I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)

I Know What You Did Last Summer has always lived a little below the top tier of 1990s slashers for me. I don't dislike the original, but I never held it in the same regard as something like Scream. That's part of why I went into this new film fairly open-minded. I wasn't expecting it to reinvent horror, but I hoped it would find some reason to exist beyond reminding everyone of the movie they already know.

The new film has a few things going for it. There are some effective kills, and at least one scene with the hook made me wince. There are jump scares that will probably get an audience going, and I think fans of the original will appreciate seeing familiar faces return. It also does a decent job recreating the feel of that franchise. Unfortunately, recreating the feel is pretty much where its ambition stops.

The story follows the familiar pattern closely, and I kept waiting for something that would give this group of characters their own identity. Instead, a lot of them felt thinly written. The dialogue sometimes sounded like the movie was trying too hard to capture a younger audience, and the characters made choices that were more frustrating than entertaining. The biggest issue is that I didn't care much about who survived. In a slasher, that can sometimes be fine if you're having a great time watching the killer work, but I didn't find either side of that equation particularly compelling here.

There are moments when the movie works as a straightforward popcorn slasher. I don't want to pretend I sat there hating every minute of it. I was entertained here and there, and the effects team deserves credit for some nasty work. It's just a movie I stopped thinking about pretty quickly afterward.

If you love the original I Know What You Did Last Summer, there's enough nostalgia and familiar structure that you might enjoy revisiting this world. As someone who wanted a good reason to come back, though, I didn't find much that stood apart from the earlier film. It is watchable, but that's about as enthusiastic as I can get.

I enjoyed parts of I Know What You Did Last Summer, although I can't say I was especially invested in what happened. There were jump scares, and some of them absolutely got me. Sometimes it doesn't even have to be something scary. A phone rings loudly after a quiet moment and there I am jumping in my seat. I hate when that happens in a full theater, because I immediately wonder whether I was the only person who reacted.

For the most part, though, this felt like a pretty typical slasher movie. You have a group of young people, a terrible secret, and someone coming after them. If you liked the original, I think you'll recognize exactly what kind of movie you're getting. There are a few nasty moments, but I didn't feel like it was constantly pushing the gore too far. I could watch it without spending the entire time hiding behind my hands.

What bothered me was how little I cared about the characters. I want to have somebody to root for, even if they're making questionable decisions. Here, I didn't really feel connected to anyone. People would get into danger and I'd find myself watching to see what happened rather than worrying about whether they'd be okay. That's a pretty big difference for me. I also got distracted by some of the things the characters said and did. Certain conversations just didn't sound natural, and I kept thinking about how I would never react that way.

There were moments when I was entertained, especially when a jump scare caught me off guard. Other times I felt like my attention was drifting and I was just waiting for the next interesting thing to happen. So I can say I enjoyed parts of it without saying I thought it was a great movie.

If you're looking for something familiar and don't mind a movie that follows an old formula, there's enough here for a casual watch. I didn't regret sitting through it, but I wasn't excited about the story or the people in it. Once it was over, I was ready to move on to something else.