Earlier this year, I reviewed the 90s slasher classics, I Know What You Did Last Summer and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and they are both fantastic. While I may be in the minority here, I have always preferred the sequel. We got a third movie in 2006, which I will be kind and say is less than great. However, 2025 brings us a true follow-up in the form of I Know What You Did Last Summer…. The same title as the 1997 movie!
Where to Watch I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)
I Know What You Did Last Summer was released on July 18, 2025. You can stream the film from a digital platform.
The Movie Review
Look, I have no idea what they were thinking here, at least with Scream V, they put the V so you could see it in Scream, and it was clever. Here, calling this the exact same name as the original is just super weird. I had really been excited to see this, but due to being busy and so many other movies coming out close together, it took me a while to see it, so long that, thanks to a dumb YouTube video, I had the identity of the killer spoiled for me.
A Legacy Sequel That Returns to Southport
This is a true sequel or legacy sequel if you want to be one of the cool kids, to 1998’s I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. The movie takes place in Southport, just like the original movie, and that is pretty cool. I get the impression that they were trying to make this not just be a sequel to a slasher from the 90s, but actually make the movie feel like one of the slashers from that era, so that is fun.
A Familiar Premise With a Modern Twist
We have our new group of teens, and these teens are out partying and while driving their car, they cause another car to drive off the road and crash! The teens freak out, and as you would expect, one of them says that they need to keep this to themselves and take their secret to the grave. One thing that is neat about this movie is that it is much harder to get away with something like this these days. The movie addresses this as one of the kids has ties to a politician, and they help cover it all up.
The Threat Returns a Year Later
In typical, I Know What You Did Last Summer fashion, we then fast forward a year, and one of our kids gets a letter saying that “I know what you did last summer,” and this is where all the killing starts. The town of Southport is famous for the Ben Willis murders, and the teens think that what is happening to them is somehow related, so they do a bit of detective work. I got a real kick out of them going to locations from the first movie and all the little nods.
Nostalgia-Packed With Legacy Characters
I get that some people would argue that this movie is trying way too hard to tug on the nostalgia strings, and it works. Just like with the Scream legacy sequels, we get some of our original cast back; Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. are back as Julie and Ray. The teens go and seek out Julie as they know that she survived a similar situation many years earlier.
Slasher Action and a Divisive Cast
Without going into spoilers, we end up with a very high body count as the teens try and figure out who knows what happened and why they are being hunted down. The big reveal… was ok, I think had I seen this without having it spoiled, it would have hit me much harder, but still, it was kind of fun to see it go down like this. The main problem with the movie is the teens.
Character Weaknesses But Enjoyable Deaths
You may have noticed, I just keep referring to them as “the teens.” That is not me being lazy. Our group of new teens is pretty uninteresting in some cases and straight-up unlikable in others. The way that a couple of the characters talk is just so odd, almost like it is supposed to be a parody. There are no real memorable characters here, but the majority do at least get pretty grisly and fun deaths.
Final Thoughts on the 2025 Sequel
This was a fun movie, and if they made another one, I would certainly be down to watch it. Still, if I were ranking these movies, this would come in at number 3. It is not a bad movie at all, but just not as good as the first and second movies. I will pick this one up when it comes out, as the first two movies have been movies that I have liked more and more over the years, so perhaps this one will grow on me, too.
