The original I Know What You Did Last Summer film was released post-Scream and came from a script by Kevin Williamson, the same writer. However, it wasn’t anything like Scream, and instead settles as something of an atypical slasher. It’s follow-up, just one year later in 1998, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, didn’t do much to change up the formula. They’re two films that’re fondly remembered for their young and attractive cast, as well as the somewhat unique villain: a fisherman-coat-wearing killer who uses a hook to kill. The bar for I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) was relatively low, as it was another legacy sequel looking to reintroduce a franchise and pick up where it left off. Surprisingly, it’s able to elevate the material beforehand, while offering a new and bloody slasher for fans.
Ava (Chase Sui Wonders) has returned home to Southport to attend her best friend Fanica’s (Madelyn Cline) engagement party for Teddy (Tyriq Withers). His best friend, Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), is, of course, Ava’s high school crush she would like to rekindle, and while at the party, they bump into Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon), an old friend, and the five all end up going for a drive that night, on the Fourth of July. Out on the twisty road by the sea, a perfect view for the fireworks, Teddy messes around on the road and causes a car to swerve, crash and fly off the side of the cliff. The five agree to keep what happened a secret to save face. One year later, they receive the note: “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” and bodies begin to rack up. Someone knows what happened a year ago and is seeking to exact revenge in blood.
The set-up is similar to that of the original film. Still, the characters are more likable, even Teddy, the mayor’s son, whose family owns many properties and serves as a stand-in for Ryan Phillippe‘s character in the 1997 film, is someone I was surprised to find myself caring for quickly. The friendship of Ava and Danica is at the heart of the film, and there are some genuinely wholesome moments between the two. Chase Sui Wonders is perfectly fine as the lead here, though small moments like an early mention of the loss of her mother, and sexual acts of violence striking up from keeping a dark secret for a year, aren’t truly delved any further than surface level. It’s Danica and Madelyn Cline that I made the early mistake of judging at surface level and assuming she’d be a one-note ‘ditzy blonde stereotype,’ and who grew to be the star of this new film for me.
Unlike the recent Scream films, there’s no direct set-up to the new characters and the killer in the original films, Ben Willis. And so, how the film chooses to use the two returning characters, Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) and Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), is handled smartly. They’re not in the film for a long time, but every time they’re on-screen, and why they’re brought back into the events happening in Southport makes sense. Writers Leah McKendrick, Sam Lanksky, and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, who is also the film’s director, choose to take these two characters in a more realistic direction as well, given everything they had been through, and it does feel more like an insightful engagement with the trauma someone would suffer after two brutal attacks.
The original films were pretty tame and light on blood, but this new film doesn’t choose to stick to the formula there. This is a bloodier film, and much more violent, without ever overstepping its gore factor to break out of what you’d come to expect in a slasher. However, expect this one to feature at least one kill that has some oozing and popping sound effects to accompany the brutality on-screen perfectly.
