| I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer | |
| Director: | Sylvain White |
| Music: | Justin Burnett |
| Cinematography: | Stephen M. Katz |
| Editing: | David Checel |
| Distributor: | Sony Pictures Home Entertainment |
| Runtime: | 92 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer is a 2006 American direct-to-video slasher film directed by Sylvain White and written by Michael D. Weiss. The film stars Brooke Nevin, David Paetkau, Torrey DeVitto, Ben Easter, and stuntman Don Shanks as the Fisherman. It is the third installment in the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise, but does not have any of the cast returning from the first two installments, thus making it a standalone sequel. The film instead takes the basic myth of the series with a new set of characters.
On July 4, 2005, in the fictional town of Broken Ridge, Colorado, Amber Williams, her boyfriend Colby Patterson and their friends Zoe, Roger, and PJ stage a prank at the town carnival where Roger impersonates the "Fisherman" killer. Afterward, everyone sees PJ's body impaled on a tractor smokestack instead of mattresses that were supposed to break his fall. The public believes the Fisherman is behind it, and the friends burn the evidence and make a pact to keep it secret.
One year later in 2006, Amber returns to town to discover that Colby never left to pursue his scholarship. She goes up to the mountains where she encounters one of the officers who witnessed the accident, Deputy Haffner. Later that night, Amber awakens to 50 text messages reading "I know what you did last summer." She drives to Zoe's shack where Zoe allows Amber to sleep for the night. The next day they find Roger and Colby, but they angrily dismiss them when told about the messages. Amber is attacked on a ski-lift by someone wielding the hook.
A drunken Roger contemplates suicide with the hook from the prank. When he investigates a noise, he is attacked and killed by the Fisherman. Colby is also attacked while swimming. They go to warn Roger and find him dead along with a suicide note and the hook. Deputy Haffner shows up and gets their statements. Afterward, they return to Amber's house to find pictures of them from the high school yearbook sliced up and stuck to the wall reading "SOON". They all stay at Zoe's place and find Lance, PJ's cousin, outside. He shows them a message engraved on his motorbike.
The night of Zoe's concert, after her performance, she, Amber, and Lance are attacked by the Fisherman. Zoe is stabbed and thrown over a balcony to her death. P.J's dad, the sheriff, comes in, only to be killed as well. The Fisherman then attacks Colby in a kitchen and hooks him in the mouth, killing him. Outside, Amber and Lance run into Deputy Haffner, who reveals that Roger told him about the accident. The Fisherman then advances towards Haffner and impales him on a forklift.
Amber and Lance get into a car and run the Fisherman down. He gets up and is revealed to be the undead Ben Willis, the man who committed the original murders 8 years ago. Willis attacks them but is cut with a hook by Amber and disappears. Amber and Lance go to face Willis, deducing that the hook will hurt him. They are chased into a warehouse. Amber then fights Willis and eventually stabs him in the head, and pushes him into a snow blower driven by Lance, killing Willis.
A year later in 2007, Amber is driving across the desert when a tire blows out. She stops the car and loses reception. Willis appears behind her and the screen cuts to black as Amber's scream is cut off by the slicing sound of the hook.
Director Sylvain White was brought in as a last-minute replacement after the previous director was fired, and thus had to cast the film, prep the locations, and devise the shooting schedule within just two weeks.[1] White did not use any CGI, as he felt that gore looks much more realistic with practical effects.[1]
A soundtrack of the film was never released.
The film did not receive a theatrical release, instead going straight-to-video on August 15, 2006, on DVD. The film received a Blu-ray release for the first time on September 26, 2023, in a MOD (Manufactured-On-Demand) release.[2]
The film received highly negative reviews from critics, criticizing the plot, acting, editing, lack of originality, and for introducing supernatural elements into a series that was grounded in reality until this film. Scott Weinberg of DVD Talk called it "a 12th-generation knock-off that leeches off a flaccid little concept that was already withered and whiskered the first and second time around". He described the directing, editing, script, and acting all as predictable and uninteresting, ultimately summarizing the film as "not so much outrageously awful as it is deadly dry and dishwater dull".[3] The film has a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on six reviews, the minimum number for a score, with an average rating of 2.6/10.
Following a prolonged hiatus, a fourth installment of the series was announced, which is set to release on July 18, 2025, 19 years after I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, and will be a direct sequel to I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.[4]