I found this crazy idea on 'And You Call Yourself a Scientist!' and I'd like to hear what other people think about it: http://twtd.bluemountains.net.au/Rick/liz_know.htm
"When you write a review like this, you generally end up watching the film at least two or three times. The first time you do nothing but moan, "Oh, this is so stupid!", but later on, your brain tends to start re-writing the screenplay and filling in the gaps. It’s a defence mechanism – a mental barrier thrown up against the waves of deadly, infiltrating dumbness emanating from the film. On my second viewing of ISKWYDLS, it occurred to me that the whole ridiculous contest thing would make sense if – and only if – Karla was in on it all along. Maybe Karla was Sarah Willis’s best friend. Think about it: that would explain why she kept trying to break up Julie and Ray, and force Julie and Will together; why she kept doing everything she could to frighten Julie half to death; why she pressured Julie into singing karaoke; why the answer to the contest question didn’t matter; and how Ben could be quite certain that both Julie and Will, and not Ray, would end up in the Bahamas. It would also explain why Ben didn’t kill her – despite having three opportunities of doing so. Of course, this version would require Ben Willis to be paying college fees for Will and Karla (hey, I’m not saying it makes sense! - just more sense!), but since money’s clearly no object…. And maybe Tyrell was in on it too, and that’s why he was such a relentless bastard. This scenario would also explain the unseen karaoke message: it wasn’t unseen at all.
So my suspicion is that there’s an earlier draft of the screenplay out there somewhere in which Karla plays a very different role. But you know what? I think there’s also a still earlier one – one in which I Still Know What You Did Last Summer was a much darker, much more downbeat, much more interesting film; a film in which all of the horror was taking place in Julie James’s mind.
There’s plenty of evidence for this view early on in the film. We know Julie is completely neurotic. We also know that she still hasn’t come to terms with her role in the events of the previous two summers, as evidenced by her insisting in the opening sequence that it was "an accident". Then she starts seeing things – Ben Willis where he clearly couldn’t be; words on a teleprompter that no-one else sees…. Also, as the film stands, the role played by Will Benson makes no sense at all. If he’s nuts, if he’s setting Julie up – why is there so much indication that he’s genuinely falling for her? – for instance, check out the way he looks at her when she enters the bar, and isn’t looking at him. I think ISKWYDLS was originally intended to be about Julie’s mental breakdown; and I’ve also good a good idea of how it was meant to end: with Julie suddenly snapping. "Will Benson. Ben’s son! My God! You’re Ben Willis’s son!" – and then she hacks him to death with the butcher’s knife she keeps by her bed, only to discover that he was, in fact, just a poor schmuck named Will Benson, who was unfortunate enough to enroll in a college near Cambridge, to take political science, and to fall for a girl named Julie James….
But I guess that was just too much of a downer. And instead of what might have been a fairly absorbing study of a girl’s mental disintegration, we have perhaps the dumbest and least frightening, most ill-conceived and misbegotten excuse for a horror movie that ever befouled the inner workings of my VCR."
"When you write a review like this, you generally end up watching the film at least two or three times. The first time you do nothing but moan, "Oh, this is so stupid!", but later on, your brain tends to start re-writing the screenplay and filling in the gaps. It’s a defence mechanism – a mental barrier thrown up against the waves of deadly, infiltrating dumbness emanating from the film. On my second viewing of ISKWYDLS, it occurred to me that the whole ridiculous contest thing would make sense if – and only if – Karla was in on it all along. Maybe Karla was Sarah Willis’s best friend. Think about it: that would explain why she kept trying to break up Julie and Ray, and force Julie and Will together; why she kept doing everything she could to frighten Julie half to death; why she pressured Julie into singing karaoke; why the answer to the contest question didn’t matter; and how Ben could be quite certain that both Julie and Will, and not Ray, would end up in the Bahamas. It would also explain why Ben didn’t kill her – despite having three opportunities of doing so. Of course, this version would require Ben Willis to be paying college fees for Will and Karla (hey, I’m not saying it makes sense! - just more sense!), but since money’s clearly no object…. And maybe Tyrell was in on it too, and that’s why he was such a relentless bastard. This scenario would also explain the unseen karaoke message: it wasn’t unseen at all.
So my suspicion is that there’s an earlier draft of the screenplay out there somewhere in which Karla plays a very different role. But you know what? I think there’s also a still earlier one – one in which I Still Know What You Did Last Summer was a much darker, much more downbeat, much more interesting film; a film in which all of the horror was taking place in Julie James’s mind.
There’s plenty of evidence for this view early on in the film. We know Julie is completely neurotic. We also know that she still hasn’t come to terms with her role in the events of the previous two summers, as evidenced by her insisting in the opening sequence that it was "an accident". Then she starts seeing things – Ben Willis where he clearly couldn’t be; words on a teleprompter that no-one else sees…. Also, as the film stands, the role played by Will Benson makes no sense at all. If he’s nuts, if he’s setting Julie up – why is there so much indication that he’s genuinely falling for her? – for instance, check out the way he looks at her when she enters the bar, and isn’t looking at him. I think ISKWYDLS was originally intended to be about Julie’s mental breakdown; and I’ve also good a good idea of how it was meant to end: with Julie suddenly snapping. "Will Benson. Ben’s son! My God! You’re Ben Willis’s son!" – and then she hacks him to death with the butcher’s knife she keeps by her bed, only to discover that he was, in fact, just a poor schmuck named Will Benson, who was unfortunate enough to enroll in a college near Cambridge, to take political science, and to fall for a girl named Julie James….
But I guess that was just too much of a downer. And instead of what might have been a fairly absorbing study of a girl’s mental disintegration, we have perhaps the dumbest and least frightening, most ill-conceived and misbegotten excuse for a horror movie that ever befouled the inner workings of my VCR."
