Horror Beat: I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER returns for a modern audience

I Know What You Did Last Summer has always been an interesting franchise – loosely based on a 1973 novel of the same name by Lois Duncan, rushed into production after the massive success of 1996’s Scream, and a massive box office success despite mixed critical reviews, the original film is credited with helping revive the slasher genre in the 1990s, helping launch the careers of original stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. Over the next decade, two far worse sequels wore down audiences, and despite attempts to revive the franchise as a television show, as well as an attempted sequel from Mike Flanagan and Jeff Howard, it seemed like this relic of the 1990s was gone for good – until the announcement of a legacy sequel, which launched in theatres July 18th, 2025. Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge), with a story by Robinson and Leah McKendrick (Scrambled), and co-written by Robinson and Sam Lansky (I Wish You All The Best), I Know What You Did Last Summer follows five wealthy young elites in the town of Southport, North Carolina, one year on from a fatal car accident in which they inadvertently kill a young man. For better and worse, the latest iteration of this franchise targets a younger, modern audience, attempting to reinterpret the source material for a contemporary viewership – the result being a fun, often frustrating, and sometimes brilliant murder-mystery slasher deeply embedded within the culture of Gen Z.

Much like another major franchise return this year, Final Destination: Bloodlines, this film doesn’t take itself too seriously and wears its influences on its sleeve. There’s a lot of moments of fan-service and nostalgia-baiting which will undoubtedly rub some the wrong way, but there’s a certain element of humour and irreverance to it where it knows the original film is hardly a masterpiece of the medium either. It mostly avoids the two sequels, for the best, and does try to reframe the basic premise of the original story in a modern context. The young, wealthy elite of this film are obsessed with social media, substance abusers, vapid and vain, and the film both loves and mocks them for it. It’s a tone that mostly works, especially because the movie tends to have a good instinct when to get serious and actually hone in on the scares and thrills. In that sense, just like the original, it’s following in the footsteps of Scream, but with a more mean-spirited and nasty edge.

Not all of it works, and some moments are frustrating and groan-inducing, even if ‘accurate’ to what young, rich folks are like – but that adds an interesting wrinkle to a lot of the characters, where they are a bit unlikeable, even our main protagonists. However, this might all be rather alienating to fans of the original film who aren’t exactly up to date with what Gen Z are like, and what they’re into. I can absolutely see why someone could find this a grating experience – but I suppose, it’s probably how older audiences felt towards the original back when that came out, too. 

Courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing

The story of I Know What You Did Last Summer follows the same basic premise as the original film and the novel it’s based on. There are some differences – for one, the modern cast are far less directly responsible for the death of a young man than the original film’s cast. I found this to be an interesting change, given that a lot of the cast are supposed to be rich, insensitive and unlikeable – but the film held back from making them directly responsible, perhaps out of worry that would be too much for audiences to stomach.

Regardless of the motivation, it’s a strange change, and limits the film in my opinion. The five people who bore witness to the accident recieve a mysterious note, before a masked figure in a fishing slicker begins to kill their family, friends and local town residents. Our main protagonist is Ava Brooks, portrayed by Chase Sui Wonders (Bodies Bodies Bodies) – she’s the moral compass of the group, who knows what they did was wrong, with heavy parallels to Hewitt’s character in the original film. The group eventually ask the survivors of the 1997 film for aid, as they attempt to unravel the mystery of who is targeting them and why before they are all killed. 

The script for this film is a particularly interesting one, in my opinion. Often times, it’s pretty great, with a killer sense of humour and a good sense of fun and entertainment. It’s not exactly artful, but it knows what it needs to do to keep the audience engaged. However, the longer it goes on, the more incoherent it gets, and a lot of holes open up in both the narrative and the films ideas. This film is focused first and foremost on image- the lengths people will go to in order to cover up elements of the past that don’t align to a certain reputation they’ve built for themselves, both our protagonists and some of their antagonising forces. Almost all of the characters are obsessed with it to a degree, and the film comments on social media sensationalism throughout, and how stories become exaggerated to the point where the truth is lost. It’s not groundbreaking per say, but it’s an interesting lens to apply to this story, and justifies reviving this premise and franchise for a modern context.

In a world so obsessed with image control and presentation, a terrible secret is all that more damaging. All of this is explored with a sardonic wit, a voice that both loves and loathes Gen Z and their tendencies. I think that the film possibly could’ve leaned more into this aspect, because it’s at its best when it has something to say.

Courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing

Technically, the film is relatively high budget for a horror film at a reported 18 million dollar pricetag. The kills look great throughout – more graphic than the original film, for sure, but never particularly gorey either. They aren’t particularly inventive, but often times the sequences leading up to the kill itself are really thrilling and well put-together. The main highlight is an exceptional sequence in a graveyard, which quickly leads to an abandoned storage building – it’s a real ‘hold your breath’ moment, and I loved it. It’s a well shot movie, that looks great a lot of the time and is compotently directed throughout.

I found the editing to be quite frustrating – often scenes would be over too quickly, or go on too long, and would either be too fast or too slow as a result. A good tight edit is important for a film like this, so it significantly weakens the impact of certain moments. There’s also a hell of a lot of needle drops, almost too many to count, and some are fantastic, but most just get lost in the mix and become rather unmemorable. I’m sure for a lot of people, including myself, the soundtrack of the original film was one of its best elements, and whilst the soundtrack for this film is good, it never quite gets to shine as well. 

Chase Sui Wonders is in an unfortunate position as the lead character, because she is drastically overshadowed by other members of the younger cast who are far more entertaining and likeable. Her character is often grating and frustrating, and lacks a particularly clear character arc as well. Jonah Hauer-King (The Little Mermaid), her love interest, also is mostly overshadowed, never really getting an interesting moment or standout sequence to shine. Sarah Pidgeon (The Wilds) is consistently solid throughout, but her performance really comes alive in the film’s third act, where she really gets to shine once some of the more disposable characters are taking up less screentime. Tyriq Withers (The Game) is a total standout – he gets a lot of the best humorous moments in the film, but is also surprisingly likeable in spite of his characters’ detestability early on in the film. He’s involved in a fantastic chase sequence where he actually gets to fight back against the killer and do some damage, something I always love seeing in slasher movies.

Outside of the main group, singer Gabbriette Bechtel portrays podcast host Tyler Trevino, who is criminally underutilized and a complete standout in the film. Hilarious and mildly concerning in equal measure, she steals every scene she’s in towards the start of the film. However, the real shining performance from a young actor in the film comes from Madelyn Cline (Glass Onion). The most famous of the younger cast and top billed, she plays a ditzy, rich blonde akin to to Sarah Michelle Geller’s role in the original. She’s the best character in the film, and really does a lot of the heavy lifting for the group of actors in general. The best members of the cast play off of her well, and the worst fail to work on the same level. She’s hilarious throughout, getting easily the best jokes in the film, and is a crucial part of why so many of the film’s chase sequences work so well. It’s a genuinely fantastic performance from Cline, who is building up a solid career for herself.

Courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing

The main returning cast members from previous films are Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr, the two survivors of the 1997 film. The film mostly ignores the existence of Ryan Phillippe’s character in the original, probably for the best, but it’s quite noticeable how they skirt around it. Hewitt is mostly in a reserved, distant role as her character mostly gets scenes alone with Wonders outside of Southpost itself. It’s a bit of a phoned-in performance, never really standing out or going to the next level you’d want from a returning character in a legacy sequel. Compared to Courtney Cox‘ return in the newest Scream films, or even Neve Campbell, Hewitt just doesn’t put in as much effort.

Freddie Prinze Jr, however, gives probably the best performance in the film. It’s great to see him back on screen after some time away, and he ensures that Ray feels like a character who’s absolutely lived a full life, for better or worse, between the first film and this one. He’s incredibly charismatic and elevates any scene he’s in, with a stand-out monologue in the film’s final act that really shows me as an audience member that we could use more of Prinze as an actor. It’s a great showing from him, after some time away, and I hope we see more of him to come. The best individual scene of the film, however, is a much talked about dream sequence in which Madelyn Cline’s character Danica talks to Helen Shivers, and Sarah Michelle Geller makes a brief appearance. To the surprise of absolutely no one, she gives a fantastic performance, and the two bat off each other well. It’s great to see Geller on screen again as well – she’s the original croaker queen, and don’t you forget that!

Just a quick note on modernity, because I am fully aware that to many horror fans out there, the idea of a 90’s classic slasher being revived for a modern audience fills them with dread. The original I Know What You Did Last Summer novel attempted to target a contemporary, younger audience for the 1970s. The original film does the same for the 1990s. This film does the same for the 2020s. Whilst the irreverent jokes, social media-isms, sardonic wit and camp of it all will undoubtedly be mind-numbing and frustrating to some, there was no other way this film feel authentic to the particular subculture of Gen Z that this film is exploring. I think if you sit back and try to actually enjoy it, regardless of being the target audience or not, and don’t put a judgemental foot forward first, you’ll be treated to a film that’s fun throughout, at times genuinely fantastic, and at worst mildly annoying. You could be quick and judge the film off of appearances, or a trailer, or you could actually try and engage with the material – you might be surprised, because a lot of it is genuinely pretty good. Reactions to the original were mixed when it came out, after all. It’s become a cult classic over time, and whilst I’m not saying this film is on the same level or will inspire that same response, we don’t know for sure that it won’t, either. The audience when I saw this film was laughing along with it, silence for every tense moment, and generally on the same wavelength as the movie throughout, and it was nice to see a horror film connect with a mass audience like that.

Courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing

Overall, I Know What You Did Last Summer is a lot like the original film that launched the franchise all those years ago; a silly, often ridiculous, and sometimes brilliant murder mystery slasher film aimed at a contemporary younger audience. It’s got kills and scares to entertain most horror fans, with a surprisingly funny and entertaining script that never takes itself too seriously, even if it could’ve benefited from another draft. With some killer performances, namely Madelyn Cline and Freddie Prinze Jr, I found it to be entertaining from start to finish, with moments of greatness that really endeared me to it in spite of its flaws and frustrating elements. Whilst it’s not exactly a masterful showing from the genre, I will always enjoy the type of silly, teen-drama horror movies I grew up watching, and this film settles into that niche well. Whilst it would be for the best for the franchise to end here, because it debatably shouldn’t have existed in the first place, we all know what horror as a genre is like – and if we are to visit Southport, North Carolina again, keep an eye out for a mysterious figure in a slicker, with a hook – he knows what you did, even if you want to forget.