Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Stars: Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Madelyn Cline
A confession here. I’m one of the scant oddballs who prefers Jim Gillespie’s 1997 teen slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer to Wes Craven’s meta smash Scream from the year prior. Both written by Kevin Williamson, the original IKWYDLS shares some of his trademark post-modern dialogue tics, but approaches the genre from a place of sincerity rather than irony. I’m even an apologist for it’s endearingly sloppy sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, a far sillier romp with a lamentable Jack Black cameo. Still, the less said about in-name-only third entry I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer the better.
The point is, I’m a fan here, so bias is going to factor in. News of this legacy sequel ignited mixed emotions in me. Slasher franchises have a storied history, and belated returns even more-so. The likelihood of this working…? I had doubts.
Now certainly seems like the time to do it, mind. The slasher movie is booming once more thanks to the legacy continuations of Halloween and Scream, the plethora of straight-to-streaming nostalgia bait that are too numerous to namecheck and higher profile original efforts such as Heart Eyes or In A Violent Nature. Direct, no-nonsense thrills are, once more, the order of the day.
Jennifer Kaytin Robinson is a decent bet to take over the reins of the series, having been the sparkling creative drive behind teen-centric Netflix corker Do Revenge, which was also blessed with Sarah Michelle Gellar in a supporting role (RIP Helen Shivers). What Robinson delivers here is close to the mark as these things go; a doggedly faithful retread with a heavy sprinkling of nostalgia-bait and fan service, and just enough deviation to keep things kinda interesting.
It’s frightening to think that most of the main cast here weren’t even alive when Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) went up against their own vengeful killer in a slicker. We return to the North Carolina fishing town of Southport where the events of the summer of ’97 have been all-but-erased from record by powerful real estate magnate Grant Spencer (Billy Campbell) (how exactly does one “scrub the internet”?). His obnoxious nepo-baby son Teddy (Tyriq Withers) has more than a whiff of Barry Cox about him. Teddy, his bride-to-be Danica (Madelyn Cline) and their besties bring the highs of an engagement party crashing down when misadventure on a certain cliffside road lands them all with a deadly secret. One year later and, guess what? Someone knows all about it, and is getting dressed up for the occasion.
The conscience-addled Julie role here defers to Bodies, Bodies, Bodies alum Chase Sui Wonders as Ava Brucks, with the quintet of guilty teens rounded-out by her one-time crush Milo (Jonah Hauer-King) and exiled clique member Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon). As in the OG, a year of worry has ruined all their relationships and reuniting to fight for their lives turns out to be kinda extra.
Robinson and her co-writer Sam Lansky have a fine time playing the hits. As is custom this hook-wielding psycho is just as interested in killing off handily placed supporting characters as they are sticking to their convoluted revenge plot. There’s a narrow escape or two, a marginally suspenseful chase sequence (nothing on SMG’s effort) and a moment geared around Love Hewitt’s returning Julie James getting to cry “What are you waiting for?”. The kills are a good bit bloodier this time out, but that’s the product of near 30-years of evolving genre expectations. There’s also plenty of good humour, with a fun jibe or two at the (still canon) second movie while Cline gamely steals every scene she’s able to as the delightfully ditzy Danica.
The young cast are mostly up to the task, if a little milquetoast compared to the noveau-Brat-Pack star wattage of the first movie’s line-up. Wonders does okay with a role that’s ultimately a little underwritten. The boys are as cardboardy as one might well expect. And with Love Hewitt and Prinze, Jr. in the mix satisfying the requisite ‘legacy character’ quota, IKWYDLS ’25 starts to feel like it’s spread itself a little thin. The reveal(s), when they come, underwhelm, too. Frankly, they’re as clumsy as the rapid-fire exposition dumps that rush to justify them, and positioned within tension-free stand-offs. But this, too, is genre 101.
Because that’s as ambitious as this is. A lovingly crafted, lovingly faithful IP extension that’s about honoring the traditions of the slasher. The lack of pretension here is part of what manages to save it. Like an airport paperback, it’s designed for a clear purpose and it doesn’t dream of reaching beyond that. The legacy of the Scream series seems to have indelibly imprinted on the material as much as the franchise’s original (a little to its detriment), but IKWYDLS ’25 basically gets a pass for playing like a beach holiday read, right down to the weak gesturing at some kind of societal malaise (in this case, ahem, “gentrifi-slay-tion”) as a means of making it seem mildly relevant.
It isn’t relevant. 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer wasn’t relevant. But it was fun to rent on a Friday evening. Undemanding, a little bit sexy and kinda comforting in the way a slasher movie can be. And if this one’s mildly over-stretched due to the sprawling cast, at least the kill count means that the inevitable sequel (I Still Know What You Did Last Summer again?) might have a chance at something a bit more streamlined.
For now the best and worst I can say is This’ll do. Which, as anyone who did see I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer can attest, isn’t always a given.
The Lost Highway Hotel 