by Going into I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025), my expectations were somewhere around the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
I’d heard almost nothing but bad things about this movie. Critics weren’t particularly kind to it, fans seemed divided at best, and the general consensus I kept running into was that this was another unnecessary legacy sequel that should have been left on the cutting-room floor.
And after finally watching it? I really don’t understand the hate.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) Review – I Really Don’t Understand the Hate
Spoiler Warning: This review contains major spoilers for I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025), including the identity of the killer(s).
Is I Know What You Did Last Summer a great movie? No. Is it particularly original? Absolutely not. Does it make one gigantic decision involving a legacy character that I’m still not sure I can get behind?
Yep.
But you know what else it is?
A pretty damn enjoyable slasher movie.
Back to Southport
Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson brings the franchise back to Southport nearly three decades after the events of the original films. Once again, a group of attractive young people makes a terrible decision, agrees to keep it secret, and discovers approximately one year later that somebody with a rain slicker and a large fishing hook has a problem with that arrangement.
You know the drill.
The new group includes Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Danica (Madelyn Cline), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Teddy (Tyriq Withers), and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon). After an incident on a winding road sends another driver over a cliff, the group agrees to keep quiet rather than face the consequences.
One year later, somebody knows what they did last summer.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
But that’s also kind of the point.
This franchise has never required an incredibly complicated formula. Give me a secret, some guilty twenty-somethings, a creepy coastal town, a fisherman with a hook, and a decent body count. That’s the recipe.
And for most of its 111-minute runtime, the 2025 movie understands exactly what kind of movie it’s supposed to be.
Yes, It’s Predictable. So What?
One of the biggest criticisms you can throw at I Know What You Did Last Summer is that it’s predictable.
I won’t argue.
There aren’t many moments here that are going to completely reinvent the slasher genre. If you’ve watched enough movies like this – particularly the recent wave of legacy sequels – you can probably see several developments coming well before the characters do.
But predictability isn’t automatically a death sentence for a slasher.
Sometimes I just want a movie to give me an entertaining cast, some fun kills, a masked or obscured killer stalking people around town, a mystery to follow, and enough momentum to keep me interested until the reveal.
This movie does that.
It moves along nicely, the Fisherman still has one of the better looks in the slasher genre, and there are enough kills and chase sequences scattered throughout to keep things entertaining.
There’s also something inherently fun about returning to Southport. The movie certainly isn’t shy about weaponizing nostalgia, but considering this is a sequel to a movie released in 1997, I’m not sure why anyone would expect otherwise.
Julie and Ray Return
The big selling point for longtime fans is obviously the return of Jennifer Love Hewitt as Julie James and Freddie Prinze Jr. as Ray Bronson.
And I’m glad they’re here.
This isn’t simply a case of bringing the old stars back for a 30-second cameo so the trailer can show their faces. Julie and Ray actually matter to the story.
Julie in particular feels like someone who has spent decades carrying the weight of what happened to her. Hewitt gives the movie a connection to the original that goes beyond simply pointing at things from 1997 and saying, “Hey, remember this?”
Ray’s return initially works for the same reason. Seeing these characters again provides some emotional weight that the new cast couldn’t possibly have on its own.
Unfortunately, that brings us to the elephant – or fisherman – in the room.
I’m Not Sold on That Ray Twist
The movie eventually reveals that Stevie is one of the killers, seeking revenge for the death that she blames on the group.
Fair enough.
Then comes the bigger reveal:
Ray is her accomplice.
This is where the movie nearly loses me.
I understand what the filmmakers were trying to do. Ray has spent decades dealing with the aftermath of the original Southport murders, and the town has essentially commodified the tragedy that destroyed his life. There’s an idea buried in there about trauma curdling into resentment and eventually turning someone into the very thing he once fought against.
As an isolated concept, that’s actually interesting.
As the conclusion to Ray Bronson’s story?
I don’t know.
This is a guy who survived Ben Willis, fought to protect Julie (who he ended up marrying), and spent the previous movies as one of the franchise’s heroes. Turning him into a hook-wielding murderer decades later is an enormous character swing, and the movie doesn’t do enough work to make that transformation feel earned.
It feels less like the natural conclusion of Ray’s character arc and more like the filmmakers asking, “What’s the craziest person we could reveal under the rain slicker?”
Surprise won.
Character consistency lost.
That’s easily my biggest issue with the movie, and I completely understand longtime fans being pissed about it.
But it also didn’t ruin the previous hour and a half for me. I had very similar thoughts when I watched the latest Scream sequel.
This Is Still a Fun Slasher
Maybe that’s ultimately where I differ from some of the harsher reactions to I Know What You Did Last Summer.
I wasn’t expecting the second coming of Scream. I wasn’t expecting some revolutionary reinvention of the slasher movie. I wasn’t expecting a sequel nearly 30 years later to somehow recapture everything that made the original work.
I wanted to have fun.
And I did.
The movie has an appealing cast, a good setting, some nasty kills, enough mystery to keep the story moving, and a healthy respect for the original film. It plays the legacy-sequel game pretty aggressively, but I’ve seen that formula handled far worse.
Madelyn Cline is particularly fun as Danica, while Chase Sui Wonders makes for a solid central protagonist in Ava. Jennifer Love Hewitt slides comfortably back into the franchise, and seeing Julie James confronted with another round of Fisherman murders gives the movie some legitimacy that a complete reboot wouldn’t have had.
There are also plenty of little callbacks and connections for longtime fans, including a late appearance that very clearly leaves the door open for another trip into the franchise.
Does some of it feel like fan service?
Of course.
I’m a fan.
Service me.
Maybe We’re Taking This One Too Seriously
The original I Know What You Did Last Summer has become a beloved piece of ’90s horror, but let’s not rewrite history and pretend this franchise was ever prestige cinema.
The original is a stylish, atmospheric slasher built around an irresistible premise and an incredibly memorable cast. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer sent everyone to a tropical resort and gave us a character named Will Benson because – spoiler alert – his name sounds like “Will, Ben’s son.”
Subtlety has never exactly been this franchise’s defining characteristic.
That’s part of the charm.
The 2025 I Know What You Did Last Summer belongs to that same wonderfully ridiculous slasher tradition. People make terrible decisions. A Fisherman appears out of nowhere. Hooks enter human bodies. Secrets are revealed. People who should definitely be dead somehow aren’t.
I’m okay with all of that.
In fact, that’s pretty much what I showed up for.
Final Thoughts
The critical beating I Know What You Did Last Summer received feels excessive to me.
There are legitimate complaints. The story is familiar, the mystery isn’t particularly difficult to unravel, and making Ray one of the killers is a bizarre creative decision that clashes with the character we’ve known since 1997.
I wouldn’t blame anyone for hating that twist.
But I also can’t pretend I didn’t enjoy everything leading up to it.
This is a slick, entertaining, nostalgic slasher that knows exactly which buttons to push for fans of the franchise. It doesn’t reinvent I Know What You Did Last Summer, but I’m not convinced it needed to.
Sometimes you don’t need to reinvent the hook.
You just need to sharpen it.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) isn’t perfect, and that Ray reveal is going to remain controversial for good reason. But as a Saturday-night slasher with some familiar faces, bloody kills, and a healthy dose of ’90s horror nostalgia?
I had a good time.
And after hearing how terrible this movie supposedly was, that might have been the biggest twist of all.
