52 Films by Women Vol 9. 14. I Know What You Did Last Summer (Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson)
Contains spoilers
By most objective
measures, the 2025 reboot of the 1997 horror film, I Know What You Did Last Summer, fails to deliver on expectations. There are ‘comfortable’ horror films,
where the film works to a template – a serial killer of some type despatches
cast members at regular intervals as a form of punishment. Tension is periodic.
Social issues are rarely discussed. There are also ‘uncomfortable’ horror
films, where trauma is felt in the mise-en-scene. The characters may be
responsible for the horror we witness. The film is heavy with expectation.
Tension has a cumulative effect. Social issues are foregrounded. Horror films
promise gore that we both do and don’t want to see: the body violated in
disgusting ways. Sound designers and make-up artists earn their coin. Reboots
of horror films are generally comfortable, drawing on familiar elements – the
set up of the original, a young cast, a moral dilemma. There is space for
innovation: the identity of the killer, the number of ‘final girls’ who
eliminate the threat in the short term – there’s always a post-credits sting -
the deployment of legacy characters. Co-writer-director Jennifer Kaytin
Robinson (responsible for the Netflix films Someone Great and Do Revenge and the college vigilante TV series, Sweet/Vicious) exploits this space not in a genuinely
surprising way but enough to demonstrate that she understood the assignment.
What the film lacks is relish. You don’t feel that there is a creative team
behind the film enjoying taking the reboot to the brink of logic. I wouldn’t
describe the reboot as lazy, but it is practically sleep-inducing.
Implicit in all
versions of I Know What You
Did Last Summer is a question: do
the characters targeted by the author of the titular statement deserve to die?
There are other questions: how does the stalker know? What gives the stalker
the moral authority to act as a vigilante, wearing a fisherman’s coat (which
isn’t light) and swinging a hook used to break ice? (The stalker is described
as the Fisherman in order to keep things simple.) On balance, the audience
judges the five young people who failed to report a coastal auto accident as
reprehensible but not irredeemable. They merit community service. However, Teddy
Spencer (Tyriq Withers) the goofball groom-to-be whose standing in the middle
of the road late at night – the only anxiety-inducing sequence in the movie –
causes the auto accident in the first place, merits something extra.
Robinson opens the
film with Ava Brucks (Chase Sui Wonders) struggling to pick out a dress, opting
after two unsatisfying try-ons, for a green number. ‘You look great,’ enthuses
her best friend, Danica (Madelyn Cline) as they toast Danica’s engagement at
the home of her fiance’s father. Teddy watches Ava and Danica from a distance
accompanied by his buddy, Milo (Jonah Hauer-King). ‘You should hook up,’
suggests Teddy, pointing at Ava. Milo shakes his head. Ava has returned to her
hometown of Southport for the wedding, but she isn’t keen of settling
there. We get a sense of why when the
quarter decide to drive out to watch the fireworks, spotting Stevie (Sarah
Pidgeon) in the parking lot. She went to the same school as the quartet but
ended up doing the catering, having been ostracised from the group. Sensing
that this is a grave injustice requiring remedy, Ava and Milo invite her to
join the group. ‘You should go. I’ll pack up on my own,’ suggests Stevie’s
colleague. For one night only, Stevie is back in with the in-crowd, though this
doesn’t appear to be a great thing.
‘You’re right,’
someone says. ‘The best view of the fireworks is from here.’ Robinson, who
co-wrote the screenplay with Leah McKendrick, doesn’t elevate the dialogue
above the functional. A drunken Teddy decides to stand in the middle of the
road, just past a corner from which neither he nor we can see oncoming traffic.
Then comes a car, which swerves out of the way and crashes through a cliff-side
barrier. Crashes, but not plummets, it teeters on the edge. While some members
of the group try put weight on the rear of the vehicle, another makes it to the
driver’s side. ‘We’re gonna get you out of there.’ Then, for plot reasons, the
car tips over the cliff, the friends letting go just in time. ‘We can’t report
this. It’ll ruin our lives,’ one of them pleads. Ava wants to stay. Danica and
Teddy talk her out of it. Stevie is quiet. This is some night out.
One year later,
Danica is re-engaged. She and Teddy had split up. Ava returns to Southport for
Danica’s bridal shower having hooked up with a goth true crime podcaster, Tyler
(Gabbriette Bechtel) on the flight; we see them kissing enthusiastically. ‘True
crime podcasters’ are 2025’s equivalent of tabloid newspapers, relishing the
grisly details and faking sympathy in the repercussions of terrible acts that
occurred twenty-eight years ago, or whenever. I describe Tyler as a goth.
Actually she has eyeliner and highlights. Danica’s new best friend is,
surprisingly, Stevie. ‘After the accident, we got terribly close,’ Danica
explains. Ava is hurt. Nevertheless, she brought moonstone. One of the presents
is a note. We all know what it says. ‘Ava, Milo, Stevie, kitchen, now,’ Danica,
not intent on heading off canapes at the pass. Do they have any idea who wrote
‘I know what you did last summer’? Isn’t there a precedent?
The first line of
investigation is the car. Who did it belong to? Ava and Tyler head to a
scrapyard. Surprisingly, the guy behind the counter spills the details. But
wait! Wouldn’t the local media have asked that question and reported on it?
Maybe auto accidents – suspected suicides – aren’t news unless they involve
prominent individuals.
Ava also calls on
Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt), a surviving legacy character who appeared
in the first two movies but not the third, which went straight to video. She
lectures in trauma. Julie is estranged from barman Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr),
another legacy character. He gives sage advice: ‘leave. Right now.’
When do young people
ever listen to the older generation. For reasons that required me to pay
attention, Ava and Tyler break into a warehouse and encounter the Fisherman.
Ava is trapped into a lobster cage while Tyler is pursued. The surprise is that
Tyler is killed. Collateral damage or is the killer – now we know there is one
– making a point? Maybe the film illustrates the perils of over-fishing.
The Fisherman’s
weapon of choice is a large hook of the sort attached to a scale for weighting
bloated tuna. The Fisherman’s other weapon is a harpoon, which is easier to use
than the hook. Deaths are also less graphic.
There is a reference
to Scooby Doo that is the closest the film gets to being
meta. Both Prince Junior and legacy co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar starred in
two live-action movies involving meddling kids and a computer-generated
snacking dog. I half-expected the characters to run on the spot before they
finally move pursued by a figure with outstretched arms that requires
unmasking.
Gellar turns up in a
dream sequence as the late Helen Shivers, with blood leaking from her beneath
her blonde hair before turning into a rotting corpse. Meanwhile the police and
Teddy’s father try to calm things down. The Fisherman is bad for business.
Teddy wasn’t invited
to Danica’s bridal shower for obvious reasons and remains sulking and petulant.
None of the five witnesses claims to have told anyone about their departure
from the scene of a fatality, though we discover one of them is lying.
In a gender
reversal, we see one male character sitting in a hot tub. We expect something
bad to happen to him, but Robinson doesn’t follow through. We expect Teddy and
Milo not to make it through. Stevie and Danica don’t do much investigating,
though in another scene, she takes a mindfulness bath, which makes her
super-vulnerable.
About two thirds of
the way through the movie, which boasts a steadily mounting body count, including
a young preacher, Judah (Austin Nichols), who is a potential suspect, I had two
thoughts. The Fisherman is either one of the legacy characters or one of the
quintet. When the final reveal takes place, I wasn’t surprised. Robinson gives
one of the characters a plausible reason for killing, involving drug addiction
and a friend – the driver of the car - who was racing to help them avoid a
relapse. The finale takes place on a boat, except it isn’t the end. The final
finale takes place when one of the characters thinks they are safe. This
provides an opportunity for a legacy character to confront the past – again,
sort of.
This reboot-sequel
or ‘requel’ honours the original but turns into a cliché. Reminding audiences
of a film their parents watched doesn’t require a large budget. It could simply
be a question on Jeopardy. (‘What is tired and dull.’) Robinson
attempts an ‘iconic’ last line, ‘I f-ing hate the 4th of July,’ but
this feels half-hearted. Was the film intended for an Independence Day release
before being moved to 18 July? In the post-credits sting, a legacy character
visits Karla Wilson (Brandy Norwood), who appeared in the 1998 sequel. She
reminds us how white the population of Southport are. ‘Who we gonna f- up now?’
she asks, a line that feels even more tired than hating the 4th of
July. Was this film ever focus-grouped?
Robinson has
described her film as camp, which is an apology of sorts to horror fans. It
certainly skews young and is a film that the squeamish could potentially enjoy.
In the US, it has already recouped its production budget - $18 million – in box
office receipts in its first week of release (18-24 July 2025), as well as
almost $11 million overseas. Legacy IP attracts audiences. However, whether it
allows Robinson to direct a final based on original material remains to be
seen. It may just have been a missed opportunity.
Reviewed at Cineworld Leicester Square, Central London (screen one), Wednesday 23 July 2025, 18:00 screening.
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