‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ Is Probably Best Forgotten

In this cinematic era of IP dumpster-diving, the horror genre is one of the trailblazers for legacy sequels. Recently we’ve had Scream 5 and 6, as well as new Halloween and Texas Chain Saw Massacre films, but studios have been putting out hacky sequels to horror hits years after the original’s release for decades at this point. 

Even so, 2025’s reboot and legacy sequel of I Know What You Did Last Summer feels particularly tired. Based on the world established in the visually stunning but paper thin 1997 film, its very existence feels like a miscalculation of how much people are actually invested in this film series. Despite gesturing towards something interesting at first, it transforms into a trite and chronically online slasher flick with little in the way of kills or thrills. 

Much like the original, I Know What You Did Last Summer starts as five young adults inadvertently cause the death of a driver through their reckless behaviour. Despite a guilty conscience, they swear to never tell anyone or bring it up again… until a mysterious killer dressed as a fisherman starts hunting them down and killing them. 

Like many legacy sequels, the latest installment in the I Know… series has a painfully nostalgic approach to being a sequel. The film opens in essentially the same way as the 1997 film, and many other scenes are recreated shot-for-shot to fire up the part of your brain where memories are stored. It also doesn’t help that Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze, Jr. reprise their roles in performances that, while admirably acted, feel pretty lazy. 

It’s a shame, because 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer has a few interesting ideas. After the events of the previous films, the fictional town of Southport was transformed into the ‘Hamptons of the south’. Given the 1997 movie touches very briefly on class as a theme, exploring what happens when a town is gentrified like this could’ve been a genuinely interesting direction to take.

I Know What You Did Last Summer attempts to recapture non-existent past glory

Alas, the film is not fundamentally interested in exploring such themes. It’s more looking to capture the magic that propelled the recent Scream films to box office success by having a new group of young teens interact with their older, wiser franchise elders to avoid getting stabbed. It’s even got a particularly eyeroll-worthy cameo and obvious bit of sequel bait as a post-credit scene. 

The issue is that even back in the day, I Know… was nothing compared to Wes Craven’s wry slasher classic and certainly has never been as iconic. The imitation seems even clearer now, especially when the film attempts a tongue-in-cheek attitude with its sincerely cringe-inducing modern vernacular that mostly just feels consistently inappropriate for the film’s tone. 

Thankfully, the new cast range from serviceable to quite good in a script that does them no favours. I quite liked Chase Sui Wonders as Ava, whose role is most similar to Love Hewitt in the original but with enough distinction to make her feel separate. And although I didn’t really love her character’s portrayal as extremely ditzy, I actually thought Madelyn Cline was great as Danica, who certainly has the biggest arc. 

Yet this is still a strangely inert film with a script that has very little for horror fans to chew on with underwhelming kills and even smaller thrills. Director/writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and co-writer Sam Lansky’s screenplay feels like a first draft – red herrings are to be expected in a mystery slasher, but I Know… is littered with so many small moments that feel incongruous with each other either tonally or narratively. 

The end result isn’t a huge surprise. I Know What You Did Last Summer is a sequel that attempts to capture a past glory that wasn’t really present to begin with, leading to a final product that sinks more than it swims. Though not without some early promise, don’t be too surprised when it fails to hook you in.

★½

I Know What You Did Last Summer is in cinemas now.