(Photo by Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.)
After seeing the explosive and eye-popping success of Saw X and Final Destination Bloodlines, the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise hook-scratched its chin and said, “Why not me? Ow.” After all, if torture porn could release such a celebrated legacy sequel, then how about a reversal of fortune in kind for this dormant teen slasher, just like its Scream ilk in 2022.
Based on the Lois Duncan school library mainstay, the original I Know What You Did Last Summer grabs the novel’s mystery & suspense plot and gnashes it into a bloody affair, getting the killer to drop the gun and instead pick up a fishing hook to stick it to the victims, real personal-like. Starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, and Freddie Prinze Jr., they portray recent high school graduates who make a pact of silence after their reckless driving leaves a pedestrian dead. But now, a cloaked stalker terrorizes them with a sharp blade and mash notes of threats and vengeance.
Released just before Halloween 1997, I Know What You Did Last Summer was the first major teen slasher after Scream jolted the genre awake for the decade in 1996. Summer beat Scream 2 to release by a few months, and then got its own sequel in 1998 with I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. The 2006 direct-to-DVD I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer makes it a trilogy, crucially.
Over 25 years after their last appearances, Hewitt and Prinze Jr. return for 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer to guide the next generation of piss-poor drivers, co-starring along Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, and Sarah Pidgeon.
#1
Critics Consensus: Faithfully harkening back to the original for better or worse, this I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot serves up plenty of nostalgia without finding a compelling hook of its own.
#2
Critics Consensus: A by-the-numbers slasher that arrived a decade too late, the mostly tedious I Know What You Did Last Summer will likely only hook diehard fans of the genre.
#3
Critics Consensus: Boring, predictable, and bereft of thrills or chills, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is exactly the kind of rehash that gives horror sequels a bad name.
#4
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.