It’s 1997, and high school movies are burning hot, whether they be comedies or Scream, which pumped new life into the horror genre. The success of that film spawned its bastard cousin, I Know What You Did Last Summer, led by two icons of the era, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Its cultural footprint basically amounts to Hewitt screaming “What are you waiting for?” at the top of her heaving lungs, but it was popular enough to give us an inferior sequel two years later, notable only for putting two Black actors, Brandy and Mekhi Phifer, on the movie poster. But to watch Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s belated reboot and its dedicated, almost comical devotion to its predecessors, you’d think I Know What You Did Last Summer was The Exorcist or something.
That’s actually one of the good things about this legacy sequel I Know What You Did Last Summer. Gray-bearded Gen Xers don’t get treated like idiots for remembering this franchise fondly, and newcomers can easily jump into this silly, easy-to-follow story of a hooked serial killer who targets spoiled rich brats in need of some karmic retribution. If you find yourself rooting for the murderer, that’s actually kind of okay, in the same way you sorta cheer on Death to finish off the annoying protagonists in Final Destination.
The story is basically the same, except that the town of Southport, North Carolina now looks like Outer Banks on steroids, and the characters are just as vacant. Chase Sui Wonders plays Ava, and all we really know about her (ever, I must admit) is that her mother’s dead, she used to date the most unconvincing political consultant ever, Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), and that she’s indecisive about everything. She’s back in town on the Fourth of July for the wedding of her pampered bestie, Danica (Madelyn Cline), to dudebro Teddy (Tyriq Withers). Along with their estranged pal Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon), the old friends follow the festivities with a late night blunt and some shenanigans on an infamously deadly road, causing a speeding driver to skid over the cliff and into the waters below. Oops. They decide right then and there to never talk about it again. But one year later, a letter warning “I Know What You Did Last Summer” leads to the group and their loved ones being stalked by a killer sporting a slicker, a hook, and a vicious spear gun.
A slicker-clad killer who uses a hook as a weapon? This is obviously a copycat killer, odd since Southport has worked hard to scrub its murderous history from the Internet. So the kids turn to the only two people who survived the original assault in 1997, Hewitt’s Julie James and Prinze’s Ray Bronson, now divorced and bitter enemies. Julie wants nothing to do with this latest round of murders. But Ray owns the local bar that employs Stevie, and is something of a protective guardian to her.
Robinson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Sam Lansky, loads the film up with references to the original lore, including a cameo appearance that will make fans of the ’90s teen scene cheer. While it doesn’t totally make sense why I Know What You Did Last Summer needs to ape established horror tropes (as Scream does intentionally), the screenplay works overtime to establish a semi-logical reason why it does. The reveal, while not impossible to piece together, still manages to be somewhat shocking for what it does to the canon as a whole.
Based on an idea conceived by Robinson and Scrambled filmmaker Leah McKendrick, I Know What You Did Last Summer is a film designed by women and it carries distinctly feminine messaging. Without giving too much away, it’s the female characters who drive the narrative and show more loyalty and physical toughness in the face of danger than their one-note male counterparts. While an attempt to hammer home an overall theme about sucky men is too “Internet cool” to be effective, a mid-credits scene does a better job at getting what this film is all about. “Nostalgia is overrated”, Julie James says once the violent ordeal has reached its climax, but nostalgia is what I Know What You Did Last Summer is hanging its hook on, and there’s nothing wrong with having a soft spot for it.
I Know What You Did Last Summer opens on July 18th.
