I Know What You Did Last Summer (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

I Know What You Did Last Summer

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (2025)

Starring Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Billy Campbell, Gabbriette Bechtel, Austin Nichols, Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Brandy Norwood, Joshua Orpin, Georgia Flood, Nick Farnell, Nick Hardcastle, Simone Annan, Luke Van Os, Isaiah Mustafa, Leah McKendrick and Brian Duffy.

Screenplay by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson & Sam Lansky.

Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.

Distributed by Columbia Pictures. 111 minutes. Rated R.

The original I Know What You Did Last Summer was a big part of the late-1990s renaissance of slasher films – a horror subgenre which had been huge in the late-1970s and early 1980s but had been out of favor for over a decade. Things turned around in 1996, when Wes Craven’s Scream resurrected the art form, leading to follow-ups like the Urban Legend films, Candyman and the original I Know What You Did Last Summer.

When it came out in 1997 the film was a pretty considerable success, and it helped to catapult the young, hot cast – Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Johnny Galecki and Anne Heche – into at least temporary stardom.

However, unlike Scream, which actually did something new and subversive to the genre – adding a post-modern jadedness and snarkiness to the blood and violence – I Know What You Did Last Summer was pretty much paint-by-numbers horror. If it had been made about 15 years earlier, it definitely would have starred Jamie Lee Curtis.

It definitely had some scares, and it had a clever idea for the villain, who looked like the Gorton’s Fisherman mowing kids down with a giant hook. However, otherwise it didn’t stand out that much. A rushed sequel – I Still Know What You Did Last Summer – came out the next year and was a popular and critical failure.

After that, very few people have given much thought to I Know What You Did Last Summer. At least until now. Twenty-eight years after the original, this reboot tries to make us nostalgic for something many of us hadn’t thought of in years.

Like the original film, there is a group of beautiful and jaded young teens – played by Madelyn Cline (Outer Banks), Chase Sui Wonders (The Studio), Jonah Hauer-King (The Little Mermaid), Tyriq Withers and Sarah Pidgeon – who witness a death and do not report it.

It takes place in Southport, the same town as the original killings back in 1997, although the legend of the mass killings was pretty much covered up by a local developer (Billy Campbell).

Interestingly – and part of the problem with the carefulness of this updated version – is that the teens are not really culpable for the death, it’s more of a tragic accident. Could they have done more to help the guy? Sure, but they were not directly responsible for his death.

A year later the group receives a note saying, “I know what you did last summer.” Then a series of violent killings starts to occur, apparently done by a man in a rain slicker and hat with a huge hook, and revolving around the teens with the secret.

The two teens who survived the original slaughter – Julie James (Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Prinze Jr.) are dragged into the fray as adults. James has become a professor and a PTSD specialist in a nearby college, and Benson owns a local bar and employs one of the girls who were part of the accident. Sarah Michelle Gellar – whose character was killed in the original film – also has a brief cameo in a dream sequence.

From here on, it’s pretty standard slasher fare – the killer stalks and attacks the teens and a series of friends, relatives and innocent bystanders, leaving a bloody trail in his wake.

The final reveal of the killer’s identity is strangely both exceedingly obvious and at the same time, it really makes no real narrative sense.

Honestly, I think that I Know What You Did Last Summer overestimates the public’s infatuation with the original film. The nostalgia and fan service are sort of fun, but it would be more entertaining in a series to which we had more of an emotional attachment.

However, if you just take the film at a basic level, it does have some significant scares. And really, that’s all this series has ever aspired to. If you’re into slasher films, you’ll probably enjoy I Know What You Did Last Summer. 

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: July 17, 2025.