All These Years Later, ‘I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER’ Is Still Copying ‘Scream’

A legacy sequel nobody asked for, reviving a three-decade-old franchise that, let’s be honest, was never exactly beloved to begin with, 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer is generic modern slasher fare, but also kinda better than it has any right to be as an IKWYDLS fourquel. It slightly exceeds the low bar you’d expect, but not by enough to call it a top-to-bottom success. In a bit of (presumably knowing) irony, this sequel owes much to Scream (2022), just as the original was clearly cribbing from Scream (1996). You could argue the similarities between the franchises are coincidental, but like the skeptical cops of Southport, North Carolina, I’m not sure I’m buying it. The two franchises have been linked for decades, both helping to revitalize the slasher subgenre in the ’90s, earning a few sequels, and inspiring short-run TV spin-offs. It’s just that every time out, Scream had IKWYDLS beat. That still holds true today.

Nearly 30 years after a hook-wielding killer in a slicker launched his Independence Day vengeance tour, a new crop of buxom, buff twentysomethings finds themselves covering up an accidental death. One year later, responsibility comes knocking in the form of a familiar figure in a fisher slicker. It’s safe to say it’s not the same OG killer. A quick trip to the IKWYDLS wiki reveals he was killed off in the 1998 sequel, only to return as a reincarnated zombie in the 2006 direct-to-video threequel. So, like any slasher worth its salt, part of the fun is teasing out which of the new characters is orchestrating the latest Fourth of July bloodbath.

Equal parts glib and generic, this slasher sequel from writer-director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (of Do Revenge and Thor: Love and Thunder fame) amounts to little more than a slick, modernized reframing of the original premise. While the 1997 film, based on Lois Duncan’s 1973 suspense novel, achieved mild popularity, the franchise always struggled critically, dinged for its overwrought seriousness and accidental comedy. At least here, Robinson leans into it. I Know What You Did Last Summer is self-referential, pulling from its own (admittedly thin) lore to please the supposed diehards, while still functioning as a standalone slasher that requires zero homework.

The setup is familiar, but with a fresh enough twist. After five friends inadvertently cause a fatal car crash by standing in the middle of a mountain road and sending a driver swerving off a cliff, they cover it up to avoid the consequences. This doesn’t make a ton of sense, since technically all they did was loiter where they shouldn’t have for a moment, but viewers must rapidly acclimate to this low-IQ logic or risk having the rest of the premise be a total intelligence-insulting bore. A year later, as they try to pretend none of it happened, they begin receiving ominous messages from someone who definitely knows what they did last summer.

Realizing their stalker is mimicking the methods of a legendary Southport killer, they turn to the only surviving experts: Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.). The doomed Gen Z ensemble includes Danica Richards (Madelyn Cline), an influencer-type with great hair and prominent breasts; Ava Brucks (Chase Sui Wonders), the pragmatic one with a faint moral compass; Milo Griffin (Jonah Hauer-King), Ava’s ex and likely future hookup; Teddy Spencer (Tyriq Withers), Danica’s rich, fired-up fiancé; and Stevie Ward (Sarah Pidgeon), the group’s estranged conscience with a tragic backstory and dead dad. They’re mostly generic cannon fodder but they do a decent enough job chewing up and spitting out the silly script.

For the most part, I Know What You Did Last Summer is actually held back by its ties to the original, namely the return of Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt, whose acting chops haven’t exactly ripened with age. No matter how you slice it, they just aren’t very good. The young cast aren’t exactly a troupe of powerhouse thespians, but they hold their own and deliver just enough interpersonal drama and flirty intrigue to carry the story from one slaughtering to the next. The fact that they’re flatly written Gen Z’ers, low on gravitas and seemingly over their murdered BFFs after one scene, might be a sly satire on slasher genre conventions, but I’m certain that would be entirely too charitable a reading.

Robinson’s script plays coy with both who’s doing the killing and who’s next to get axed (or, more accurately, hooked), adding a bit of winking flair to an otherwise by-the-numbers slasher. The self-awareness doesn’t excuse the narrative thinness, but it does help distract from the fact that we’ve been in this exact territory for almost fifty years and this latest installment has pretty much zero new to add.

There are some grisly tableaus of violence, but the kills are disappointingly rote and uninspired. One would think there’d be more than one way to off someone with a hook and a knife. But alas, none of the sequences really make you squirm or manage to get gleefully violent in any kind of memorable way. I Know What You Did Last Summer almost gets away with falling short in those critical departments thanks to a surprisingly solid twist ending, one that almost makes the whole thing feel just worthwhile enough to justify its existence. That goodwill, however, evaporates with a mid-credits scene that totally misreads what made this year’s belated return to Southport even remotely interesting.

CONCLUSION: Just as the 1997 ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ rode the coattails of ‘Scream’ (1996), the 2025 installment follow the legacy sequel blueprint of ‘Scream’ (2022). Despite being fairly generic in most departments, its decent sense of humor and a solid twist almost make this slasher revisit worthwhile. But not entirely. Middling kills and forgettable plotting keep it firmly in the “decent enough for a streaming night” tier of horror revivals.