(2025) I Know What You Did Last Summer - The Fourth Installment in the Movie Series Which Brought Some Nostalgic Feeling but not as Memorable as the Original

I heard about this movie few months ago and got to see glimpses of its trailer two or three weeks ago. The title itself caught my attention as it was one of the many films that were memorable to me during the 1990s. My wife and I tried to see it on its first day of release but due to "logistic" issue, we were only able to do it last night. All right then, let's get on with the movie.

Brief Story Line

Five friends that consisted of Danica (Madelyn Cline - Outer Banks TV series, This is the Night etc), her fiancé Teddy (Tyriq Withers - Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead 2024 remake etc), their best friends Ava (Chase Sui Wonders - Bodies Bodies Bodies, The Studio TV series etc), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King - The Little Mermaid, World on Fire TV series etc) and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon - The Wilds TV series etc) were celebrating the fourth of July holiday in their hometown Southport. However they were involved in accident which they tried to hide with the help from Teddy's father, businessman Grant Spencer (Billy Campbell - Mr. & Mrs. Smith TV series, The Brylcreem Boys etc). 

A year later, the group received a threatening letter related to the accident that shaked all of them. When a mysterious person started killing people, they realized it was similar to the serial killings in 1997 and sought the help from survivors Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt - Heartbreakers, Ghost Whisperer TV series etc) & Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr. - Head Over Heels, Scooby-Doo etc).

So who was trying to kill of these friends? And what would happen to all of them? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

If you are accustomed with my posts in the past, you would know that slasher is one of the many genre that is my favorite and I was quite fond of movies focusing on these serial killings, especially with the extra fun of finding out the culprit. Obviously the intensity of watching the killer making those killings and the victims trying to survive were the highlight of such movies. Anyway, my wife and I were fans of the 1997 original film with same title and its sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. However since it was so long ago, we did not exactly remember the details, just that it was suspenseful and fun.

This film was set almost 30 years after the two earlier films (excluding the standalone sequel of I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer) and it was certainly nostalgic to see the killer with similar appearance and the "trademark" hook & harpoon. The thing is though, my wife said it perfectly, that we have grown a lot and seen so many movies & series since then which gave us enough experience to rightly deduce (or made educated guess) about the real killer and the twist. Hence we were not surprised by the supposedly shocking twist before the end. It was actually more of a matter of when it was going to happen. But along the way, we still had fun watching the gruesome killings done which grew more vicious as the movie progressed.

The characters here were so so to my opinion. They were not great but not that bad either. I was glad that they did not try to make these five friends as teenagers (their looks certainly were not youthful enough like its original movies or series). Yes in case you are not aware, there was a short-lived series adaptation of the same title released on Prime Video back in 2021. Aside from those names above, there were support characters of podcaster Tyler (model Gabbriette Bechtel), Pastor Judah (Austin Nichols - One Tree Hill TV series etc), Wyatt (Joshua Orpin - season 2 and beyond of Titans DC series etc) and few others. The film also had surprise appearances that I better let you see for yourselves.

The movie was directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge, Someone Great etc) and she also served as co-writer. Unfortunately it got mixed reception by critics, though it was not exactly trashed by them. Audience did not seem to embrace it either which usually does not translate well for its box office performance. The duration was pretty long for such genre with 111 minutes including closing credits. Oh, you do not want to miss the very intriguing mid end credit scene that was surely done to pique the interest of fans of the movies hoping for continuation of the story. And the ending itself left room for obvious sequel. Let's see if it's successful enough to warrant another film in the franchise.  

Overall this was something nice for people who like the slasher genre such as me and my wife. We did have fun watching the pretty well done gruesome killings on screen, although the twists no longer truly shocked us. We also felt the excitement of watching the original was not matched in here, plus it lacked really intense moments. But it did have several jump scare scenes which were enhanced by good sound effect. In the end, due to the lack of something really great, the movie did not truly excel compared to others of similar genre. However, it was still OK enough as a slasher movie and bringing back the original characters was certainly a nice touch. So this might film might be better suited for fans, but those looking for something new & hoping for extraordinary movie probably would not be too satisfied. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars