It really is a great title. Boasting the same awesome premise, I Know What You Did Last Summer hopes this new generation of ill fated teens can ride the wave that the 1997 movie did for it’s quad…before being murdered by a hook wielding fisherman. I don’t know if the fivesome will get there, but at least one or two deserve the ingenue bump for committing to this lovely hot trash.
For the Gen Z’ers Jennifer Kaytin Robinson wants to watch this film, here’s your killer hook, pun intended: Danica Richards (Madelyn Cline) and Teddy Spencer (Tyriq Withers) just got engaged, flanked by their best friends/on & off couple Ava Brucks (Chase Sui Wonders) and Milo Griffin (Jonah Hauer-King). For a nightcap, Danica drives the 4 and their old friend Stevie Ward (Sarah Pidgeon) who was working the party, on a beautiful coastal Southport Carolina coastal drive to see fireworks. Some grey area shenanigans later, and a truck ends up crashing due to the behavior of the 5 twentysomethings, who call Teddy’s dad Grant (Billy Campbell) to bury the story while they all bury their feelings about it. Cut to a year later, and at a bridal shower, Danica gets an unmarked “gift” card, with a message inside.
This I Know What You Did Last Summer is as dumb and silly as the 1997 one. Robinson and Leah McKendrick went to the young cast and must have asked them for every Gen Z slang term, working them all into the under 2 hour script. As such, the movie reads pretty inhuman at times, force feeding terms instead of characters down our throats. As a horror film, some kills work, and some don’t. The story is the biggest reason for that: the movie botches it’s tension buildup, never quite gaining enough momentum to propel us to the big conclusion, either because a horror setup was overthought and didn’t work, or because red herrings are not developed well enough to be big enough herrings to catch the audience’s attention.
But despite these big problems, I was pretty entertained throughout. That’s because Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and her two female leads really give a damn about this stupid 1997 slasher, and want it to work for a new generation. There’s lots of great drone shooting and some smartly cut together sequences, making great use of over the top creepy colors and bath bombs. Chase Sui Wonders and Madelyn Cline were ready to lead this thing, both playing fun parts in other murder mystery movies. Wonders actually is the centering force of the movie, playing just the right mixture of sexy, scary, and hurting, necessary for the audience to root for her and not the fisherman. Cline is even better; Danica is the role she was born to play, leaning hard into her privileged narcissistic leaning persona tethered to reality by Ava and Stevie and that’s it. Watching her turn every scene into one about her gives the movie a nice little darkly comedic edge that kept me waiting for more. As for our OG’s Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr., they’re active in here, especially Prinze’s Ray. The two best sequences in the movie are wonderful homages to that 1997 film, showing McKendrick and Robinson’s affection for what the mediocre slasher with the great cast meant to them growing up.
So if you liked the 1997 movie, the 2025 I Know What You Did Last Summer is more celebration than remix. Sit back, relax, and watch 5 smokeshows get smoked, hook line and sinker. Ugh, that line was giving skibidi toilet, no rizz whatsoever!