I Know What You Did Last Summer: And This Summer's Worse Than That

By Thom Ernst

Rating: C+

If you thought the original I Know What You Did Last Summer was the weakest fallout in the post-Scream slasher wave, brace yourself.

This reboot has a hook, but it’s buried in exposition, and polished in the sterile look of Hallmark-vision, a term I’m coining here to describe the glossy, sanitized aesthetic reserved for low-stakes thrillers and holiday romances.  Picture a cast of genetically blessed 20-somethings lounging in luxury like they're auditioning for a better movie.

They drink, flirt, and drive recklessly through winding mountain roads like it's the first time anyone's tried this in a horror film. Spoiler: it isn’t.

This IKWYDLS assembles a fresh cast of rising stars tangled in familiar terror. Madelyn Cline plays Danica Richards, a pageant queen turned bride-to-be whose engagement party sets the fatal events in motion. Chase Sui Wonders takes on the role of Ava Brucks, the sole member of the group hardwired to do the right thing.

Jonah Hauer-King appears as Milo Griffin, Ava’s ex and Tyriq Withers plays Teddy Spencer, Danica’s athletic ex-fiancé with a volatile history. Sarah Pidgeon portrays Stevie Ward, the estranged friend whose return to the group pushes her closer toward danger. Finally, Gabbriette plays Tyler, a true-crime podcaster with a deep obsession for the Southport murders—an obsession that quickly becomes personal.

Once again, a hit-and-run accident unites a group of morally flexible friends in a pact of silence. But rather than inject anything new into the premise, director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson—who also helped write the script—doubles down on callbacks and clumsy nostalgia. The dialogue stumbles between "We have to call the police!" and "We can’t call the police!" as if these films haven’t already taught us that not calling the cops never works out.

The original novel by Lois Duncan involved a cyclist. This reboot, like its predecessors, swaps the bicycle for a rain-slickered fisherman with a hook, which admittedly has a bit more theatrical menace—until someone says the word “slicker.” No one’s ever screamed, “Look out, it’s the slicker!” and gotten away with it.

And speaking of the franchise… it’s not exactly a dynasty. While other horror juggernauts sliced their way into double digits—Scream, Halloween, Friday the 13th, even Paranormal Activity—this one stalled out at three theatrical entries before face-planting into video obscurity.

Worse, the titles read like an increasingly desperate attempt to convince us the filmmakers themselves still cared: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and the bafflingly titled I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, which sounds less like a threat and more like the closing line of an empathetic prom speech. If a killer ever whispered I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, you’d be more tempted to discuss the importance of brevity rather than run.

What little tension the reboot manages is drowned in over-explained backstory and clunky twists. Still, a few moments rise to the surface. Gabbriette’s Tyler brings a welcome energy as a true-crime podcaster with a murky connection to one of the main characters, and Cline as Danica (a role far removed from her debut in the faith-based drama Redemption) gets some deserved, (some not) laughs.

Returning veterans Freddie Prinze Jr.. and Jennifer Love Hewitt reprise their roles as Ray and Julie, doing their best to salvage the soggy material. They’re the only ones who seem to understand that horror works better when characters act like real people, not algorithm-generated archetypes.

There are a few kills worth a horror fan’s smirk, but mostly, IKWYDLS is an underwhelming collection of tropes and throwbacks. It never justifies its existence beyond brand recognition. And that title—I Know What You Did Last Summer—still takes up more space than the film's actual scares.

This franchise was never a heavyweight, but at least it had put forth an effort to be creative. Now? It’s all polish, no edge. A slasher film in soft focus. Whatever you do this summer, watching this reboot shouldn’t be one of them.

I Know What You Did Last Summer. Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. Starring Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon and Gabbriette. In theatres July 18.