I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (2006)

On the 4th of July, Amber (Brooke Nevin, Nikki on tv's The 4400) tells her friends riding the Ferris wheel with her about Ben Willis, the killer fisherman who tracks down and kills teenagers with his hook. Later that evening a figure dressed like a fisherman (his face hidden by his hat) and wielding a hook suddenly appears and begins chasing people through the carnival grounds, a prank that Amber and her boyfriend Colby and their friends have set up. This winds up with a young man accidentally dead. Amber and her friends meet later and vow to keep this a secret they will carry to the grave. They throw the hook into a lake, burn the costume, and plan to resume their normal lives. People will think that the real Ben Willis or an imitator was responsible for what happened.
Almost a year later it's early July and it soon seems that Ben Wills is back with his hook freshly sharpened. By the 4th, Amber and Colby have had encounters with Willis that are too close for comfort, and they plan to hit the road. But this year the town is having a talent show instead of the carnival, and one of their friends is an aspiring singer. Of course they stay, with predictable results.

Four friends. A guilty secret. Murder and mayhem. The format is limiting for a writer, but Michael D. Weiss does throw some curve balls when we find out that it is indeed Ben Willis, but he's undergone a major transformation in the years since the last film. Sylvain White uses the term “bubblegum” at least three times in his director's commentary. He's not looking down his nose, simply acknowledging the genre he's working in and the parameters set by it. In Texas we summarize this with the expression "Dance with Who Brung You."

White does what he can with the material. It helps that he has a hugely talented cast and although the budget was limited, somebody wisely chose to hire veteran cinematographer Stephen M. Katz and the film looks great, nicely utilizing locations in Utah including Park City, home to the Sundance Film Festival. Based on White's statements, I don't think he knew that the film would go straight to video.
Sony seems to be attempting to build a franchise with the Ben Willis character. But while I've enjoyed all three films, only the first had any real suspense although the scene where Julie was performing on stage and saw what was about to happen to Helen was a petty effective effort.

The changes in Wills's character would put him in competition with Freddy Kruger and Candyman, but he's just no match for them. The body count is fairly low, too. Willis only kills one character in the second act, four in the third, and then there's a coda that's lifted almost directly from the first film. The first film made $72 million. The second made $39 million. The third one (made on a much smaller budget and without “name” stars) went straight to video. The ending does leave the door open for another sequel, though. Maybe in about forty years Ben Willis will be approaching senility and we'll see a film called I Can Almost Remember What You Did Last Summer.