I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)
This ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it's entertaining seeing someone get stabbed with the one that is.
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I’ve always been way more of a “Scream” cat than a “I Know What You Did Last Summer” dude, but I gotta admit I was looking forward to co-writer/director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s rebootquel of the same name (now in theaters) as I really dug her last picture “Do Revenge” (review here).
High school homies Danica Richards (Madelyn Cline), Ava Brucks (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo Griffin (Jonah Hauer-King, he was Prince Eric in the live-action “Little Mermaid”) and Teddy Spencer (Tyriq Withers, a Patrick Mahomes lookalike who appropriately enough is headlining the upcoming football-themed horror flick “Him”) reunite and gather for Danica and Teddy’s engagement party in their hometown of Southport, N.C.
The group’s estranged friend Stevie Ward (Sarah Pidgeon) has fallen on hard times after her father’s arrest and is working the event as a bartender. The gang extend Stevie an olive branch by inviting her to take a joint-fueled Fourth of July joyride with them. A cross-faded Teddy begins playing chicken with oncoming vehicles on a windy road, which sends a pickup truck careening through the guardrail into the drink below killing the driver.
We flash forward one year. Danica’s now engaged to Wyatt (Joshua Orpin). Ava and Milo return to town to attend her bridal shower. Among Danica’s litany of gifts is a solitary card. She opens it and it reads, “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.” A hook-brandishing and slicker-clad killer turns up to clip the crew.
They reach out to original Southport survivors Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.) for advice and assistance on how to live and fight another day. Julie and Ray were married and have since divorced. She’s working as a college professor in a nearby town. He owns an eponymous bar in Southport where Stevie works as a suds slinger.
The latest “Last Summer” isn’t as good as the recent “Scream” flicks, but it’s one of this franchise’s better entries. It’s slickly directed by Robinson and the script from Robinson and Sam Lansky (working from a story by Robinson and Leah McKendrick – she turns up as a newscaster here and wrote, directed and starred in last year’s awesome “Scrambled”) has some sharp zingers. The newbies are certainly attractive if not always likable (this is OK – it makes it more fun to watch ‘em get got) and it’s a fun ride down memory lane to see Hewitt and Prinze reprise their roles.
At the end of the day this is some dumb summer movie fun. It ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it’s entertaining seeing someone get stabbed with the one that is. Also, as a Public Service Announcement, stay through some of the closing credits. You’ll be glad you did.