I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) Review

For nearly three decades, the image of a slicker‑clad fisherman stalking guilty teens has lingered in pop‑culture memory. Now director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson hauls the rust‑stained hook back out of the water for a legacy sequel that tries to balance ’90s nostalgia with Gen‑Z snark. Does this fresh catch land on the filet table alongside the original—or flop like yesterday’s bait? Let’s dive in.

Story and Reinvention

The film returns to Southport, North Carolina, where a late‑night accident binds five friends—Ava, Danica, Milo, Teddy, and Stevie—into a secret pact. One year later, on the Fourth of July, the friends receive a chilling note: “I know what you did last summer.” What follows is a familiar but freshly staged cycle of guilt‑tinged paranoia and grisly retribution.

Robinson maintains the skeleton of the 1997 screenplay while layering in a sharper social angle: Southport has been transformed into a vacation playground for the wealthy, and the town’s shiny new façade clashes with buried trauma. The class friction between old‑money heirs and working‑class locals adds depth, even if the movie sometimes retreats from its own provocations. Ultimately, the narrative is less about reinventing the hook‑wielding killer than about examining how privilege warps accountability.

Nostalgia Factor

From its grungy alt‑rock soundtrack to wardrobe choices that scream TRL circa 1997, the sequel luxuriates in throwbacks. Key players from the original—Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr.—return as Julie and Ray, now divorced and scarred by decades of notoriety. Their inclusion is more than fan‑service; their bitterness underscores the film’s thesis that unresolved trauma festers across generations.

Robinson’s screenplay frequently references iconic lines and set pieces—sometimes playfully, sometimes a bit too earnestly. A self‑aware quip about nostalgia being “overrated” lands just before the film gleefully indulges in yet another visual echo of the ’97 chase scene. This winking contradiction both critiques and celebrates our collective appetite for recycled IP.

Performances: Old Guard and New Blood

The ensemble’s chemistry proves vital. Chase Sui Wonders anchors the film as Ava, giving her grief‑laden subtext without sacrificing final‑girl grit. Madelyn Cline steals scenes as Danica, delivering a bathtub set piece infused with dark humor. Meanwhile, Sarah Pidgeon grounds the story’s class commentary as Stevie, whose resentment toward her privileged friends crackles in every stare.

Returning veterans elevate the material. Prinze imbues Ray with weary integrity, and Hewitt’s Julie—now a law professor teaching restorative justice—adds emotional resonance. Though Tyriq Withers and Jonah Hauer‑King offer charisma, the new cast never quite ignites the effortless star power of Sarah Michelle Gellar or Ryan Phillippe in the ’97 film.

Kill Sequences and Scares

Robinson amps up practical effects, serving buckets of crimson without sliding into torture‑porn excess. The harpoon‑gun impalement of an unsuspecting fiancé stands out for its balletic cruelty, while a dream sequence involving disembodied hooks and beachside fireworks flirts with surrealism.

Yet tonal consistency wobbles. Early deaths revel in schlocky fun, but later scenes grow uncomfortably somber, culminating in a prolonged plea for a mother that drags the mood from camp to bleak tragedy. The Fisherman’s lumbering gait still undercuts tension, though inventive staging and clever sound design keep jump scares brisk.

Underlying Themes

Beneath the surface gore lurks commentary on privilege, gentrification, and the commodification of true crime. Southport’s transformation into the Hamptons of the South positions property values as the town’s true heartbeat, overriding moral responsibility.

A podcaster—played with sly menace by Gabbriette Bechtel—lampoons society’s voyeuristic obsession with murder‑tainment, while Julie’s classroom lectures frame trauma as both lived experience and pop‑culture commodity. These threads never weave into a fully realized thesis, but they give the slasher stakes beyond simple survival.

Comparison to Recent Horror Reboots

While Scream (2022) embraced meta commentary with razor precision and Final Destination: Bloodlines dazzled with imaginative carnage, I Know What You Did Last Summer slots in as the steady middle child. It lacks Scream’s intellect but surpasses Halloween Ends in energy. Robinson’s film doesn’t rewrite the slasher rulebook, but it does polish its hook with contemporary anxieties about privilege and restorative justice.

Recommendation

If your horror cravings lean toward inventive gore, sun‑drenched coastal aesthetics, and the warm thrill of seeing Hewitt belt out terror once more, catch this one on the big screen for maximum surround‑sound hook whomps. Those seeking airtight plotting or paradigm‑shifting scares may prefer to wait for streaming, where the film’s uneven pacing feels less like a commitment and more like a nostalgic detour.

Further Exploration

For deeper dives, What’s After the Movie hosts an information‑rich hub that includes movie summaries, interactive quizzes, and links to external opinions. Additional perspectives await on Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, TMDB, Wikipedia, JustWatch, Box Office Mojo, Letterboxd, and Fandango.

Final Verdict

Like a fireworks display that dazzles before fizzling, the 2025 I Know What You Did Last Summer offers bright flashes of gruesome fun amid long stretches of familiar beats. The film’s strongest assets—Hewitt and Prinze’s lived‑in gravitas, Wonders’ empathetic lead turn, and a handful of inventively brutal kills—can’t fully overcome its hesitant social commentary and uneven tone. Still, it’s an enjoyably bloody blast of summer escapism that proves, at the very least, there’s life in the old Fisherman yet.