Rating: D-
Dir: Andreas Prochaska
Star: Sabrina Reiter, Julia Rosa Peer, Michael Steinocher, Nadja Vogel
a.k.a. In 3 Tagen bist du tot
Or perhaps more accurately: Ich weiß, was du letzten Sommer getan hast. It seems that it’s not just Hollywood making blandly uninspired knockoffs of other countries’ films. Other countries can make blandly uninspired knockoffs of Hollywood films too! Let’s hear it for cultural appropriation. Right from the beginning, with a bunch of thoroughly uninteresting students passing their final exams, it’s clear we are in trouble. Even before the first victim has breathed his or her last, you will probably have figured out who is going to be the Final Girl: spikily aggressive Nina (Reiter). Despite a couple of desultory attempts to fake you out, you will be right.
She and her friends all receive text messages telling them they will be dead in three days. Initially, they pay no attention, until one of their number goes missing. He (or she) is weighed down and dumped in the town lake, only to bob back up to the surface at exactly the moment the rest of the group are moping on the shore. Further abductions and deaths follow. But it’s basically not until the two-thirds point that anybody suddenly remembers the clique’s involvement in a death, for which somebody has clearly never forgiven them. Why did this person wait so long before suddenly rushing into a murder spree? You should know better than to ask such sensible questions about a slasher movie.
Or, probably, point out that people are dying in significantly less than three days. If it had been consistent, delivering a The Ring-like sense of impending doom, that might have been a novel spin. Instead, to be accurate, the text message should have read, “You are going to die at some point over the next three days.” Not as catchy a title though. With such a terrible script, combined with performances which feel like they were stamped out using a cookie cutter, this never has a chance. I was increasingly aggravated by almost every element, right up until the facile ease with which the villain is dispatched. Although I admit, it is reasonably well-photographed, and the scenery around the town of Ebensee is very pretty.
Part of the problem is that I was no fan of the I Know What You Did franchise to begin with. I found it among the safest of safe horror, although vanilla pudding is basically Kevin Williamson’s stock in trade. Had I realized this was a European take on the concept before watching, I would likely not have bothered. Instead, it was when the first text message showed up, that I got a sinking feeling about what I was letting myself in for. It was then a case of waiting an hour and a half for the movie to catch up with my suspicions. The first example of death by fish-tank I remember, definitely does not feel like adequate recompense for the boredom.