I Know What You Did Last Summer (Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, 2025)

Bonus review: Scream VI (2023)

I liked the original I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) well enough to go into the remake with an open mind. But the new movie doesn’t know whether it wants to be Scream or Scary Movie.

The set-up is basically the same, but at least the details are different. Five friends from the coastal town Southport, NC, are on their way to watch the fireworks when they appear to hit something - or someone. But that’s a joke - one of the best in a movie, that is often more unintentionally than intentionally funny.

The real inciting incident happens a couple of minutes later, when Teddy (Tyriq Withers) is too stoned to get out of the way and a passing car falls off a cliff and to its doom.

Teddy and the others - his airhead girlfriend Danica (Madelyn Cline), the reasonably intelligent couple of Ava (Chase Sui Wonders) and Milo (Jonah Hauer-King) and outsider Stevie (Sarah Pigeon) - have to think fast and of course they make the wrong decision.

Instead of phoning the police and accepting possible blame they try to cover up the whole affair.

And as anyone who has ever seen the original movie, one of its sequels (the forgettable one from 1998 or the really bad one from 2006) or the misguided Amazon-series from 2021 knows: one year later they will pay the price. With their life. In blood and guts.

But that joke is tired and not really funny anymore. Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge), from a screenplay she wrote with Sam Lansky, which in turn is based on a story Robinson wrote with Leah McKendrick, the movie never amounts to much.

The new characters are, at best superficial, so it would be no great loss to see them go. In an attempt to out-do Scream some actors from the 1997 original reprise their roles, with Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) as this year’s Sidney Prescott giving it some ‘I don’t want to get involved, but here I am anyway’ energy.

There is also a Scream-like attempt at meta-commentary in the form of a true crime podcast, an idea that is abandoned soon after, never to be returned to, in my humble opinion a clear sign of bad (re-)writing.

It’s probably meant to be ironic, but by then the damage is done, and this version of I Know What You Did Last Summer is beginning to feel more like a parody than anything else.

It’s not all bad. The vengeful fisherman with a hook for a hand is back and some of the kills, of which there are plenty, are effective enough. And fortunately, some of the actors are able to work with what they are given. Chase Sui Wonders (from Halina Reijn’s excellent Bodies Bodies Bodies) is probably too good for a movie like this, while Madelyn Cline is good because she is exactly as annoying as her wellness babble spouting character should be.

And if you want to wallow in nineties nostalgia, thanks to Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr. and, yes, even a Sarah Michelle Gellar cameo and yes again, even a mid-credits appearance from Brandy teasing an I Still Know What You Did Last Summer remake, please be my absolute guest.

I didn’t mind sitting through this movie, at least half of it is in ‘so bad that it’s almost fun’ territory, and even though some of the dialogue is atrocious, at least it’s not boring.

But when in the last couple of minutes two major characters are suddenly revived, the last one through a throwaway line of dialogue, you just know we’ve entered the land of the ridiculous and they will probably make the next movie not for theaters but for streaming, even though this franchise doesn’t really need or deserve to be saved.

I give it two stars!

Note: I Know What You Did Last Summer is released this week in most of the world, with countries like France, Thailand, Singapore and Philippines to follow later this month.

SCREAM VI (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett, 2023)

The Scream series comes roaring back to life with yet another successful entry, which takes the main cast from Woodsboro to the Big Apple. But can they escape whoever is hiding behind the Ghostface mask?

To my mind directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett resuscitated the franchise with the fifth movie (which was good, but not great) and now, with number six, they’ve gone and made the best Scream since the first.

Working again from a script by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, the duo have really made the series their own.

Scream VI is on the one hand completely ironic and self-referential yet on the other it plays it straight when it comes to the story and its killings. It’s very well executed on a technical level, it’s also extremely accessible and it’s bloody enough to definitely earn its R-rating.

I also think it’s impossible to overstate the importance of the central duo of Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, who play sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter. The supporting cast is pretty good too, but these two just ooze charm and charisma.

It’s a shame that the original final girl Sidney Prescott isn’t there anymore because the producers didn’t want to pay Neve Campbell what she wanted, but at least she gets a decent verbal send-off. And who knows if and when she might come back.

Courteney Cox is the only one still there from the original cast and she delivers another fine performance as unscrupulous reporter Gale Weathers, who has profited more than most from the Woodsboro killings and whose life may definitely in danger in this new movie.

Hayden Panetierre (from Scream 4) makes an interesting reappearance as (now detective) Kirby Reed. While Samara Weaving may or may not have the role that Sarah Michelle Gellar played in the first movie, but then again, this opening sequence comes with a very sharp twist.

By this point we know that basically anyone or everyone of any age, gender or color can be Ghostface, and the same goes for the people whose lives are at stake. In that sense the Scream-movies are very inclusive.

I won’t spoil too much of the story in case you haven’t seen the movie yet, but New York offers a nice change of location, even though it was apparently all filmed in Montreal.

There is a breathtaking sequence on the subway that will probably become a classic and even though there is a little too much meta-movie explaining towards the end, I was still very much into it by the time the credits rolled.

I give it four stars!

Note: Scream VI is available through various streaming platforms like Google Play Films, Apple TV and Rakuten TV.