Lilli Keeve
Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (of Netflix’s 2022 comedy Do Revenge), the Gen-Z-centric slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer is a legacy sequel to the iconic ‘90s film of the same name. Plot-wise, the film follows the same story as its predecessors: a group of young adults accidentally kill a man and cover it up, and one year later, as they have moved on with their lives, they’re being stalked and killed by a vindictive, slicker-wearing fisherman with a hook. They are forced to reconcile with their past and confront the killer with the help of the original survivors, Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr).
Unfortunately, the movie fails to effectively deliver anything compelling or insightful, despite its attractive and talented young cast, an element that should appeal to today’s teen audience. I Know What You Did Last Summer is sadly nothing more than a trashy summer slasher movie with a body count and one too many throwaway “woke” lines. In a modern and meta context, Robinson’s reiteration feels more like a soulless cash grab than an intelligent offering of characters with in-depth backstories that are fully fleshed out and realized.
Reviving the legacy sequel concept has been done before. 2011’s Scream 4 is a perfect example of introducing new characters while bringing back legacy ones (and did a much better job than this film). One of the prominent issues lies within the screenplay, where it seems that Robinson and her writing partner, Sam Lansky, were trying to appease the fans of the original by weaving Julie and Ray into the narrative while also introducing a younger audience to the story and characters a la fresh-faced actors like Madelyn Cline (Outer Banks) as Danica Richards and Chase Sui Wonders (Bodies, Bodies, Bodies) as Ava Brucks. However, the movie’s angle is to be cool and relevant without overtly honoring the previous films that came before it. Julie and Ray’s dynamic feels off; they are completely underutilized, and their acting isn’t great either. Considering their traumatic pasts and them being divorced and estranged, the movie barely allows them any authentic time together, which is severely disappointing and a disservice to the actors and their characters.
An element of the narrative that shone through some of these irritating discrepancies is the enduring female friendship between Danica and Ava, Southport’s final girls. Given that the writing already isn’t strong, extra props are given to Cline and Wonders for their ability to work with the material and become two of the movie’s best characters. Danica is the beautiful, rich blonde who has a surprisingly solid amount of depth given her stereotype, and Ava is the level-headed and rational one who is bisexual, a background that the film lightly touches on but doesn’t care enough about to explore. The girls’ ride-or-die relationship somewhat resembles that of Julie and Helen Shivers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in the first I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)—if Helen had ultimately survived. Helen is mentioned in the movie, and she draws parallels to Danica’s character.
The biggest blunder of Robinson’s movie is the decision to make a specific character the killer, in a frustrating ending that makes zero sense. For newer audiences who don’t have special ties to the original film, it might not matter—for those who are dedicated fans, it is a forced decision that lacks emotional weight and neglects to present a profound reason or motive. By that point, the writers found an easy way out of the most crucial storytelling detail for this almost 30-year-old narrative. Perhaps Robinson and Lansky thought this would be a divisive choice, or they just threw it in for fun. Regardless, it’s lazy screenwriting.
It’s unfortunate that the movie’s negatives inevitably outweigh its few positives. Aside from one particularly effective and well-executed kill towards the beginning, the cinematography is mediocre, and nearly every decision made by these characters lacks intelligence or coherence. Sadly, the writers ended the movie with an obnoxious line that had nothing to do with the larger message or the sloppy and illogical revealing of who was behind the gruesome, senseless murders. Robinson had a clean slate to work with, and whether it was due to varying studio pressures or a generally muddled concept from its inception, 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer failed to hook me in.
