I Know What You Did Last Summer is a franchise that never quite found an identity of its own. Always playing second fiddle to the wild success of Scream’s satirical blend of comedy and horror, the survivors did not reach the iconic cultural status of Laurie Strode or Sidney Prescott, and the killer certainly does not live among the legends of Jason, Michael, and Freddy in the slasher hall of fame. The franchise only spawned one proper sequel and a direct-to-video third installment so terrible that the bar for a reboot was grave-deep. So a new iteration offers a chance for I Know What You Did Last Summer to leave a larger mark.
I Know What You Did Last Summer is directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge) and sees Chase Sui Wonders (Bodies Bodies Bodies) taking on the lead role in an ensemble of teens brought together by a tragic accident that has come back to haunt them. Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. also reprise their roles from the original film. Madelyn Cline (Outer Banks) is a standout as a vapid Gen-Z iteration of the ditzy prom queen archetype horror fans know and love.
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You will see a lot of familiar beats in this movie, not only because it sticks to the basic plotting of the original film, but also because the reboot formula is pulled directly from the wave of recent horror legacy sequels. The 1997 film was compared unfavorably to Scream. This new one felt similarly ripped from the playbook of the 2022 Scream reboot, but only for so long. I Know What You Did Last Summer is deceptively derivative at the start, but the final stretch has some zags that challenge the fan service these movies tend to rely on. There’s a big swing that will be controversial among the Last Summer die-hards, and it is the one choice that elevated this movie above cheap nostalgia bait.
The film lovingly embraces the campier quality of the genre at times. While Scream’s latest sequels are tripping over themselves to make a declarative statement on the status of horror movies, I Know What You Did Last Summer satirizes tropes and trends of reboots, slashers, and teen media with a much sillier approach. The characters are dumb as rocks, but not in a consistent manner. One of the movie’s weaknesses is that their stupidity feels earned and worth the comedic relief only half the time, while other times it seems to communicate bad writing more than anything else. The character motivations don’t exactly shape up by the end, and we don’t exactly learn enough about any of them to care.
The biggest sin of I Know What You Did Last Summer is its poor grasp on how the actual kill sequences are cut together. Characters often incapacitate the killer, having ample time to stomp, stab, or otherwise mortally wound their attacker, and instead choose to walk away slowly. There’s no logic or rhythm to how these scenes move, and the result is a bunch of deaths that feel mind-numbingly avoidable, including the inciting incident, which is much shoddier than the more thrilling ethical dilemma in the original film.
You may not get the uproarious bloodshed you’re looking for with this one, but I Know What You Did Last Summer does have some effective scares, a great cast, and a story that cleverly subverts the expectations that come with slasher legacy sequels. Cline’s sensational grasp on the horror-comedy tone is enough to make this worthwhile for those who have been waiting to see the hook passed down to a new generation.
5 out of 10
I Know What You Did Last Summer is in theaters now.
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This article appears in Jul 4-31, 2025.