‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ Review: A Slash of Nostalgia

Movies teach such valuable lessons. For example, the original I Know What You Did Last Summer warns viewers never to drink and drive — or, if they are going to drink and drive, to at least never run over a murderous fisherman when they do it.

The new I Know What You Did Last Summer — which is also titled I Know What You Did Last Summer — offers similarly practical life advice. Such as: Do not stand in the middle of a blind curve on a mountain road — or, if you are going to stand in the middle of a blind curve on a mountain road, make sure you don’t send a truck swerving off a cliff, leave the scene of the accident, and then, one summer later, get embroiled in an elaborate revenge plot.

I’m having a little fun with I Know What You Did Last Summer because I Know What You Did Last Summer is having a little fun with I Know What You Did Last Summer, and with the very idea continuing a story about the survivors of a bloodthirsty fisherman who can seemingly materialize out of thin air and vanish instantly without a trace while draped from head to toe in PVC and rubber. (Seriously: Where do I get a pair of the Fisherman’s rain boots? His are whisper quiet and mine squeak like the dickens.)

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Faced with the absurd concept of a film about a copycat fisherman murderer, director/co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson leaned into that absurdity, crafting something closer in tone to a knowing horror comedy like Scream (which was scripted by original I Know What You Did Last Summer screenwriter Kevin Williamson) than the first IKWYDLS, which was more of a straightforward hot-teens-in-peril slasher.

This time out, the core protagonists have been aged up to their twenties and, in a coincidence that could only happen in a valuable intellectual property that needs a modern refresh, their crew of five longtime friends travel the exact same stretch of North Carolina road where a terrible accident occurred on the exact same night some 30 years ago. Just as before, the witnesses (who are also sort of the perpetrators) decide to flee the scene and then vow to keep their mouths shut about what they saw and the role they played.

One year later, the group — Danica (Madelyn Cline), Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Teddy (Tyriq Withers), and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) — reconnect at Danica’s bridal shower. Before you can say “Hey, does anyone know what she did last summer?” Danica receives an anonymous letter to that effect. Bodies quickly pile up, and the murders bear unmistakable similarities to the ones 30 years earlier in this same small seaside town. (Not too many killers use the ol’ fish hook.) That sends the current crop of potential hookees off to find the key survivor of the earlier massacre, Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt), now a college professor who teaches classes about the body’s reaction to trauma. She offers Ava advice about how to deal with a homicidal angler, and utters a line that will go down in horror movie history: “I just have one question: What did you do last summer?”

Like I said, this movie’s having fun. The first IKWYDLS (based on a 1973 novel by Lois Duncan) at least wrestled a little with the idea that these kids kind of deserve their comeuppance; 2025’s model is much more focused on tweaking the notion of a morality play centered around a dude dressed like the Gorton’s fisherman with a killer grudge. Cline in particular makes a very appealing heroine for this sort of film thanks to her letter-perfect comic timing. I really started rooting for Danica, not necessarily because I cared so much about her character, but because I really enjoyed watching Cline quip her way through this knowingly silly story and didn’t want to lose her onscreen energy.

Also good in a relatively limited amount of screen time is the other returning franchise veteran, Freddie Prinze Jr., as seemingly the only person left in this town who remembers what happened decades earlier (probably because, y’know, he was almost gutted by a guy in a bucket hat and rain slicker). Prinze is better here than he was in the first film, and strikes a convincing figure as a man whose life was changed forever by this terrible event in his past. (Actually, make that events. He was also in the first sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, something he even cracks a joke about at one point.)

I’ll be honest: I don’t hold any of the earlier I Know What You Did Last Summer movies in very high regard, and I didn’t have huge expectations for this legacyquel, which I have to assume exists because Scream got a successful legacyquel a few years ago. (That’s especially fitting because the first I Know What You Did Last Summer only happened because the original Scream was a hit back in the ’90s.) This new IKWYDLS has at least one too many endings, and it gets off to a very slow and very familiar start. But it gradually won me over with its clever use of its legacy characters and its wry tone.

Robinson knew precisely what she was making here, right down to the scene where two characters weigh the pros and cons of nostalgia. Frankly, the whole movie industry could use more original ideas and fewer looks back to the past. But this one is entertaining enough that I’ll give it a pass. By a small margin, it’s probably the best I Know What You Did Last Summer ever. (Bear in mind, I’m not a particularly big fan of the original — which, come to think of it, might be why I enjoyed this movie and its slightly self-mocking tone, more.)

Additional Thoughts:

-The early scenes take place at an engagement party where signs hanging in the background read “Danica & Teddy Got Hooked.” It’s a cute gag, although when you think about it, it’s in awfully poor taste to put up “HOOKED” signs at a party taking place in the hook murder capital of the world.

-I will tell you exactly what the film’s publicist told me when I arrived for the screening: “Don’t leave before the end credits.”

RATING: 6/10