‘I Know What You Did Last Summer' Cleverly Hooks a New Generation

Gizmodo

2 days ago

The new I Know What You Did Last Summer offers a bold, refreshing take on horror requels that's a worthy successor to the original film. While stars of the 1997 film Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. reprise their roles as Julie James and Ray Bronson, it's a relief that they are not the parents of any of the new gang of accidental murderers. This isn't just I Know What You Did: The Next Generation, and the fact that it isn't speaks to the new film's desire to do something more than just soothe your horror nostalgia.
Instead, the 2025 reboot-quel introduces us to a new friend group of fresh-faced youths who are up to no good on the Fourth of July. After an engagement party, they decide to be on the road recklessly, leading to the death of a driver in an oncoming vehicle that almost strikes the groom-to-be, Teddy (Tyriq Withers), before he's saved by his best man, Milo (Jonah Hauer-King). Teddy's bride-to-be, Danica (Madelyn Cline), helps him convince their friends to let his rich developer father sweep what happened under the rug to save their skins. Eva (Chase Sui Wonders) and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) protest but ultimately are convinced to keep quiet. A rift develops between Eva and her friends once she leaves town, but when she returns a year later for Danica's bridal shower, there is, of course, a note with one simple message: I Know What You Did Last Summer. And we know that's never a good thing.
A bloodbath quickly ensues once again in the sleepy beach town of Southport, much like the one Teddy's father scrubbed from the internet—which happens to be the very hook murderer killing spree Julie and Ray narrowly survived in the events of the first film in the series. It's a clever conceit, one that lets the new cast of characters who've moved into Southport be in the dark about its history while also satisfyingly giving I Know What You Did Last Summer's new hook-wielding killer an air of mystery.
And as that mystery, and the dread surrounding it, begins to build, I Know What You Did Last Summer equally cleverly weaves in a lot of humor with the tension. In particular, Danica and Teddy keep the levity even as things get intense, and Cline and Withers' performances make you fall in love with the best friends who got everyone into the mess. Danica might be modeled after the franchise's fave dead girl, Helen Shivers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), and Teddy on the long-deceased Barry (Ryan Phillipe), but Cline and Withers steal this movie. Their relationship, like Eva and Milo's, becomes so easy to root for. You really grow to care about the bonds between the friends in this installment and don't really want to see any of them get the hook, which makes it all the more shocking when whoever gets it inevitably gets got.
There's a similar deftness to how the film handles the return of its legacy stars. As the bodies start to pile up, Eva reaches out to Julie James, the franchise's original final girl, now a professor. Hewitt's return to pass the final girl mantle to Eva is such a great moment that doesn't overstay its purpose. Meanwhile, Prinze shows up in a similar capacity to offer guidance to the new crew going through similar trauma. Both act as ways to help the film's new leads come to terms with the past, rather than simply feeling like excuses to bring back familiar faces.
I Know What You Did Last Summer is a fantastic slasher flick on its own terms, one that offers a refreshing new vision while not being entirely rooted in nostalgia. Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson carves out a place for this reboot in the cadre of the horror genre's best for a new generation. The horror lies in the film's tension and isn't wasted on only jump scares, but propels its peril with unexpected turns (building to a legitimately killer last act that will leave you shook to your core, in so many ways). It's a smart, slick slasher that cleverly builds on what made the original film so iconic without being totally beholden to its legacy—and will get you hooked all over again.
I Know What You Did Last Summer opens in theaters July 18.
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