Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer feels like a haunted yearbook, scribbled over by a drunken librarian who’s secretly the Fisherman in disguise. The movie returns to the curse of cover-ups, guilt, and hook-wielding justice with a cast so earnest it’s as if they believe trauma can be buried beneath Instagram captions and iced matcha. Madelyn Cline leads the terrified troop as Danica Richards, a woman with eyes full of secrets and a fiancé too bland for fate’s vendetta. The horror is rarely subtle, but occasionally beautiful in its nonsense.
The film is part stalker thriller, part supernatural revenge folk tale, doused in blue LED lighting and beachside melancholy. When Danica and her friends—Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Teddy (Tyriq Withers), and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon)—kill a man in a car accident, their pact of silence breeds paranoia like mushrooms under the floorboards. Robinson directs with the flair of someone choreographing a murder-themed dance recital: some steps dazzle, some trip over plastic corpses. The tone veers between morbid comedy and sincere dread, but never fully commits to either realm.
Performance-wise, Cline holds the center with a smoldering sense of dread and charm, though she’s occasionally lost in the fog-machine plotting. Wonders and Hauer-King elevate thin roles with charisma; Withers brings surprising gravitas; Pidgeon alternates between ethereal and forgettable. The legacy cast, however, steals their scenes like pros. Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. return with faces that have survived nightmares and taxes, giving the film its only real emotional heft. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s dream-sequence cameo is less haunting than puzzling, like remembering a ghost you never met.
The plot lurches forward, a possessed Uber, unsure who ordered it or where it’s going. It’s functional enough to deliver the stalk-and-scare sequences, but fumbles when connecting old lore to new trauma. The Fisherman, now more urban myth than actual villain, lacks the menace of past incarnations. Still, his presence casts a long shadow, and when he’s wielding that rusty hook like a relic from the underworld, the movie manages moments of genuine tension.
The theme of guilt resurfacing- bloated secrets is compelling, but muddled by too many distractions—podcasters, dream sequences, and undercooked parental drama. Brandy Norwood’s mid-credit appearance as Karla feels more like fan service than plot relevance, though fans won’t complain. There’s something hopeful in the film’s belief that confronting the past—even with blood—might grant some clarity, or at least a less cursed group chat.
Robinson’s direction is energetic but inconsistent. Her attempts at surreal horror collide with TikTok pacing and jump-scares that land like surprise quizzes. Compared to other horror-sport hybrids (think Bodies Bodies Bodies or even the original Final Destination), this one forgets whether it’s playing tag or dodgeball with trauma. Still, it has ambition—an admirable if chaotic energy that keeps it from sinking beneath its legacy’s weight.
As far as the franchise goes, this entry is more of a spiritual successor than a direct sequel. It borrows themes and motifs from the 1997 original but injects enough modern anxiety to stand on stiletto-covered feet. It’s better than the 2006 made-for-TV misfire (I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer) and slightly less thrilling than I Still Know, which had Jack Black in dreadlocks and a killer in Bermuda. This one, blessedly, skips both.
Where it fails, it fails with a flair for the bizarre. Where it succeeds, it’s because the cast leans into the ludicrous with sincere fear. Like a haunted summer camp skit produced by Wes Craven’s caffeine-addled cousin, I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) is watchable, occasionally gripping, often ridiculous—and never boring. It leaves you wondering if guilt ever dies, or if it just gets better at sending cryptic DMs.
Grade: B.
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