I walked into the new I Know What You Did Last Summer revival with an open mind. Honestly, I was never a fan of the original films, they always felt they were made to ride off the coattails of Scream. Still, curiosity got the better of me.
Maybe this movie would be the one to shake things up, add a clever twist, or at least give the franchise some fresh energy. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. What we got is a movie that doesn’t just lean on nostalgia, it practically clings to it like a life raft.
From the start, the film makes it clear it’s playing things safe. The story is basically a remix of the first two films with a couple of minor changes, but nothing that reinvents the wheel. Every beat feels familiar.
Worse, it’s so predictable that you can figure out who the killer is pretty quickly if you’re paying attention. There’s no tension, no surprises, just a series of paint-by-numbers moments wrapped in slasher clichés. The script will also remind you about the year 1997 roughly every fifteen minutes, as if repeating the date makes the callbacks feel clever.
As for the tone of the film, Instead of leaning into suspense and horror, the movie seems to embrace comedy… intentionally or not. The audience in my screening laughed through the whole thing. Not because the jokes landed, but because the entire experience teetered on the edge of “so bad it’s good.”
The characters are so stupid as they make one ridiculous bad decision after another, and the dialogue is silly. The characters are completely unlikable. Every single one feels like a caricature of a Gen Z stereotype, written without an ounce of depth or charm.
It’s hard to root for anyone when you’re busy rolling your eyes at their dialogue or waiting for the next dumb move that will get them killed. If that was the goal, then mission accomplished, I guess.
The original movies weren’t that great either, but at least they had a certain earnestness. Here, the writing feels lazy, like no one cared enough to give these people any reason to matter.
At its core, this movie is a nostalgia machine running on fumes. It desperately wants to recreate the vibe of the late ’90s slasher boom while also appearing self-aware, but it never balances either approach. Instead, it serves up a hollow imitation that mistakes references for substance.
There’s even a line from Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character saying, “Nostalgia is overrated,” and I couldn’t help but laugh because the movie itself is proof of that.
In the end, I Know What You Did Last Summer isn’t scary, smart, or original. It’s not even a guilty pleasure. It’s a glossy, uninspired retread with nothing new to offer. If you’re into mindless slasher fluff and want to laugh at absurd choices and bad writing, you might find it entertaining in a “hate-watch” kind of way.
For everyone else, this is one movie you can skip.
