I Know What You Did Last Summer stars a different Party Of Five alumnus, Jennifer Love-Hewitt (an obvious recent implantee), along with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Don't get too confused now, but Ms. Gellar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV) also stars in Scream 2. There are no hip and oh-so-clever movie references in the Summer movie, but there is instead a somewhat moralistic theme to the script. The four teens (all but the driver are drunk) are driving along a winding California beach road when they hit a man. No witnesses, no identification, and an older man that is obviously dead, plus the prospect of their future plans becoming completely unraveled equals disaster. They abandon the body to the ocean, hoping that it will wash out to sea and they go on with their lives.

Fast forward one year. Most of the teens have had their plans fall apart. The erstwhile beauty queen is working the perfume counter at the main street five-and-dime, and the New York poet is working on a fishing boat. Jennifer is back in town on vacation when the notes start to turn up. The notes read simply, "I Know What You Did Last Summer." Who is sending them? Once again, the likely suspects are eliminated one at a time, either by death or by other circumstances that at least distract us, if not completely make us forget our suspicions.

My wife and I went to see this movie with another couple and two of us thought that Summer was superior to Scream, while two of us still held out for Scream being the better movie. Summer definitely goes for more sudden scares and obvious (in retrospect) gimmicks, but it pulls them off and delivers the jolts moviegoers want. I liked Scream better, but it was a pretty close call. Had Neve been in this movie and Jennifer in the other, my preference might have switched.

As I mentioned before, Scream 2 is the third scary movie penned by Kevin Williamson, although this was not entirely a solo effort. In order to meet a strict shooting schedule, this movie started filming before the script was even finished. It follows a similar outline to its predecessor, but it starts off at a little faster pace and builds more quickly. Although I have heard of some reviews that claim that the sequel is even better than the first movie, I have to disagree.

While I liked this movie, I wasn't as thrilled with it as Scream, and it took a little while to figure out why. My wife and I finally agreed that we expected the opening scene to set the tone for the movie, and it failed to do so. We both felt that while most of Scream 2 was nearly as good or in some ways even better than the first movie, the opening scene with Jada Pinkett fell far, far short of Drew Barrymore's efforts. In fact, it wasn't just weak compared to the first movie's establishing shot, it was just weak. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth that was difficult to get past for the rest of the movie.