Movie review: 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' fumbles horror, legacy
LOS ANGELES, July 16 (UPI) -- I Know What You Did Last Summer, in theaters Friday, is not a very good horror movie. With unsatisfying fan service, it is not a good legacy sequel either.
The film, the fourth in the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise, is set in Southport, N.C., the same town where the original 1997 movie took place. It too centers on a group of friends who cover up a roadside accident and are subsequently stalked by a killer with a fisherman's hook for a hand.
This sequel opens with Ava (Chase Sui Wonders) returning to Southport for her friends Danica (Madelyn Cline) and Teddy's (Tyriq Withers) engagement party. Their high school friend, Milo (Jonah Hauer-King) also attends, and when they discover old classmate Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) working as a caterer, they invite her for a drive to watch the Fourth of July fireworks.
After two fakeouts, the actual accident is caused by Teddy, who seemingly hits and kills a pedestrian, then convinces his friends to leave by promising he called someone for help. If this franchise is good for anything, hopefully it is to convince people never to leave the scene of an accident.
When Ava returns next year for Danica's wedding, a lot has changed. Danica now hangs out with Stevie regularly, and is engaged to a different man due to Teddy spiraling after the incident.
When the killings begin, the first several victims were not even involved with the crime. While they add to the body count, their deaths interminably prolong any danger to the main cast, and dilute the threat to the characters actually involved in the coverup.
There are more fake jump scares than genuine peril. The killer's fisherman slicker, at least, is scarier than the '90s incarnation.
I Know What You Did Last Summer hints at the cycle of history repeating itself when society fails to learn from it. The Southport police, with the help of Teddy's father, Grant (Billy Campbell), have effectively swept 1997 under the rug.
When the copycat killings begin, authorities spin both the accident and the summer's very public deaths, as unfortunate coincidences. They also offer a pastor, basically sending thoughts and prayers.
The theme of whitewashing the past could have been relevant; instead, it's simply an excuse to rehash the franchise without interrogating it.
On her return trip, Ava hooks up with a stranger, Tyler (Gabriette Bechtel), at the airport. Tyler turns out to be a true crime podcaster investigating the 1997 murders in Southport.
She serves to dump a ton of exposition in her recordings, and also takes Ava to an iconic location from the original so the filmmakers can recreate that movie's ominous mannequins covered in plastic.
I Know What You Did Last Summer is not the first legacy sequel to make podcasters characters. The 2018 Halloween and Terrifier 3 both have true crime podcasters, and the Ghostbusters sequels literally have a character named Podcast.
Not only is this sequel set in the same place as the 1997 film, but original stars Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. return as their characters, Julia and Ray. Hewitt and Prinze are great sports but many of the callbacks to their previous movies feel condescending, not loving. One callback is so silly it is insulting.
Portraying the surviving original characters as trauma survivors has also become an old trope. It is appreciated when handled with the sensitivity of Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween or Neve Campbell in Scream, but I Know What You Did Last Summer just wants to get Hewitt to say her famous lines again.
The eventual unmasking of the killer is not satisfying either. A lot of dialogue has to be spoken really fast to even justify it making sense.
Finally, I Know What You Did Last Summer has the gall to set up yet another sequel in a mid-credits scene. If they're following the 1998 sequel, they'll have to call it I Still Still Know What You Did Last Summer.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
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