I Know What You Did Last Summer Review: A Legacy Sequel Hooked On The Scares And Silliness Of Slashers

"I Know What You Did Last Summer" holds a special place in the pantheon of horror — not for breaking new ground, but for being a prime example of late-'90s studio opportunism dressed up in blood and teen angst. Loosely adapted from Lois Duncan's ominously titled YA thriller that was a staple of every junior high library, the script was penned by at-the-time up-and-coming screenwriter Kevin Williamson. Unfortunately, the film didn't move the needle, and it was discarded by Columbia Pictures. But then Williamson teamed up with Wes Craven for "Scream," ushering in a slasher renaissance that had every studio in town desperate to cash in.

"IKWYDLS" was hastily exhumed and rushed into production, now boasting the golden tagline "from the writer of 'Scream,'" which basically guaranteed a box office bloodbath. Even better, the production nabbed the lightning in a bottle ensemble casting of Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Ryan Phillippe — all perfectly coiffed and ready to run screaming through fishing villages.

But nostalgia has a way of rosying our memories, softening the harsh edges of how things actually were in favor of how we'd like to remember them as being. "I Know What You Did Last Summer" was not a critical hit, and its follow-up, "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer," fared even worse. The great majority doesn't even know "I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer" even exists, and I know I'm one of the few who actually watched the sole season of the series adaptation for Prime Video (that cast was fantastic, for the record).

This is to say, it's a bit of revisionist history to act as if director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson ("Sweet/Vicious," "Do Revenge," "Thor: Love and Thunder") is treading into sacred territory with her legacyquel, and important to remember the ridiculousness of the crab-filled waters she's wading into. 

As a slasher film? Yeah, sure, it's fine. As an addition to the "I Know What You Did Last Summer" franchise? Divas, we are UP!

Following the engagement party of Danica (Madelyn Cline) and the wealthy and well-connected Teddy (Tyriq Withers), the lovebirds and their two longtime best friends, Ava (Chase Sui Wonders) and Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), decide to drive to the best spot in Southport, North Carolina to watch the Fourth of July fireworks, and invite their estranged pal Stevie (Sara Pidgeon) to join them for old times' sake. Unfortunately, the group inadvertently causes a car accident, resulting in the death of an unknown man, but thanks to Teddy's daddy, they can all walk away scot-free with nothing but a head full of guilt.

A year later, Stevie and Danica are best friends in Southport, with the latter having since gotten re-engaged with a new man after leaving Teddy, who drowns himself in alcohol on his family's yacht. Ava's guilt has manifested in rough sex with strangers (down to requesting to be punished because "I deserve it"), while Milo is doing his very best Ray Bronson circa 1997 impression, aka ... he's just sort of there. Like the events of nearly 30 years ago, Danica receives a card claiming to know what she did last summer, and the body count immediately starts racking up. But the Southport of 2025 is not what it was in 1997. The police are still, to quote forever Croaker Queen Helen Shivers, "sh*t-stick-Mayberry-ass rejects," but this is no longer a humble, working-class town of fishermen. The new Southport is a haven of wealth, and like the doomed Amity Island of "Jaws," one that is willing to sacrifice its people if it means keeping the tourist dollars flowing.

With no one else to turn to, the group seeks out the survivors of the 1997 massacre, Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) and Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt), who have both processed what happened to them in wildly different ways. Ray owns the bar where Stevie works — the last vestige of what Southport once was, complete with the hull of the Billy Blue as wall decor — while Julie has become a psychology professor who specializes in the way trauma permanently changes a person's body and mind.

It's up to them to reopen old wounds to try and help prevent new ones from getting their hooks in this generation.

Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and Sam Lansky's script draws some strikingly smart meta parallels between the events of 1997 and 2025, with deliberate costume choices, set piece locations, well-placed one-liners, and even the "roles" within the friend dynamic, the film positions the audience as a kind of voyeuristic looking glass — one that reflects each era as a warped, funhouse mirror of the other. It's incredibly clever and provides the film with a platform for some of the film's funniest moments, but it's also rooted in the very real and very serious acknowledgement that things like guilt and tragedy can loiter for decades and bleed into everything that surrounds you. If you elect not to deal with it, it can also be your undoing.

The thing movies (and people, if we're being honest) get wrong about trauma is that trauma is not the actual event, but an individual's internal experience and response to that event. Think of it like "psychic damage," a lingering wound that influences a person's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, sometimes permanently. Robinson's legacyquel shockingly gets it right, opening the door for serious conversations a movie like "I Know What You Did Last Summer" doesn't often elicit.

And yet, none of that comes at the expense of fun. This thing rips. It's gleefully self-aware, never deluded into thinking it needs to "elevate" its source material to justify its existence. The original IKWYDLS is, let's face it, unintentionally hilarious (seriously — where did Ben Willis stash all those crabs in Julie's trunk?), and rather than shy away from that, the legacyquel embraces the camp with both arms and a scream. I do not know how Madelyn Cline is capable of delivering like 90% of what she says in this movie, but crown this Croaker queen again. Okay, yeah, the tension of the kills is broken up almost instantly by a strong sense of humor, but ... that's exactly how the OG film operates. At least this one is being honest about it.

There are many things I want to discuss regarding the film's themes, but to do so would be to spoil moments that had my audience gasping, clapping, and cheering at the screen. If you are a fan of this franchise and have even a passing interest in this legacyquel, I implore you to see it in the theaters on opening weekend, or mute the hell out of the movie title on social media lest you be spoiled. Just know that "I Know What You Did Last Summer" understands why the original series is so beloved, despite it admittedly being goofy as hell. It embraces the humor and brings it to the forefront, but isn't afraid to brutally torture some twentysomethings in the process.

Folks are going to nit-pick my rating on this the same way they will the movie, but all's fair in love and rotten tomatoes, and as a sequel nearly three decades in the making, it surpasses all expectations and completely nails the balance of nostalgia, bringing a familiar tale into our contemporary times. The third act (yanno, when we learn who the killer is) takes some big swings that don't all land, but the film is such a blast in a half it's doubtful that you'll care. If you do care, you probably also don't think the first film is all that great, and that's okay. Most people don't! But, if you're on the fence at all, there is a mid-credits sequence that truly leaves the mid-credits made mandatory by the Marvel Cinematic Universe dead in the dirt and is so damn good that it completely recontextualizes the tone of the movie that came before.

What are you waiting for, huh? Go see it for yourself and try not to hit anyone on the way there.

/Film Rating: 7 out of 10

"I Know What You Did Last Summer" hits theaters on July 18, 2025.