Legacy sequels are a strange beast. They are movies dipping heavily into nostalgia for a film property, and while calling back to the things that fans loved from that original film, they also have an eye on rejuvenating a property. Legacy movies are nothing too new, but they have really become a fad in Hollywood, especially in horror, as studios try to wring every last dollar from these movies. They lean on the nostalgic love of these movies, even bringing back characters from the originals. The problem with a lot of them, is that they often feel like cash grabs more than honest attempts at renewing these movies.
Enter I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, a series that had a second-tier slasher film from the ‘90s that never hit like SCREAM did, but still holds up as a fun movie from the era. Alas, the second film didn’t really connect as well, and that was pretty much it. Sure, they made a third film, with other characters, and a modern television series, but the franchise never really lived up to a really iconic looking killer. If anything is true, though, it’s that nothing is dead, as long as a producer thinks they can make money off it, so, welcome to I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER…the re-quel!
A group of affluent friends from Southport, the town where the original film takes place, get together after several years, to celebrate the engagement of friends. While celebrating, the are involved in causing a crash, and end up leaving the victim for dead. Vowing not to tell anyone what happened, their lives are forever changed, as they live with the guilt of what they have done. One year later, the friends return to Southport to celebrate another engagement, and their return inspires someone who knows their crime, to threaten that they know what they did last summer. This is no simple threat, though, and as the bodies pile up, the friends search the past for clues, and possibly help, in trying to survive another slickered killer, wielding a hook.
The film looks good, and is shot very well. The cast is attractive, and does well. The legacy characters are nice to see, and bring something to the film, but don’t get in the way of the story too much. It’s all fine.
But that’s it, it’s fine.
And, that’s not really enough.
The movie treads in the shadow of the original so much that, in modern times, it really points out how awkward the original was, as we watched these affluent/popular kids struggle with their having covered up a crime. This is worse, in that these young people exist only to be attractive, and dramatic. They are little more than pretty people with a heap of traumatic guilt. There is no depth, no personality, and while I didn’t cheer for anyone to die in the film, I certainly didn’t much care what happened to anyone.
As in the original, the fisherman is the star here, though, like the original, he doesn’t do a whole lot other than stalk people, and is unmasked pretty quickly during the climax. We learn the “why” of it all, and it’s fine, but there are SO many red herrings here, that it, once more, feels so similar to the original, as to remind me how thin that soup was.
None of this is to say I didn’t enjoy the movie.
Slashers are what they are, popcorn. There are some standouts, that transcend the subgenre, but generally, if they are fun, offer an interesting mystery, some good kills, and a good killer, that’s about all you need. That’s the case here. I appreciated a curveball they throw in toward the end, and there is a bit to unpack with that, but otherwise, it’s a very by the numbers film. They set things up to continue in one of two ways, but that seems as if it’s not to be, judging on the way the movie released to a long sigh from moviegoers.
It’s worth a watch.
It’s well made, the actors do well, the kills and the kills are decent, it just feels like so much was left on the table. A film like THANKSGIVING leaned into the weirdness of it all, and added black humor, and IN A VIOLENT NATURE really anchored you with a scary killer. The new SCREAM films worked so well because they tapped into what made the originals so good, the writing. With I KNOW, the fact is that the pretty cast and the killer were the big draws. It was popcorn, but pretty yummy popcorn. This is sorta stale, with not enough butter, or salt, and you eat it because you’re hungry.
It’s worth a watch if you like slasher movies, or the franchise, but sadly, I doubt many will return to it over the years. I appreciate where they were trying to take the film, and some of the choices they made, it just never really becomes more than a shadowcast of the original.
2.75 out of 5
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4045450/
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