Ah, summer break. The booze, the drugs, the late-night drives that inadvertently result in the death of a local. In Southport, North Carolina, a group of young twenty-somethings find themselves in a nightmare situation, making a pact that will come back to haunt them all with life-threatening consequences.
28 years after I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) first hit cinema screens and spawned two somewhat forgettable sequels, a revival of the franchise is stirring the waters. A legacy sequel à la 2022’s Scream with an identical title, the new I Know What You Did Last Summer features a cast of fresh faces, in addition to returning favourites, and a fresh manslaughter that triggers the arrival of a hook-wielding serial killer. Co-written and directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer stars Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, and Sarah Pidgeon with support from Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr.
Returning home to celebrate the engagement of her friends Danica (Cline) and Teddy (Withers), Ava (Wonders) is thrust back into the glitz and glamour of a completely refurbished Southport. Once a middle-class fishing town, Teddy’s father has used his significant wealth to turn Southport into a coastal destination and Ava’s social circle are textbook rich kids. Following the engagement party, Ava, Teddy and Danica, along with Ava’s ex-boyfriend Milo (Hauer-King) and their former high school friend Stevie (Pidgeon), drive to the cliffside to watch fireworks only to accidentally cause an oncoming car to swerve off the road and down the cliff to the ocean. Swearing the group to secrecy, Teddy has his father use his influence to cover the incident and the group parts ways with heavy consciences.
A year later, Ava is back in Southport and partying with her old friends. When Danica suddenly receives an anonymous note that simply says “I know what you did last summer” and people associated with them start dying gruesome deaths, the group enlists the help of Ray Bronson (Prinze Jr.) and Julie James (Love Hewitt), the survivors of a similar massacre in 1997, and together this team of old and new criminals try to unmask their predator before they become prey.
Now, I love a legacy sequel but I won’t blow too much smoke up this movie’s behind; it was very fun, but certainly not as good as it could’ve been. Robinson and her co-writers Leah McKendrick and Sam Lansky created a framework for some satisfying scares and some visual homages to horror classics like Jaws (or at the very least the Universal Studios’ theme park Jaws photo op), but the movie is often weighed down by corny and predictable dialogue ripped right out of the Gen-Z handbook. There’s only one character capable of making this dialogue sound funny, and that’s Danica. I will give credit to Robinson here for her ability to write funny, multi-faceted women and to Cline and Waters for knowing how to play them. Danica and Ava seem very different on the surface, with Ava coming across as the pragmatist while Danica presents as ditsy, but they complement each other perfectly and some of the film’s best scenes come from the two young women simply existing together.
If there is one thing that I love more than revisiting a classic slasher with fresh eyes, a fresh cast, and fresh kills it’s seeing the original Final Girl make a comeback. Of the returning cast members, I admittedly could’ve done without Freddie Prinze Jr. – while it was nice to see him acting across Jennifer Love Hewitt again, I do feel like the plot did him and his character a disservice. Love Hewitt, on the other hand, was perfection. I’ll admit that it’s been a while since I’ve seen the original I Know What You Did Last Summer, but it was a performance that is not easily forgotten and I can only imagine that she had as much fun returning to the role as I did seeing her on screen.
While I’m not totally sure if the franchise has enough strength in its legs to keep running out sequels, it was really nice to see another iconic franchise get a face lift and pay dues to its original stars. For slasher and horror fans, a night out to see the new I Know What You Did Last Summer will not be wasted. Just check your expectations at the door and ride the wave, it’ll be more fun that way.
I Know What You Did Last Summer is in cinemas nationwide now.