‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ (2025) Review: We Wish We Didn’t Know

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The original I Know What You Did Last Summer from 1997 was not exactly a horror masterpiece, but it at least had a clear sense of what it was: a sleek, silly, and self-aware teen slasher riding the coattails of Scream’s success. Fast forward to 2025, and this so-called legacy sequel tries to blend modern horror sensibilities with ’90s nostalgia, only to deliver something far more hollow than either era deserves. It is messy, predictable, and somehow manages to feel both overstuffed and underdeveloped.


‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ (2025) Review: We Wish We Didn’t Know

– The 2025 reboot of “I Know What You Did Last Summer” has been criticized as lacking interest, with poor pacing and writing, despite reasonable performances and a few memorable scenes.
– The film reduces the protagonists’ culpability compared to the original, resulting in a narrative that is less gripping and lacks the edge of the original film.
– Although the movie attempts to introduce themes of corruption and privilege, it fails to delve deeply into them, yielding an overall shallow and inconsistent narrative.


The film picks up decades after the events of the original, with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. reprising their roles in cameo-like appearances that feel more like fan service than meaningful story beats. Their presence is brief and underwhelming, essentially amounting to passing the “hook” to a new generation of victims. The real focus is on a fresh group of young adults, including new leads played by Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders. While they do their best to inject life into the script, their characters are paper-thin, with motivations that never fully make sense and dialogue that feels cobbled together from a dozen other slasher films.

The hook-wielding killer returns, of course, but without any real menace. The kills are formulaic and overly reliant on quick cuts and digital gore. While a few set pieces show flashes of creativity, like a sequence in a neon-lit boardwalk funhouse, the tension fizzles out almost immediately because the movie refuses to slow down and build atmosphere. Instead, it barrels through its runtime like it has a checklist to complete: a jump scare here, a fake-out death there, and a final act twist you can see coming 40 minutes early.

Tone is another major problem. The film cannot decide if it wants to be a dark, serious thriller about generational trauma or a campy throwback with self-referential humor. It awkwardly straddles the line between the two, resulting in tonal whiplash that makes it impossible to get invested. One moment a character delivers a heartfelt monologue about survivor’s guilt, and the next moment someone cracks a joke so clumsy it feels like it was lifted from a rejected Scream parody.

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Even worse is the pacing. The first act rushes to introduce a large ensemble cast without giving you a reason to care about any of them. The middle section drags as it rehashes the same paranoia beats as the original, with the new cast bickering about who might know their secret. And the final act, which should have been the film’s payoff, is rushed and anticlimactic. By the time the “shocking” twist arrives, you are too checked out to care.

On a technical level, I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) is serviceable but uninspired. The cinematography is flat, often relying on generic horror lighting like endless blue filters and dimly lit corridors. The score is forgettable, leaning too heavily on cheap stingers to create tension that the visuals cannot sustain. Even the editing feels sloppy, with abrupt cuts that undercut what little suspense might have been building.

It is not all bad. A few performances manage to rise above the weak material, particularly Madelyn Cline, who tries to give her role more emotional depth than the script allows. There are also occasional nods to the original film that will elicit a knowing smile from fans. But these moments are fleeting and never enough to elevate the experience beyond a tired rehash.

Ultimately, this 2025 iteration feels like it exists purely to capitalize on the current wave of horror legacy sequels. It lacks the bite, wit, or identity needed to justify its existence. Instead of breathing new life into the franchise, it suffocates it with half-baked ideas and endless callbacks.

If you are hoping for a clever reinvention of a cult favorite, this is not it. I Know What You Did Last Summer is a hollow echo of better slashers, both past and present.

RATING: 2 out of 5 stars.

“I Know What You Did Last Summer” is in theaters, July 18th, 2025.

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