which is quite a feat, considering how many of them there are. It became abundantly clear that it was just meant to be a nostalgic trip back to the era of tacky slasher films, without becoming the cash cow franchises that the genre is known for. Unfortunately, it became just that. But still, this first movie might be far from remarkable, heck it might not even be that good, but it’s undoubtedly the best in the franchise… so far, anyway.

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