The thing about I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) — itself an adaptation of Lois Duncan’s 1973 novel — is that it already existed in another movie’s shadow. Written by Kevin Williamson before the success of Scream (1996) and fast-tracked through production in the months that followed, the film approached the slasher formula with the same archness as the screenwriter’s greatest success with none of the satirical backbone (or directorial sense) to keep it upright. Aside from a memorable cast of committed heartthrobs, it’s an airless, irony-poisoned exercise — the first sign of a revitalized genre set to cruise control before it even left the driveway. Needless to say, the decision to reboot this D-list slasher series in 2025 is a telltale sign that Hollywood is giving new meaning to scraping the bottom of the barrel.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) begins in familiar territory: a friend group reunites for an engagement party and commits collective manslaughter shortly thereafter. They return to their harborside home of Southport, North Carolina, one year later, and an anonymous note bearing the titular taunt sets into motion a series of murders. The pattern is eerily similar to the killing spree that rattled this tourist town 28 years prior (in the events of the 1997 original), long since swept under the rug by city officials to preserve the local economy — that extended homage to Jaws, a veritable ribeye steak, is the only point of interest in this terminally tasteless TV dinner.
From the opening moments of Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s update, integrity and imagination serve as structuring absences. The director’s Netflix credentials are apparent in her artless, desultory style, and the script’s chronically online sense of humor clashes with a tin ear for Gen-Z mannerisms (a 20-year old refers to weed as “cannabis”). The characters are shallow and contemptible, and the film does seemingly everything it can to deny you the satisfaction of watching them get their comeuppance. Robinson stalls for nearly half of her film’s punishing two-hour runtime, frantically introducing side characters as temporary fodder for her hook-wielding boogeyman. And the kill scenes, when they finally do come, are neutered by a bizarre aversion to gore and a fundamental misunderstanding of tension and release.
Robinson’s script, meanwhile, wears its lack of originality like a badge of honor — inconsequential fake-outs poorly conceal that it hews very closely to the shape of the original; returning cast members sleep-walk through extended cameos; and paper-thin “commentary” on nostalgia and complacency charts a path toward an obvious rug-pull. Just as the first film was patterned after Scream, this new one uses Radio Silence’s vapid Scream sequels (conceptually and formally bankrupt in their own right) as a roadmap to a nesting-doll metatext that’s been reheated multiple times over.
In this day and age, it’s easy to forget that there’s potential value in adapting even the least interesting cultural objects, and this grueling, self-satisfied movie works under the assumption that there are no new ideas under the sun. I Know What You Did Last Summer is one hell of a testament to this increasingly prevalent notion, playing its slew of borrowed hits and cozying up in a barren wasteland of its own making.
DIRECTOR: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson; CAST: Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Pidgeon; DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing; IN THEATERS: July 18; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 51 min.
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