Summer of Discontent

 

Unlike say, Final Destination, I Know What You Did Last Summer is not an idea ripe for remakes and sequels. Once you've told the story of a group of people leaving someone for dead, only to be hunted down a year later in grizzly revenge, there isn't really anywhere else to go while sticking close enough to the formulae to warrant being a successor. Its not a major surprise then that this sequel to the 1997 movie of the same name does little more than tread most of the same water as its precursor while trying to reference and acknowledge the original at every opportunity. 

This time round, the central cast are a little older than the high school graduates of 97 but still act like teenagers. Some of the clunkiest exposition dialogue of recent memory attempts to fill out their back stories but you're left with a group of characters you can't wait to watch die. This would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that, for most of the runtime, the inept hook wielding killer seems determined to butcher everyone EXCEPT the people they're supposed to be gaining revenge on. There is also a change to the inciting incident, with the friend group barely being in the wrong. This makes the whole, "don't tell anyone", cover up pretty stupid as they could easily have just involved the police. There isn't much done to modernise the formula (apart from using words like gaslighting), with a refusal to use social media as a tool for threats either admirably restrained, or lacking imagination, depending on your point of view. Given the poor attention to detail in the writing, I'd be more inclined to the later.

The original cast a large cultural shadow, spoofed in everything from "The Simpsons" to Anthony Horowitz novels, but that is more to do with timing than quality and it was, all in all a fairly middling slasher entry. The fisherman look of the killer is distinctive but unexciting and the kills are of the basic stabby variety. An iteration on the look would have lifted this take, more entertaining kills even more so, but we don't get either. In fact, the kills that look like they would have been the most inventive happen off screen. The set pieces in general are underwhelming and mostly follow the same pattern; killer flails wildly allowing the prospective victim to get the upper hand, said victim then chooses not to unmask or subdue the killer but runs way instead and either escapes or gets stabbed. None of the cast particularly cover themselves in glory, although the script is as much to blame as the performances. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prince Jr and even Michelle Gellar return in roles of varying prominence but none of them seem overly enthused to relieve their turn of the century heyday. 

Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson is the woman behind 2022's high school black comedy, Do Revenge, but she is unable to inject this project with any of the same glee or energy. There are moments where you can see her attempt to add a different, almost feminist, angle to the story but her ideas just do not mesh with the generic remake she is tasked with delivering here. 

Slasher films have been having a bit of a boon over the last few years, with some high quality big screen efforts and a tonne of lower budget straight to streaming fare. I Know What You Did Last Summer has production values to match any of cinematic efforts but a script and acting on a par with the dregs of Amazon Prime or Shudder. If you can get on with the characters, its tolerable, and newcomers with no 90's nostalgia may even find it preferable to its namesake but it needed to bring much more to the table to justify existing in 2025. 

4 post credit scenes that are defiantly going nowhere out of 10.