In the final moments of writer-director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson's (Do Revenge, Thor: Love & Thunder, Unpregnant) latest film, I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025), the decades-in-the-making legacy sequel to the cult ‘90s slasher series, two characters exchange an envelope containing a handwritten note, “It’s not over,” cueing raised, anxious eyebrows, the generic score swelling in response, and depending on the audience's frame of mind, an explicit promise and/or threat of slasher things to come.
Intentionally or not, the handwritten note aptly encapsulates the immediate and long-term concerns of a property's rights-holders. Long dormant franchises like the I Know What You Did Last Summer series, sitting idly unused in a digital vault or buried deep on a streaming platform’s collection, rarely stay idle or buried for long. It was only a matter of time then before the rights-holders would greenlight another entry, preferably a legacy sequel mixing the original’s surviving cast and up-and-comers with social media followers, the former for the nostalgia heads, the latter to bring in twenty-something fans of said up-and-comers.
Hewing closely to the original cult slasher, I Know What You Did Last Summer focuses on a group of fit, attractive, twenty-something friends, onetime high-school friends and/or romantic couples, and a night involving alcohol, ill-advised, risky behavior, and the inadvertent death of the driver of a pickup truck, worsened by the group's decision to hide their complicity from everyone outside their circle, and subsequent cover-up involving a pliant local police force, a wealthy real-estate developer (the father of one of the perpetrators).
The aforementioned cohorts include Ava Brooks (Chase Sui Wonders), returning to her hometown from college for the first time; her best friend, Danica Richards (Madelyn Cline), a self-involved, narcissist with an uncanny ability to avoid responsibility for her own actions; Teddy Spencer (Tyriq Withers), the borderline failson of the town’s wealthiest real-estate developer; Milo Griffin (Jonah Hauer-King), Ava’s onetime high school boyfriend and full-time finance-bro; and Stevie Ward (Sarah Pidgeon), the poor high-school friend left behind to fend for herself.
The accident that upends their lives unfolds after an engagement party for Teddy and Danica, a few too many drinks, and fireworks best viewed from one end of a blind curve. While Teddy, high on his own supply of privilege, dances in the middle of the road, an oncoming, fast-moving pickup truck drives straight off the road and into the beachside rocks below, his death all but guaranteed by the crash and subsequent fall.
A year later, the five-member group reunites again, this time for Danica’s engagement to a new, even wealthier beau, Wyatt (Joshua Orpin), while Ava, still angst-ridden over the cover-up of the previous summer’s accident and its aftermath, casually hooks up with Tyler (Gabbriette Bechtel), a true-crime podcast host in town to revisit the original film’s events for an upcoming episode.
Tyler and her true-crime podcast double as a satirical target for Robinson and her co-writer Sam Lansky’s script and as lore dropper, catching up both the onscreen characters and the offscreen audience on thirty-year-old events, specifically the about-to-be-resurrected killer’s preference for a fisherman’s raincoat, rubber boots, and a hook, echoing the urban legend that served as a basis for Kevin Williamson’s (Scream) screenplay back in the day.
Before long, bodies begin to drop, the killer targeting not just the five friends involved in the previous year’s accident, but practically anyone else who’s crossed their paths. As the body count rises, so does the initially overly deliberate pace, replaced in the second hour by Ava and company recognizing the immediate danger, its connection to the accident, and uncovering the killer’s identity before they run out of screen time.
Desperate for help and stonewalled by ineffectual law enforcement, Ava turns to the original film’s two survivors, Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt), now a college professor at a nearby college, and Julie’s ex-husband, Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.), the owner of a local bar. At first, Julie rejects Ava’s pleas while Ray, concerned about the reputational effects a new murder spree will have on the town’s summer season, steps in to offer emotional support (if not not much else).
Mirroring Amity’s myopic mayor in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster, Jaws, Teddy’s real-estate developer father, Grant Spencer (Billy Campbell), seems less concerned about the killer’s potential victims than the economic impact the unidentified killer’s spree will have on the town’s tourism.
Too often, Robinson and Lansky’s script all leans on Gen Z-inspired dialogue, courtesy of Danica’s mumbled verbosity. Thankfully, though, that’s a minor annoyance relative to Robinson’s control over the story proper, its giallo-style plot machinations, and its boldness in its approach to character, motivation, and willingness to take the occasional risk. One plot turn in particular will likely divide audiences, especially fans of the original film and its immediate sequel, but Robinson deserves considerable credit for making the choice and following it through to its illogical conclusion.
Divisive plot turn or not, I Know What You Did Last Summer delivers as promised, a straight-up, no-frills, unironic slasher stocked with tense, suspenseful sequences, appropriately black humor, and a handful of gnarly, gory kills. Another sequel to already over-exploited material, though, will be one sequel too many.
I Know What You Did Last Summer opens Friday, July 18, only in movie theaters, via Sony Pictures Releasing.