I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (2025) ***

The I Know What You Did Last Summer movies have always lived in the shadow of the Scream franchise.  That’s why it was no surprise that when the Scream films gained renewed traction at the box office, we received word a new Summer flick was in the works.  Like 2022’s Scream, it’s a legacy sequel that uses the same title as the original. 

Five teens get high and drunk and inadvertently cause a passing car to go careening off a cliff.  They make a pact to never speak of the incident, and one year later, they begin receiving ominous messages claiming that someone knows what they did last summer.  Pretty soon, they are attacked by a killer dressed like a goth version of the Gorton’s Fisherman.  They then reach out to the survivors of the original Fisherman murders to help them survive. 

I had my guard down on this one.  I genuinely wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did.  The first kill scene where a dopey dude bro is attacked with a spear gun is a lot of fun.  The moment he tried bribing the killer with cryptocurrency I knew I was in for a good time. 

Yes, I Know What You Did Last Summer ’25 is dumb fun, and exactly in that order.  The kills are solid, the body count is healthy, and the leads are mostly likable.  (Madelyn Cline and Sarah Pidgeon are the two standouts.)  I always get a kick out of the unbelievable stupidity of characters in horror movies, but this one features some next level shit.  The best moment is when a guy turns down an opportunity to have rough sex with his girlfriend so he can… charge his phone!  Wow.  Another dude gets so drunk he walks right by the killer and doesn’t even notice him.  In fact, the killer stands IN FRONT OF A STATUE, and the guy still doesn’t see him.  Most of the time in these sorts of things, the killer will hide BEHIND something, but in this one he’s like RIGHT THERE and the guy is just fucking oblivious.  Some folks just get what they deserve, I guess.  Add in the hilarious way they resort to bringing an original cast member back from the dead and one of the dopiest killer reveals in recent memory (“You shouldn’t call me crazy.  It’s SOOOO reductive!”), and you got yourself some completely brainless, but highly entertaining slasher shenanigans. 

Look, I’m not saying this is some under the radar camp classic or anything.  What I am saying is I laughed longer and harder at this movie than most actual comedies.  For me at least, that’s enough. 

Original star Jennifer Love Hewitt gets the best lines like, “Nostalgia’s overrated!  Who cares!”  The callback to the original’s iconic, “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?” is also liable to have you in stitches.  The biggest laugh though comes when Hewitt looks the new Final Girl dead in the face and asks, “WHAT DID YOU DO LAST SUMMER?!?”