I Know What You Did Last Summer Review

The success of Wes Craven’s Scream in 1996 cannot be downplayed, the slasher revitalized the horror genre after the 80s slasher trend finished, and opened the door for more self-reflective features, with postmodern film references all over the filmic landscape in the modern day. One of the things it caused mainly however was a line of clear copycats, just like Halloween spawned films like Friday the 13^th and Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream spawned such features like Scary Movie and Urban Legend, continuing the new postmodern formula of Craven’s original feature. Probably the most famous film to come off the back of Scream is 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer. Based on Lois Duncan’s 1993 novel of the same name, the film took the mystery novel and turned it into a classic 80s slasher feature, a choice which some critics took issue with, viewing it as an out-of-date feature which falls back on the trappings of 80s horror rather than the positives that came from Scream. However, the movie owes its success to coming out a year after Scream, and even though fairing middling in critical reviews, the film was a box office success and has long since became a cult classic.

The film was even written by Scream scribe Kevin Williamson. Followed a mere year later, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer was a box office success once again but essentially killed the franchise, receiving even worse critical reviews and being criticised for essentially feeling like a remake of the original. In the years since, there has only been small signs of life from Sony’s hopeful cash cow of a franchise, with an unrelated sequel coming direct to DVD in 2006, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, and a streaming reboot series released in 2021 to Amazon Prime, which was cancelled after one season.

It is only naturally that after the success of the Scream franchise coming back to the big screen once again, with successful entries in 2022 and 2023 and another instalment in the works currently, that studios would attempt to bring back their own reflexive slasher properties. Hollywood star Marlon Wayans, and his brothers Shawn Wayans and Keenan Ivory Wayans, have been announced to helm another Scary Movie feature, and Sony has returned to make another I Know What You Did Last Summer feature. In typical legacy sequel fashion, the film is titled the same as the original, and began life in 2014 when Mike Flanagan, famous for his Netflix series like The Haunting of Hill House, and Jeff Howard signed on to reboot the property. Initially pitched as a complete reboot of the franchise, removed from any connections to the original feature or the novel it was based on, the project entered development hell once Flanagan and Howard left the project. Revitalized by a legacy sequel pitch from director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, the film has finally seen the light of day in cinemas now.

The 2025 legacy sequel follows a new group of friends who become plagued by a hook-wielding fisherman killer after they covered up an accidental murder. 27 years later after a similar incident, the friend group recruits original survivors Julie James and Ray Bronson to help them stop the killer.

The film sees the return of franchise star Jennifer Love Hewitt to the big screen, with her mainly being seen on television for the past decade, with brief appearances on shows like 9-1-1 and Criminal Minds. A baffling scene in the third act sees the character state that nostalgia is overrated, when the entire backbone of this feature is nostalgia. The choice to see the return of Hewitt and Freddie Prince Jr to the franchise is done to harken back to the originals, the movie follows the legacy sequel trend that 2018’s Halloween and 2022’s Scream started. Hewitt takes the role of Laurie Strode or Sidney Prescott from the previously mentioned features, a background returning character that serves only to remind audiences of the original and appear for the triumphant third act.

Prince Jr continues the archetype started by the return of David Arquette’s Dewey in 2022’s Scream, a grizzled and saddened version of the character we once knew who returns to bring wisdom to the new characters and to inform them on the rules of the franchise. Just like every other legacy sequel, the film follows the exact same formula of the original, essentially acting as a remake but with returning characters. The newly added elements also just make the film feel like a spoof of Scream, the whodunnit nature is more present here, with various potential killers rather than just the one of the original. Red herrings are present throughout, and there is an attempt to have a postmodern conversation about nostalgia, but it all falls flat when the movie is falling back on nostalgia itself.

The movie is relatively safe in its narrative, if you have seen the original, then you have also seen this film. There is a bold attempt at subverting legacy sequel tropes in the third act, but it is choreographed well ahead of its reveal and will only serve to presumably annoy people who enjoy the original feature. Hewitt and Prince Jr give serviceable performance in their screen time, but the biggest pitfall of the newest legacy feature is how little it gives its new characters. Each new character is given an archetypal role that boils down their personalities and gives them very little else, giving newcomers Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers and Sarah Pidgeon very little to work with. When attempting to undertake a narrative like a whodunnit, it is important to make the characters memorable, and this film fails to follow through on that. They all feel like characters that would be found comfortably in an 80s slasher, whose only purpose is to become part of the body count.

Editing inconsistencies also plague this film throughout, the lead killer seems to be able to teleport in sequences where it is clear moments have been stripped away in the edit, and there are scenes where characters seem to be changing attire in the same scene. The end tease for a potential sequel also seems to be based around a removed scene that was in an earlier screening of the film, with this line inclusion now seeming out of place with that scene removed. The entire plot of the film also hinges on an accident that does not make much sense, with screenwriters Sam Lansky and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson writing themselves in a corner with how to explain the killer’s motivations and the guilt of its central characters.

Kills are brutal and creative throughout, with Robinson’s direction shining when making the use of shadows and making the use of impressive sound design in engaging kills. It is one of the clear standouts of a confused and middling script, but it cannot save a film which is struggling to stand out from the shadow of the Scream juggernaut. 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer feels like a late entry into the legacy sequel trend, a film irking of the success of much better slasher films in the last decade, and reflects the failings that can come from this once-dead genre.