On July 17, theaters will release returned the popular slasher franchise of the 90s «I Know What You Did Last Summer», now with its fourth film. Along with new characters — a group of clumsy young people who decided to hide a fatal car accident provoked by one of them and move on with their lives — its veterans Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. returned to the series. In this review, we are sad to say that some ghosts from the distant past are better off not returning at all.
Genre slasher
Director Jennifer Katelyn Robinson
Starring Madeline Kline, Chase Suey Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Freddie Prince Jr
Premiere movie theaters
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb, official website
After one pretentious celebration, a group of school friends goes to watch fireworks. Pulling over to the side of the road, one of the young men starts fooling around in the middle of the road, which leads to an accident. The unknown driver’s car plunges into the abyss, and a group of dazed boys and girls decide not to tell anyone about the incident and forget about it as if it were a bad dream.
The following summer, the characters’ lives turn to hell when the blonde Danika, who is persistently trying to get married, receives a disturbing note with the same inscription «I know…» and further on in the text. A maniacal fisherman with a textbook butcher’s hook in hand will not be long in coming. Now the doomed will be in trouble for sure.
In the wake of Wes Craven’s successful postmodern reinterpretation of the slasher in his cult film «Scream» (1996), it became clear that ruthless maniacs chasing frightened schoolchildren could still be interesting to the audience. A year later, the first part of «I Know What You Did Last Summer» was released, based on the novel of the same name by Lois Duncan. It is noteworthy that the screenwriter of both youth horror films was Kevin Williamson, but unlike Craven’s hit, this time no one claimed to reinvent the wheel.
In fact, the film turned out to be rather mediocre, but against the backdrop of the nascent genre activity and pretty actors in the frame, it became a commercial hit, so the sequel was not long in coming. But it would have been better if there hadn’t been one. «I Still Know What You Did Last Summer» (1998) brought Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. back into the fold, but at the same time looked like a hastily made auto-parody. And the silly triquel «I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer», which was released in 2006 on video and introduced inappropriate elements of the supernatural into mythology, is not accepted in decent society.
As the slasher franchise is once again breathing at the top of its lungs, there is no better time to revive this long-forgotten franchise. As an example, of course, we first of all take the successful return to the screens of «Scream».
As proof of the genre’s current trendiness, we also take into account the eternal confrontation between Laurie Strode and the immortal Michael Myers in «Halloween». Bloody spraying of tickers With a leather face in «The Texas Chainsaw Massacre» 2021. The exploitation of clowns («Terrifier», «Clown in a Cornfield»). And how can we not mention the success of the recent «Final Destination Bloodlines» — another youth horror of a long-gone era that millennials love to remember.
And that’s not to mention the smaller genre representatives that regularly appear on the screens and often dilute the escapes from the maniac with classic tropes from other areas of cinema, such as «Groundhog Day» («Happy Death Day»), body swapping («Freaky»), time travel («Totally Killer», «Time Cut»), etc.
So in the context of risks, the authors of the newest version should feel more relaxed than their predecessors. If in ’97 they were guided by the huge success of «Scream» and the name of Kevin Williamson in the screenwriters’ list, today’s filmmakers are playing on much safer ground. Or, if you prefer, on a path well trodden by their genre brethren. And no one has canceled the game on the nostalgic feelings of the audience.
But even in such a favorable time for its appearance, the film by Jennifer Katelyn Robinson looks very uncertain — it is still the same mediocre, unimaginative slasher from the 90s, only in 2025.
That is 28 years later Practically nothing has changed. Again, a group of young fools, a game of cat and mouse with a mysterious killer, several bloody massacres, and a big reveal in the finale. And then the curtain. It’s such a lazy and banal nothing that even the «Scary Movie» there will be nothing to joke about.
In terms of the use of characters, both old and new, the film follows exactly the same path as its many predecessors. Young people are as helpless as ever, and the veterans invited for the sake of appearances are — blatantly superfluous, because they exist in the plot purely for the sake of nostalgia for the times «when the grass was greener and movies were made better». Thus, the useless retirement performances of familiar faces provoke emotions that are radically opposite to those that the creators were trying to evoke. Mostly it is anger and disappointment.
They are especially noticeable in the mediocre finale, the events of which we will not, of course, reveal, as well as during a useless cameo that only makes things worse.
«She’s so sexy. Too bad she’s dead» — one of the characters admits about Helen Shivers, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar. It would seem that this franchise has been dead for a long time, but there were enthusiasts who took its corpse out of its cozy coffin. The feasibility of the idea is extremely questionable, so we can only hope that no one will have to return to the ill-fated Southport next summer.
Контент сайту призначений для осіб віком від 21 року. Переглядаючи матеріали, ви підтверджуєте свою відповідність віковим обмеженням.
Cуб'єкт у сфері онлайн-медіа; ідентифікатор медіа - R40-06029.
