After the box office success of the 2022 Scream reboot and its sequel, it seemed inevitable we would be returning to more horror franchises from the 1990s. Jim Gillespie’s 1997 film I Know What You Did Last Summer, also from Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson, was a lesser mid-90s hit. Yet, it spawned a sequel and a short-lived 2021 Amazon series of the same name. And this weekend, audiences will see I Know What You Did Last Summer get the ‘rebootquel’ treatment. And I’d heard such underwhelming things about this film, I didn’t prioritize it, not seeing it until the Saturday after its release. As a result, my review is a little late. I was surprised to find as much to enjoy here as I did. I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) is good campy horror fun, elevated by some good performances and effective scares.

Ava (Chase Sui Wonders) returns to her hometown of Southport, North Carolina for her friend Danica (Madelyn Cline)‘s engagement party. They gather with her friend sometimes-with-benefits Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Danica’s ex Teddy (Tyriq Withers), and their estranged friend Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) to go watch the 4th of July fireworks on a winding road near the top of a cliff. Someone drives their car off a cliff and dies and they’re indirectly responsible. Yet, the matter is hidden and they vow to keep this a secret. That is, until Danica receives the titular ominous note and people start dying at the hands of someone in a fisherman’s outfit wielding a hook. The group must call upon the survivors of a similar attack from 1997 (Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr.) for help before everyone is killed.

Narratively, writer/director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s I Know What You Did Last Summer is a bit of a mess. It starts off very strong, this ensemble was clearly well chosen and everyone is bringing a specific energy to the proceedings, and Robinson’s script does a good enough job to get you to care about all these people. But as we make our way through some very obvious fan service-y moments and cameos, the story takes a few turns it doesn’t really recover from. But I was having a good enough time for this to not really matter to me. I would even argue the ending of this film totally falls apart and yet I left the theater not at all in a bad mood. The performances are quite good, the suspense is effective, the kills are fun, if not particularly creative, and it’s really fun to see members of the original cast pop up. This is a perfect example of a good-enough summer movie. You won’t leave with your mind blown or feeling a completely different way about this franchise, but I think if you’re on board for what the film is doing, you’ll have a good time.

Chase Sui Wonders, most recently seen in Seth Rogen’s buzzy series The Studio, is a very capable and compelling lead. Madelyn Cline, a star of the very popular Netflix teen drama Outer Banks, is rather good here as well, and effectively sells this character’s evolution from spoiled, vapid rich girl to someone who you end up caring about. Jonah Hauer-King, who previously made a strong impression in 2023’s The Little Mermaid remake, brings all that charisma with him here. I also enjoyed Sarah Pidgeon as Stevie, the girl who became alienated from this friend group but is brought back into it after the film’s inciting incident occurs. 

We also have returning OG cast members Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. I would argue Hewitt hasn’t missed a beat, she looks great, her acting has vastly improved since her younger days and she’s got an undeniable screen presence. I was less impressed with the work Freddie Prinze Jr. is doing here, but it’s nice he came back at all. There are also a few cameos from the originals here that other reviews have spoiled and I will not. I didn’t know they were coming and they were very fun surprises in context.

Cinematographer Elisha Christian makes the seaside town of Southport look incredibly idyllic and inviting despite the horrors going on in town, and honestly I wouldn’t mind more slasher movies set in seaside towns. Courtney and Hillary Andujar are our production designers, and there’s a lot of coldness in these sleek, modern interiors. Some of the houses look like the quintessential movie villain house, and that’s the kind of place I want to live. Not much to say about the score or music supervision here, not a lot about either really stood out to me, but I don’t think that detracts from the film.

Overall, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s script is striving for more than it can really accomplish, and the film sort of loses its way entirely by the time we reach the end. The killer reveal is rather dumb and there’s an additional twist so dumb it completely lost me. But ultimately, it’s rare for a film like this to effectively stick the landing, and for a slasher flick released in the middle of summer, I had a good time with this. There’s an escapist quality to this sleepy little seaside town, and the performances here are solid enough to distract from the aspects of the screenplay that don’t quite make sense. This is not reinventing the horror genre or the ‘rebootquel’ in any real ways, but if you go in with the right mindset and expectations, I think you might be pleasantly surprised.