I Know What You Did Last Summer Review: Legacy Sequels Really Need to Get the Hook Now

Out of all the Y2K-era R-rated horrors, it was only a matter of time before I Know What You Did Last Summer handed its hook over to the next generation—now in the shape of the boilerplate legacy sequel movie, as opposed to the short-lived and already forgotten 2021 Prime Video series.

Despite the commercial success of the original 1997 slasher, I Know What You Did Last Summer is not as well regarded as Scream. Upon revisiting the original, it’s noticeable too. The flick is straightforward in its cat-and-mouse-styled set pieces, functioning like one of those cliché slashers you see modern TV characters watch on their TVs or phones. So the bar for director/co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge) to clear wasn’t that high. But while this Gen-Z-centric rendition had the potential to easily exceed the quality of the original, this week’s I Know What You Did Last Summer and its obnoxious nostalgic-core make it sink lower than old Ben Willis’ body in ‘97.

Despite some good performances and good kills, IKWYDLS ‘25 captures the worst of the legacy sequel trend in a product that the most recent Scream series would point and laugh at—not with. 

The film follows Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), a young woman who returns to her hometown of Southport, North Carolina for the engagement party of her best friends Danica (Madelyn Cline) and Teddy (Tyriq Withers). There Ava reconnects with her ex-boyfriend Milo (Jonah Hauer-King) and then with their former best friend Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon), who they share a strained past with.

In a story as old as time itself, they then go on a drive together on the fateful Fourth of July and engage in antics that lead to a car accident in which a driver plunges off a cliff. But given that these characters are Gen-Z, they attempt to save him before the car crashes into the ocean. However, after arguing about their mistakes, the group vows to cover up their tracks in the incident, and Teddy enlists his wealthy father—who revamped Southport into a Martha’s Vineyard-type location following the aftermath of the 1997 massacre—to help hide their culpability. 

A year later, everyone’s relationships have drastically shifted. Danica and Teddy have broken off their engagement; Stevie and Danica grew closer; and Ava returns home more guilt-ridden than ever. When they arrive, their past haunts them again when Danica gets an anonymous note “I Know What You Did Last Summer” at her new engagement party. They learn that a masked fisherman with a hook is hunting them down along with everyone they love. The friends investigate this further, and their paths lead to a divorced couple, psychology professor Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Southport bar owner Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.), the only survivors of the similar massacre that began in ‘97.

Unlike other legacy sequels, IKWYDLS arrives operating as if it spurred out a long-running franchise—and the two ‘90s relics it did produce were of the same high reverence as Scream. Yet even Sony’s prior attempt to revive a ‘90s horror franchise with the forgettable 2020 Craft reboot, The Craft: Legacy, was at least successful in crafting (sorry) its own Gen-Z-oriented vision and without leaning into its titular “legacy” until its finale.

By comparison, and with no self-awareness whatsoever, IKWYDLS attempts to be Scream 5 in every way possible. It takes itself seriously with no self-awareness or charming campiness, and Robinson’s aesthetic emulates much of Radio Silence’s approach to their pair of Scream redos. There is a stronger emphasis on sound design, gore, and long-winded set pieces with graphic kills, but it’s all to a minimal effect. Robinson’s iteration half-asses the cat-and-mouse flow style and the psychological horror element, as the Fisherman acts as a Ghostface yet lacking malice. 

Much of IKWYDLS tries to have its cake and eat it too by adhering to the legacy sequel narrative structure while focusing on rapid set pieces. Buried underneath is an enticing motif regarding the linkage between trauma and gentrification, which Robinson and Sam Lansky’s script actively neglects. It is treated as window dressing while the mission at hand devolves into the studio-normative nostalgia exercise.

There is a fine attempt at humor, and Robinson’s brand of modern internet comedy has its charm, as evidenced in Do Revenge has its charm. She also reveals decent tonal control in IKWYDLS’ first act before frustratingly losing the thread. The film devolves into pandering toward its perceived demographic, insisting on internet references and buzzword-fueled dialogue. Play a drinking game with how many times characters say “diva,” “nepo baby,” or reference therapy. Although Madelyn Cline is the most notable comic relief, neither her dialogue nor her jokes live up to her excellent comedic timing. She delivers an impressive horror performance, demonstrating a subtle hysterical response to the letter’s arrival and downplaying her panicked state while performing in front of the crowd. 

Aside from Cline, Chase Sui Wonders—whose baffling Emmy snub for The Studio on the same day the press screened this movie made me see red—carries the film with an empathetic and confident central performance. Ava is the only member of the group to insist on doing the right thing and faces a fascinating emotional burden and trauma that the writers fail to really delve further into.

The remaining cast members—Pidgeon, Hauer-King, and Withers—are largely uninteresting or only serve as eye candy. When compared to the clear — yet basic—archetypes of Ryan Phillipe’s machoness and Sarah Michelle Gellar’s diva energy, this ensemble severely lacks character.

As for its returning cast members, Hewitt is decent enough for the weak material given. Prinze Jr, on the other hand, is underwhelming as he’s often stilted in his sleepwalking line deliveries.  

The first two acts of this I Know What You Did Last Summer were mostly forgettable or mildly entertaining. Then when the climax rolls around, it is a series of shocking missteps and awful twists that, on paper, seem like an ambitious big swing if properly developed. But the way Robinson executes it is outlandishly stupid, like watching a car pile up in real time, every horrendous turn had my mouth agape and the reckless, never-neverending callbacks, constantly wincing,

IKWYDLS is like an in-universe Stab movie that the characters in Scream would use as a basis to enact their satirical conversations about legacy sequels. Something the Scream movies actually did three years ago. However, the studio here is more preoccupied with mining its IP history than trying to create something fresh and entertaining for its younger audience. So what stands is an embarrassing slasher that makes you wish someone would hook-slash the legacy sequel trend once and for all.