‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ returns with a familiar hook

A cast of rising stars and returning idols can’t elevate this tame, trope-heavy slasher revival

By Dana Barbuto/Boston Movie News

The new “I Know What You Did Last Summer,”—a generic, glossy update of the 1997 teen-slasher classic—is the kind of movie made for the nice woman who sat next to me at the press screening.

When the film teases the story’s central car accident with a series of near-misses, she jumps at every single one, apparently unaware of the rule of three. Moments later, as a character enters a pitch-black room, she blurts out, “Don’t go in there!”  And when another character is revealed hanging from the fireplace mantel, a message scrawled in blood above him—“Live, Laugh, Slaughter”—she gasps. I wasn’t sure why. The guy was a walking bullseye: no real backstory, kind of a douche, and clearly expendable.

After the film, I learn she’s a self-declared franchise superfan—though likely still in diapers when the original came out. But this is what a so-called “legacy sequel” is for, I suppose: delivering exactly what the built-in audience came for, and watching them buy it all, hook, line and sinker. I like nostalgia as much as the next girl—but throw in some suspense, too.

Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson handles this reboot with more attention to casting and callbacks than bonafide frights. Returning stars Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt are trotted out alongside Gen Z-friendly faces like Madelyn Cline (“Outer Banks”), Chase Sui Wonders (“The Studio”), and Jonah Hauer-King (“The Little Mermaid”). But thrills? Tension? Dread? Even the twisty blood-tinged finale barely registers—and I scare easily. 

There are plenty of meta winks (yes, Prinze makes a “Scooby-Doo” joke), but the film never compellingly uses its franchise history. Maybe because there was never much to begin with, other than a good-looking ensemble of Gen X teen idols. (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe starred alongside Prinze and Hewitt in the original.) 

The new movie is a total retread. Prinze even mutters, “It’s like 1997 all over again,” more than once. The plot is nearly identical: a group of well-off friends in coastal North Carolina accidentally kill someone, vow to keep it secret, then start receiving ominous notes reading “I know what you did last summer.” Cue the stabby antagonist in a black rain slicker and fisherman’s hat, but with none of the slasher gusto you’d expect from a truly vengeful killer.

The friends are all one-note vapid types: Wonders plays the one with the most morals and a habit of hooking up with girls in airport bathrooms. Cline is the requisite blonde. Sarah Pidgeon, set to star as Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy in Ryan Murphy’s upcoming “American Love Story,” is the blue-collar girl; Hauer-King is the good guy, and Tyriq Withers (“The Game”) is the token shirtless bro. There’s also a true-crime podcaster (Gabbriette Bechtel), along with a shady real-estate mogul (Billy Campbell) and a creepy pastor (Austin Nichols). It doesn’t end well for most of them. 

The only survivors from the first film’s murder spree, Hewitt and Prinze, drop in to help the gang solve the mystery. She’s a psychology professor specializing in trauma healing, and he owns the local bar. Their main reason for existing here is to stir up sentiment for those of us who saw the original in theaters. Prinze is aging well. 

Robinson and co-writer Sam Lansky—a guy best known for ghostwriting Britney Spears’ memoir (yes, the 1990s really are everywhere)—never quite decide what kind of movie they’re making. The tone swings wildly: naughty one minute, then panicked final-girl shrieking, then all “you’re a grumpy tuna!” cutesy the next. Their script throws in themes of generational trauma, gentrification, and how the world would be a much better place if men would just go to therapy, but none of it lands with any weight.

The lone highlight? Sarah Michelle Gellar, who famously met Prinze while filming the first movie, absolutely steals the show in a brief but delightful cameo. I won’t spoil it—but it’s the only part that doesn’t feel like a waste of sharp objects.

‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’

Rating: R for bloody horror violence, language throughout, some sexual content and brief drug use.

Cast: Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt 

Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Writers: Sam Lansky and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Running time: 111 minutes

Where to watch: In theaters  

Grade: C