I Know What You Did Last Summer review

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER: 

LEGACY SEQUEL TO A HORROR MOVIE THAT DOESN’T HAVE MUCH OF A LEGACY! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** out of 4

COLUMBIA PICTURES

The Fisherman has returned in I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)

 

The notorious Fisherman Killer has resurfaced to stalk another group of people in I Know What You Did Last Summer, the legacy sequel to the 1997 slasher film of the same name. The film is directed and co-written by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Sweet/Vicious, Thor: Love and Thunder, Do Revenge) and once again produced by Neal H. Moritz (Fast & Furious franchise, XXX 1 and 2, Sonic the Hedgehog trilogy). 

The original I Know What You Did Last Summer is a very formulaic horror movie that was obviously made to capitalize on the success of Wes Craven’s Scream which was released a year prior (Even right down to it being from the same writer), but the performances by the leads are strong enough and there’s a fair amount of creative kills. The 1998 sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and the 2006 direct-to-DVD standalone third installment, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer are hot garbage with the latter being one of the worst films I’ve ever seen and I’ve never seen the 2021 miniseries on Amazon Prime Video. 

            Well, after the success of the Halloween and Scream legacy sequels, of course, I Know What You Did Last Summer has to get in on the action where new protagonists team up with the old characters to stop the current killer (I should be expecting an Urban Legend legacy sequel in the near future). It makes sense, the original I Know What You Did Last Summer was made to cash-in on the popularity of the first Scream and now this movie is cashing in on the success of Scream’s 2022 legacy sequel…the catch is this one is not as good as the 2022 Scream or its follow-up. 

            I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) is technically the best installment since the original (Though that isn’t saying much given how terrible the other films are), but it’s a very by the numbers legacy sequel that’s clearly trying to ride the coattails of Halloween and Scream with tons of nostalgic callbacks and returning cast members, but nothing to make it stand out. 

            The film follows five friends consisting of Danica Richards (Madelyn Cline-Boy Erased, Outer Banks, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery), Ava Brucks (Chase Sui Wonders-Generation, Bodies Bodies Bodies, The Studio), Milo Griffin (Jonah Hauer-King-World on Fire, The Little Mermaid (2023), Doctor Who), Teddy Spencer (Tyriq Withers-Legacies, The Game, Rich Wigga, Poor Wigga), and Stevie Ward (Sarah Pidgeon-The Wilds, Tiny Beautiful Things, The Friend) getting together for an engagement party on the 4^th of July. Things take a terrifying turn when they inadvertently cause a deadly car accident and the group makes a pact never to speak of it. 

            One year later in Southport, they start receiving mysterious messages that read “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and an unknown hook-wielding killer starts axing them off forcing them to confront the survivors of a similar massacre in 1997, Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt-Party of Five, Can’t Hardly Wait, Heartbreakers) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.-Head over Heels, Scooby-Doo 1 and 2, Star Wars: Rebels) in hopes of getting their help in stopping this new Fisherman killer. 

            The film also stars Billy Campbell (The Rocketeer, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Killing) as Grant Spencer, Gabbriette (Idiotka) as Tyler Trevino, Austin Nichols (One Tree Hill, The Day After Tomorrow, The Walking Dead) as Pastor Judah, Joshua Orpin (Titans, Home and Away) as Wyatt, and Isaiah Mustafa (Shadowhunters, It: Chapter Two, Boy Kills World) as Andrew. 

            Overall, I Know What You Did Last Summer is a very standard legacy sequel to a horror movie that doesn’t really have much of a legacy to begin with. It’s clearly trying to be like the recent Halloween and Scream movies with all the nods and references to the earlier films, but it just hits every tired trope from these kinds of movies without doing anything that unique or surprising (Aside from one twist in the last third that was completely fucking bonkers!). 

            But I am willing to excuse this film’s lack of originality if the lead characters are compelling and sadly, aside from maybe Madelyne Cline’s Danica and Chase Sui Wonders’ Ava (The two main female protagonists), I didn’t care for this new group of protagonists. They mostly just ranged from obnoxious douchebags to stock characters that are just there to die. 

            I’m not saying the characters in the original film were super deep or complex, but at least they were memorable and I gave…enough of a shit about them especially Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character. Sure, she’s no Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode from Halloween or Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott from Scream, but I was invested in Hewitt’s Julie James and wanted to see her escape the Fisherman in the previous movies and it was nice to see her again in this though she’s not as prominent as Curtis and Campbell were in the recent Halloween and Scream films. 

            There are some fun and inventive slasher movie kills in this like the one involving the outdoor pool lights shown in the trailers and the Fisherman staging scenes with the corpses of his/her victims for someone to react horrifyingly to. Plenty of gory hook deaths and speargun shooting with blood on the floor that I actually wouldn’t mind watching again…as clips on YouTube after the film leaves theaters. 

            I Know What You Did Last Summer tries to revitalize a dead iconic horror franchise with a legacy sequel to follow in the footsteps of Halloween and Scream, but it really misses the mark and becomes a generic and ultimately forgettable slasher movie revival. It just goes to show, some legacies don’t need to live on especially those that didn’t really have one from the start. 
            Also, someone should tell Disney executives that “Nostalgia is overrated!”.