“It’s crazy that all of this probably could’ve been avoided if men just went to therapy.”
So says one survivor of Southport, North Carolina’s latest massacre at the end of “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” The legacy sequel of the 1997 slasher film brims with Gen Z therapy-speak — both tongue-in-cheek and earnest — creating a film that wobbles between genres like a Croaker Queen in heels, all while embracing nostalgia and treating it like a fish ready to be gutted.
Viewers who don’t get those references mustn’t fear. The first is explained in a wild-ass dream sequence that kicks off the film’s third act and ends, ultimately, with a twist lifted straight from both the 1996 and the 2022 “Scream” films. And the nostalgia element? It culminates with Jennifer Love Hewitt, star of the original film, yelling her most iconic line at the denouement.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Let’s begin with Southport itself, a real fishing town in the Tarheel State. The 900-foot pier, the blue vastness of Cape Fear River and the dozens of listed charters all point to a briny but charming place where angling reigns. It’s also why the killer at the center of the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” films wields a hook.
Even in idyllic Southport — the setting for the 1997 original and its update — secrets will always float to the surface. So will fish with elevated mercury levels.
According to the state’s department of health and human services, all bodies of water across North Carolina have a fish consumption advisory due to mercury. North of Southport, striped bass should be consumed no more than twice a week; vulnerable populations are advised to avoid catfish and largemouth bass altogether.
What does this have to do with the 2025 reboot of a classic horror franchise? Everything.
The basic premise of both films is simple. Joyriding teens accidentally run over a stranger (in the update, their pedestrian merrymaking causes a crash) and, fearful of the consequences, agree to a cover-up. A year later, someone begins terrorizing them, claiming to know their deadly secret.
Human survival instinct is powerful enough to motivate the driving action of this plot. Harder to quantify is every subsequent decision made by the naive characters, including goading a murderer, sleuthing alone and, most damningly, never involving outside help (or protection).
The logical takeaway is that everyone in Southport has mercury poisoning. Symptoms include memory loss, blurred vision and general unsteadiness. Not the best way to handle a cover-up, or the ensuing fallout.
The new film gives an actually compelling reason for its citizens’ puzzling decisions: the ‘97 murders economically crippled the town, allowing a developer to swoop in and turn it into a summer paradise — “gentrifislaytion,” as one insufferable character, a podcaster, calls it.
Relatedly, there is simply too much money to be left on the table to pass up rebooting “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” When the original film arrived in 1997, it followed quickly on the heels of “Scream,” Wes Craven’s self-aware slasher update that also brought legitimate scares. “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” also penned by writer Kevin Williamson, was critically seen as a cash-in on a revived craze, though one with actual star power; it launched the careers of Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr., who both return here (presumably for big paydays themselves).
It only makes sense, then, that after the 2022 resurrection of “Scream” (to the tune of $82 million at the box office), this franchise would likewise see its bait and tackle grabbed from the dusty shed out back. Forget mercury. The sharks smelled blood in the water.
But cynicism aside, the new film succeeds in finding a tone of black humor, thanks largely to stars Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders. Their final scene plays like the end of “Death Becomes Her” and might even open the door for a sequel — or a Netflix series spinoff. This is thanks to sharp writing from director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and story co-creator Leah McKendrick and co-writer Sam Lansky. Indeed, Robinson’s strengths lie in crafting Netflix empowerment projects, and “I Know What You Did Last Summer” has all the sheen of one (including its title).
The most discernible difference between both films is the setting. While the original film was largely shot on location in Southport, the Instagram-polished update found its cast and crew decamped to New South Wales, Australia for five months. All the old Mid-Atlantic charm of Southport has been replaced with quiet-luxury, nouveau-riche blandness.
And yet, the past remains inescapable.
“It’s 1997 all over again,” Prinze’s grizzled seaman Ray tells Hewitt’s Julie late in the film. “Isn’t that nostalgic?”
“Nostalgia is overrated,” she replies. “You have to let it go!” Seconds later, she delivers the biggest nostalgia cash-in quote in her repertoire: “What are you waiting for?”
Does it subvert her quip about killing the past? Invalidate it? Or, in a twisted way, fulfill it? All of the above, probably. Or none of them.
That’s the real shame with 2025’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” It’s powerless to stop nostalgia, even as it tries repeatedly to give it a good left hook.
Patrick Hosken is CITY’s arts reporter. He can be reached at patrick@rochester-citynews.com.
This article appears in Dec 1-31, 2024.
