Bruce Miller, Sioux City Journal entertainment editor, says "I Know What You Did Last Summer" is a nice chance to see Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt reprise their roles from the 1997 original. But otherwise, the new addition falls short.
If you do, chances are good you’re going to wind up dead or identified as the killer everyone is seeking.
“I Know What You Did Last Summer,†a sequel to the 1997 horror film, features several of the original film’s characters and a new generation of kids who don’t report accidents when they see them.
A car accident bonds those who witnessed it in "I Know What You Did Last Summer."
Sony Pictures
Five friends go out “joy-riding†following an engagement party and cause a car to fall off a cliff. Although the five try to get the driver out, they don’t call police and keep the night a secretÌý— until a year later when someone scrawls the title words on a card presented at a bridal shower. Sure enough, the killer is back, ready to avenge the driver’s death.
But who is this slicker-clad stalker carrying a hook?
At some point in the film, everyone is suspect. The five (who love wearing white) seek advice from those from the first film (Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr.) and fail to learn another lesson: Don’t have glass doors in your house.
One by one, the twentysomething friends get picked off.
Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson keeps the guessing game going but doesn’t give us enough reason to understand why any are dead. Sure, one’s the snotty son of a rich property owner, another’s the dopey daughter of wealthy residents. But arrows shot through windows? Victims hung up like the catch of the day? This town is worse than Amity Island.
Robinson borrows a few tricks from “Jaws†and lets Hewitt utter some of the film’s best catchphrases, but the younger generation is hardly worth another sequel. Most of the actors mumble; most of their antics are inexcusable. When Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), the wisest of the bunch, decides to visit old haunts (including the closed Shiver’s department store), there’s a podcaster in tow who wants to do something on the original murders.
Good idea? Of course not, but that doesn’t stop one of them from, um, hooking up.
Considering most horror films are quick and dirty, this one rambles on longer than it should. It manages surprise cameos and could intrigue those who saw the original nearly 30 years ago. But in the wake of Jordan Peele’s films, this should have been a made-for-TV venture.
