Movie Review: I Know What You Did Last Summer

In the twenty-seven and a half years since the first incarnation of I Know What You Did Last Summer assaulted movie theaters in 1997, the film has spawned a 1998 sequel as well as a 2021 television series. Now, the story returns to theaters with a reinvented version that does little to warrant the continuation of the franchise moving forward, despite multiple nods to previous installments that will surely please fans of the series.

As did the original film, this one begins with a lengthy prologue of sorts that sets up the unfolding of events throughout the story. A year ago, five friends accidentally cause the death of a motorist in a car accident. But it is their pact to cover up the incident and their involvement that leads to deadly consequences on the anniversary of the “murder,” when they begin receiving messages that someone knows what they did. Then, one by one, the five of them are stalked by a mysterious figure in a sailor’s raincoat and hat, armed with a menacing fishing hook.

Now, with the help of Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.) – both reprising their roles from the original films – the five new main characters (or, victims), must unearth the identity of the new killer before it is too late.

Jennifer Love Hewitt in Columbia Pictures’ “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Matt Kennedy/Sony Pictures.

Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson – who also wrote/directed Do Revenge (2022) and Someone Great (2019) – works from a script she co-wrote with Sam Lansky to produce a film that is less a remake of its source material than it is an homage. Unfortunately, it is not very effective in either of those forms as it plays out like a cookie-cutter horror film that is easy to predict from scene to scene.

While the film looks slick enough and there are more than a few highlights provided by Saira Haider’s editing and Elisha Christian’s cinematography, the overall product is another horror remake that trades loud music and sound effects for legitimate tension or actual scares.

Although Chase Sui Wonders and Madelyn Cline function as the main characters – Eva and Danica – they still fail to prove any more likeable than those around them, including Milo (Jonah Hauer-King, (Teddy) Tyriq Withers, and Stevie Sarah Pidgeon. Even the arrival of Hewitt’s character fails to breathe any life into the story as she is given little to do other than provide exposition moving the story along.

Despite the fact that the 1997 version of the film managed to accumulate $125.6 million in worldwide box office, there is just too little substance in the latest I Know What You Did Last Summer to warrant moving forward with the series any further, despite suggestions to the contrary.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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