I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) Review: I Am Both Shocked And Delighted By How Much I Like This Slasher Legacyquel

To be perfectly frank, I’ve never had a great deal of respect for the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise. The first movie was released on the heels of Wes Craven’s Scream in 1997, a rushed production to take advantage of the slasher subgenre’s rejuvenated heat, and on top of that cash grab origin story, neither the original nor its sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, are particularly interesting or good (I’ll admit here that I’ve never seen 2006’s straight-to-video I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer).

It’s not a great legacy, and it can’t be said that the new legacyquel generated personal anticipation by extension – if not especially because the franchise is once again riding the coattails of Scream following the successes of both 2022’s Scream and Scream VI. And the boring, first-thought title did absolutely nothing to help either. But sometimes minimal hope can end up the victor over low expectations, and here we have a fun example: director/co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s I Know What You Did Last Summer doesn’t do any mold-breaking as a 21^st century slasher, but thanks to a fun ensemble, an engaging mystery, and a killer third act, it’s a surprising mid-summer treat.

The film begins with protagonist Ava Brucks (Chase Sui Wonders) returning to her hometown of Southport, North Carolina to celebrate the engagement of her best friend Danica Richards (Madelyn Cline) and her fiancé Teddy Spencer (Tyriq Withers) – reuniting with the shy-but-flirty Milo Griffin (Jonah Hauer-King) and Stevie Ward (Sarah Pidgeon), who has been estranged from everyone since the end of high school. With a night of partying concluding with a big fireworks display, the group opts to drive to a special lookout point… and things go horribly wrong.

While waiting for the pyrotechnics to launch, Teddy steps out into the road in front of an on-coming car as a drunken prank, and while Milo pushes him out of the way, the car swerves, smashes through the guardrail, and then plummets to the ocean below. After the cops are called, Ava wants to stay, but everyone else convinces her to go, and she eventually acquiesces.

One year later, Ava once again makes a trip back to Southport, this time for Danica’s bridal shower – but she now has a new fiancé in Wyatt (Joshua Orpin) after her relationship with Teddy fell apart. Danica and Stevie have grown close as new best friends, and the vibe at the party is sunshine and rainbows. This changes when a gathering to open gifts sees Danica get a card that simply reads “I Know What You Did Last Summer” In days that follow, the friends see themselves terrorized by a mysterious figure in a black, high-collard rain slicker and hat, and when it’s understood that events are mirroring a series of slayings that happened in 1997, the protagonists hope to get help from two of the survivors: Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.).

I Know What You Did Last Summer has a familiar slasher story, but you’re drawn in by the characters.

As a slasher franchise, I Know What You Did Last Summer is built on pretty basic elements – a group of friends get hunted by “The Fisherman” as part of revenge plot stemming from an incident the previous year – and it doesn’t try to get much deeper than that. This is not Scream; there is no meta narrative layered on top of the story. It’s a simple whodunit, with the protagonists racing to figure out who the killer is before they all get slaughtered, and while that can be a boring disaster if improperly handled (with a collection of characters who are little more than cannon fodder), the script by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and Sam Lansky and the talented ensemble cast keep everything afloat with a knowing sensibility and charming personalities.

Ava, Danica, Teddy, Milo and Stevie all fit into familiar boxes as characters – Danica, for example, being a ditzy trend-follower and Teddy being a bro-y rich kid – but their personalities are served with a wink and sense of humor that makes them likable, and the actors have terrific natural chemistry together. Most importantly, while it can’t be said that they are the brightest clan, they don’t anything so overtly dumb that you want to throw up your hands in frustration (principally at the laziness of the writing), and there is a logic to the way they go about finding the identity of who is hunting them. You like them enough that you don’t want to see them get brutally murdered… but another strong quality of the legacyquel is that it plays for keeps.

Jennifer Kaytin Robinson unleashes some slick and sick kill sequences.

I Know What You Did Last Summer has a clear and purposeful sense of humor, but it also never abandons the stakes of its story and delivers on the promise of Fisherman-centric mayhem. None of the characters ever feel safe, adding extra thrills to the attack scenes and chase scenes – which develop quickly and offer solid scares. As far as gore is concerned, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson shows that she is not Damien Leone, but her incarnation of The Fisherman certainly knows their way around a hook and a harpoon gun, and both are put to effective, bloody use.

The surprises in I Know What You Did Last Summer’s third act make the whole thing work.

What makes this review particularly difficult to write is that while I enjoy the majority of the ride on which I Know What You Did Last Summer takes the audience, it’s in the third act that the movie starts to really hit its best notes and truly answers the question why this franchise deserved a legacyquel. And, of course, I have zero interest in spoiling any of it for you. Without giving anything away or providing any kind of hints, let it just be said here that there are some smart and unexpected surprises (including one that made me audibly say, “Oh cool” in my screening); the mystery has a satisfying conclusion; and everyone should definitely hang around in the theater for a mid-credits bonus sequence.

With the film coming out in mid-summer, I fear that it’s a feature that may end up getting overlooked as greater attention is paid by audiences toward the big blockbuster titles of the season – but that would be quite unfortunate. While I wouldn’t have expected a month ago that I would be writing this, given my past perspective on the franchise, I Know What You Did Last Summer is a movie to see on the big screen and soon so that you don’t get spoiled. Later this year, it will be a cool treat to discover during spooky season when it hits the home video market, but I recommend you stay ahead of the curve and enjoy this surprising treat in theaters.