As someone who enjoyed Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and both of the most recent “Scream” movies, I’m probably not in a position to complain about legacy sequels.
So I was willing to give the new take on “I Know What You Did Last Summer” the benefit of the doubt for a little while, as it rehashes the plot of the 1997 movie while awkwardly shoehorning in the original characters played by Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr.
While director and co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson comes up with some amusingly snarky dialogue and the lead performances from Chase Sui Wonders and Madelyn Cline are strong, the overall viewing experience feels empty.
Just as the first movie was an attempt to piggyback on the success of the original “Scream,” the new “I Know What You Did Last Summer” comes off as a blatant effort to replicate the popularity of 2022’s “Scream” and “Scream VI.” In both cases, the copycat comes up short.
‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ is both a remake and a sequel
Like a lot of legacy sequels, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” puts its new characters through a plot that largely rehashes the earlier movie, while bringing along classic characters in supporting roles. That makes the repetition even more obvious, since the older characters are around to comment on it, and it weakens the impact of the central story.
Viewers already know that the main characters are going to cover up a fatal accident, and that someone who knows what they did last summer is going to start stalking and killing them a year later.
It’s weird, then, that this is happening yet again in the same town and in the same manner as it did in 1997, when teenagers Ray Bronson (Prinze), Julie James (Hewitt), Helen Shivers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Barry Cox (Ryan Phillippe) were targeted by a hook-wielding killer in a fisherman’s slicker a year after a hit-and-run collision that left a man dead.
This time, there are five friends involved in the inciting accident, and they’re in their mid-20s rather than their teens, but otherwise things play out in a remarkably similar manner.
Following the engagement party for Danica Richards (Cline) and Teddy Spencer (Tyriq Withers), the engaged couple and their friends Ava Brucks (Wonders), Milo Griffin (Jonah Hauer-King) and Stevie Ward (Sarah Pidgeon) take a drive along the twisty scenic coastal highway of their North Carolina hometown of Southport, stopping off to watch a fireworks display.
Their carelessness causes another vehicle to swerve and plunge off the side of the cliff, in what could easily be categorized as an accident if reported. Instead, they decide to leave the driver to die, fleeing the scene and pledging never to speak of the incident again.
One year later, their lives have gone in separate directions, but an anonymous note reading “I know what you did last summer” brings them back together. Once people start dying, the quintet seeks out the advice of Julie, now a college professor, and Ray, who owns the Southport bar where Stevie works.
There’s no real evidence that the current killing spree is connected to anyone from the 1997 massacre, but the movie presents it as if there’s a long legacy of killers clad in fishing gear murdering people who fail to report roadside accidents.
‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ delivers an awkward mix of homage and parody
Robinson, who previously made the much campier 2022 Netflix thriller “Do Revenge,” increases the self-aware humor, taking her cues from “Scream,” another modern revival of a Kevin Williamson-originated franchise.
The difference is that “Scream” has more history to draw from, while there’s only one sequel (1998’s “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer”) as part of this series’ current continuity. Robinson also emulates David Gordon Green’s similar “Halloween” legacy sequels by throwing in a true-crime podcaster character who’s obsessed with the 1997 killings.
Jaded podcaster Tyler Trevino (Gabbriette Bechtel) provides an entertaining outsider perspective that disappears too soon, as if Robinson didn’t want to poke too much fun at a movie that has become a nostalgic favorite for a certain generation of viewers. I’m part of that generation, but I can acknowledge that the 1997 movie is a mediocre execution of a solid concept (based on Lois Duncan’s 1973 novel), and treating it like a sacred text just drags the new movie down.
Robinson delivers more frequent and more gruesome kills, and Cline finds the right balance between mockery and sincerity in her performance as spoiled but sweet rich girl Danica. “I Know What You Did Last Summer” is a watchable modern slasher movie that doesn’t do much to justify its own existence, and in that way it effectively captures the spirit of its predecessor.
“I Know What You Did Last Summer” opens July 18 in theaters.
