I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)

New I Know What You Did Last Summer is a Goofily Silly Legacy Sequel

If 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer was only made thanks to Scream being a box office juggernaut a year prior (it also helped that both were scripted by Kevin Williamson), a case could be made that the reason the former’s 2025 sequel exists is in large part due to the latter’s 2022 sequel being one of that year’s more surprising critical and financial success stories. But while that newer Scream had a difficult time stepping outside the massive shadow of its predecessors —  even with a fresh cast of young characters sitting alongside fan-favorite returnees — the same cannot be said about this new I Know What You Did Last Summer. It’s better than the two 1990s thrillers that came before it — much better — and I’m as shocked as anyone.

This is mainly due to two primary reasons: Director and co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, working once again with her Do Revenge collaborator Sam Lansky, isn’t afraid to play up the inherent cornball humor essential to the silly scenario they’ve dreamt up, and they are both equally unafraid to not use kid gloves on the franchise’s legacy characters Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.). They also add in some not-so-subtle commentary on wealth inequality, cultural assimilation, political corruption, religious hypocrisy, media illiteracy, and gentrification that I did not see coming. These are all virtues worth applauding.

Does it all work? Not really. The tone shifts from broad comedy to straight blood-thirsty thriller at the drop of a hat, and while a filmmaker like Wes Craven could pull off sudden transitions like this in his sleep, Robinson doesn’t seem to have the knack, at least not right now. Also, much like Do Revenge, the director seems to prefer a rather lackadaisical storytelling pace. This means she has difficulty maintaining tension and suspense for all 111 minutes. Finally, while much is undeniably by design, there is still a lot of incredibly dumb stuff throughout this tale, some of which caused me to do some serious eye rolling.

Set almost 30 years after the events of the first film, the story brings viewers back to the small coastal town of Southport. Residents have moved on from what happened to Julie, Ray, and their friends, so much so that their ordeal has become something of an urban legend that newcomers don’t even believe. Additionally, with the help of developer Grant Spencer (Billy Campbell), the community has progressed from being a working-class fishing village to an affluent enclave that wealthy tourists flock to during the summer months, and not everyone who lives in Southport thinks this is a good thing.

Some of the town’s nouveau riche include Danica (Madelyn Cline), Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), and Teddy (Tyriq Withers). The group’s fifth member, Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon), has a more blue-collar background, but that never stopped them from partying together. On the Fourth of July, hours after an engagement party for Danica and Teddy has long come to an inebriated conclusion, the quintet attempts to revisit their teenage exuberance and take in the fireworks on a secluded section of coastal highway. Drunken hijinks ensue, and a passing traveler in a truck gets sent over the side of a cliff, seemingly to their death.

Like in the original — but this time with the aid of Teddy’s powerful father, Grant — the friends cover up what happened that night, the lingering aftereffects playing havoc with their consciences. A year later, the five friends find themselves unexpectedly reunited when Danica receives a mysterious letter containing seven ominous words: “I know what you did last summer.”

Julie (who has left Southport and is now a college professor) and Ray (who has stopped fishing and now owns a popular local bar) get brought into things when a figure wearing a fisherman’s slicker and wielding a sharpened hook starts menacing Ava, Danica, and the rest of their group. While the duo’s connection to these events is tenuous at best, for obvious reasons they still feel obligated to help. But when bodies start to pile up, and with local authorities loath to do much more than offer platitudes (they don’t want to scare off the tourists), Julie and Ray get drawn in deeper and, in doing so, discover that their part in this bloody seaside opera may be larger than they thought.

It all gets obnoxiously convoluted, and there are points where it felt like Robinson and Lansky must have been making up aspects of the plot on the day of filming. But they still manage some flights of imaginative nonsense that I adored. Not the least of these is one banger of a loopy dream sequence featuring Cline — who is so magnetically marvelous as Danica, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her — that’s like a madcap cross between Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Blood and Black Lace, and the original Suspiria, only with a modern-day, influencer-culture twist. It’s inspired.

Other aspects I delighted in were Ava’s almost blasé bisexuality (a borderline afterthought that all of her friends, even the one who is attracted to her, take for granted), a sensational — if admittedly ludicrous — chase sequence through one of the first film’s signature locations (now gussied up as a high-end restaurant), and that it’s never a given which members of the primary cast are going to die when. Also, this sequel isn’t afraid to be laugh-out-loud funny. It plays into its campier aspects with enthusiasm, and the lively, go-for-broke performances from Cline, Wonders, Pidgeon, Prinze, and Hewitt only augment that.

I don’t really like the original (or its sequel, 1998’s I Still Know What You Did Last Summer), and for the life of me, I never would have believed there’d be enough affinity for it to warrant a follow-up. But the more I keep thinking about this I Know What Your Did Last Summer, the more I can’t stop smiling. It’s goofy. It’s messy. Much of it does not work, and many of its pieces almost belligerently refuse to fit together.

Yet, while I couldn’t shake the feeling that Robinson wanted to drill down into the satirically incisive aspects of her scenario with far more conviction than she was sadly allowed to, elements of her blistering social commentary still present themselves with nimble conviction. The director brings a sly, almost sadistic looniness to this sequel. As the film went on, the more I enjoyed myself, and by the time all the survivors were standing face-to-face for one last showdown, I was jubilantly hooked. I may just head back to the theater to watch this one again.

– Review reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle

Film Rating: 2½ (out of 4)