Eric’s Bad Movies: ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ (1997)
The popularity of “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” featured in this week’s edition of Eric’s Bad Movies at Film.com, baffles me. This movie is not scary. It is barely even suspenseful. All four main characters behave stupidly for most of the film, not enough of them die, and one of them who does, does it offscreen. Nonetheless, it is one of the more financially successful films to be featured in Eric’s Bad Movies, so I suspect it will have its defenders, particularly among those who saw it as teenagers and have not seen it since then.
I guess I stumped everyone with my clue last week: “Next week’s movie, also a horror flick, features an actor who would later play a famous real-life outlaw on a TV series.” I was referring to Muse Watson, who plays the hook-wielding killer in this film and went on to play airplane-hijacker D.B. Cooper on “Prison Break.” (My follow-up clue referred to him as a “stealer of money,” which is probably somewhat misleading. The money he made off with was ransom given to him by the government, which technically means it was extorted, not stolen. Sorry about that.)
Next week’s film is a horror sequel from the mid 1980s. Normally I would just do the original film, not the sequel, but the original is actually pretty decent. Besides, the sequel has a title that literally makes me laugh out loud: “[Blank] II: [Hilarious subtitle].” I haven’t watched it yet, so I’m not sure if the subtitle actually appears onscreen, or if it’s just “[Blank] II.” Anyway, it’s listed the hilarious way at IMDB, and it stars a man who also appeared in not one but two hugely successful film franchises. Is that enough to go on?
October 9th, 2008 at 9:19 am
I’m gonna guess A Nightmare on Elm Street part 2: Freddy’s Revenge.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:19 am
My guess is The Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf, starring our old (and I mean old) friend Christopher Lee.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Poltergeist II: The Other Side?
October 9th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Jacob,
I typed in “The Howling II” at Wikipedia, and it actually came up as “The Howling II: Stirba-Werewolf Bitch,” which is absolutely hilarious.
Christopher Lee appeared in “The Man with the Golden Gun” and the “Lord of the Rings Trilogy.” I think we have a winner, Jacob.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Jacob got it. Too bad, because I had a twisted hope that it was going to be Troll 2 (which has no trolls in it), until I realized it was made in the 90’s and doesn’t have a sub-title. Oh well, always next week!
October 9th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Does it only come up as “The Howling II: Stirba-Werewolf Bitch” if you’re from the UK or something? Mine came up as “Your Sister is a Werewolf” and had “Stirba-Werewolf Bitch” as the title from the UK release. Hm.
Either way, the UK title is hilarious!!
October 9th, 2008 at 11:40 am
@ Chris:
I think the other “hugely successful film franchise” to which Eric is referring (besides LOTR) is the new Star Wars trilogy, not the James Bond films. Lee was Count Dookie, er, Dooku.
I hate you, George Lucas.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Interestingly, Christopher Lee was also in the Gremlins 2, although that movie doesn’t quite meet the criteria (the subtitle isn’t as funny, and it was produced in 1990, not the mid 80s.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Well, let’s just complete the Christopher Lee horror circle, while we’re at it.
According to the Halloween DVD documentary, Lee was one of Carpenter and Hill’s choices to play Dr. Loomis, but he turned down the roll, which led to the casting of Donald Pleasence. Lee later told the producers that turning down the roll was the biggest mistake of his career.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Off-topic: _Tank Girl_ (1995) might be horrible enough for a skewering.
October 9th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
As a bit of trivia, Brad Dourif (the voice of Chucky) played Grima Wormtongue in the Lord of the Rings movies.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
IMDB’s entry seems conflicted. The synopsis reads: “A young girl whose sister was murdered by werewolves helps an investigator track down a gang of the beasts through the U.S. and Europe.”
Um, I think her sister is alive, personally. I have a hunch.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
It’s not an “Elm Street” film, because Eric said in his “Freddy vs. Jason” review that he’s already seen all of those.
October 10th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
^^^^^I believe the rule is it has to be a movie that he’s never reviewed , not one that he hasn’t seen.
On a related topic, why are we all stuck on the horror genre lately?
October 11th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Ben-
It is true that the rule is that he hasn’t reviewed the movie however, the last paragraph says ” I haven’t watched it yet” thus why we know it isn’t an Elm Street movie. Also because we are in the month of October Eric felt he would review only horror films.