Among the locals old enough to remember, it’s known as “the ’97 Massacre”: A handful of deaths at the hands — well, specifically, at the hook — of a killer dubbed “the Fisherman.” There was this incident, see, where four teens were driving back from a summer night at the beach in Southport, North Carolina, and they hit a guy standing in the road. Rather than call the cops and risk being charged with manslaughter, the quartet decide to dump the body in the bay and, well, let’s just say he wasn’t quite dead yet. One year later, they start getting notes informing them that someone knows what they did last summer. Then some mysterious character in a black rain slicker and a mask begins stalking them and the whole stabby-stabby thing kicks off in earnest.
For us fans of the Great Slasher Flick Resurgence of the Late 1990s, the original I Know What You Did Last Summer holds a special place in our twisted hearts. A post-Scream Kevin Williamson wrote the screenplay, based on an early Seventies YA novel. The cast included a dreamy Freddie Prinze Jr., a screamy Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar in her very early Buffy days and peak-Party of Five Jennifer Love Hewitt. A pre-Big Bang Theory Johnny Galecki plays a small-town creep, and then-ascending star Anne Heche is the victim’s sister. The soundtrack showcased a truly eclectic Clinton-era collection of bands: Kula Shaker, The Offspring, Southern Culture on the Skids, Soul Asylum, Hooverphonic, and some young noisemakers called Korn. Granted, the Fisherman doesn’t have quite the brand-name power of Ghostface or other single-moniker horror icons. But dress up like you’re the world’s most Goth version of the guy on the Gorton’s fish sticks box next Halloween, and you’ll get a lot of nods of recognition.
There are two big questions regarding I Know What You Did Last Summer 2.0, the first of which is: What took them so long? (To paraphrase a wise woman: “Come on! What were you waiting for?!”) With the Scream franchise having successfully resurrected itself in the “Requel” era — we’ll let the movie itself explain what that is — you would have figured that whomever owned this intellectual property would have jumped on a reboot-slash-sequel sooner. This new version understands the overall assignment: bring back a few familiar faces; reintroduce your resident homicidal maniac hellbent on revenge; gather an insanely photogenic cast and kill most of them.
Among the fresh meat being primed for future kills and final-girl status: Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), a moody native of Southport back home for her best friend’s engagement party; Danica (Outer Banks‘ Madelyn Cline), the vapid bride-to-be; Teddy (Tyriq Withers), her rich and bro-ish fiancé; Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), who’s best described as Ava’s version of the guy who got away; and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon, so great in Stereophonic), an estranged member of the group. The foursome run into her after the engagement shindig, when she comes by to pick up some catering items for her boss who’s working the gig. They convince her to come with them for a late-night drive. Teddy is goofing around on a remote road, a car swerves to avoid him, and the vehicle goes through the guardrails and into the drink. You can guess what happens next.
And the returning players? That would be Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.), the Southport natives who’ve survived both the ’97 Massacre and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, the 1998 sequel to the original. She teaches at a nearby university, he owns a bar in town. They’re still traumatized by what they endured, though Julie has moved on better than he has. He’s angrier about how the town has virtually erased the past so as to keep real estate prices up than she is. Both are alarmed that their younger counterparts have begun receiving similar threatening notes one year after their own roadside tragedy, and yet another person or persons rocking a rain slicker and one long, nasty hook are doling out some karmic payback. The more things change… .
So you, the viewer who is invested in this latest melding of something old, something new, something borrowed and a bunch that’s blood-red, settle in for what initially seems like a nice, by-the-books reboot and wait for the bodies to drop. And then it soon becomes apparent that something is very, very wrong here. It’s not the young cast, who do their best to be the human mood boards that the movie requires them to be. It’s not the veterans, both of whom treat the first film’s place in their legacy with respect and, in Hewitt’s case, the right amount of tongue-in-cheek knowingness. It’s not even the addition of a true-crime reporter played by model/rock star Gabbriette, who’s introduced hooking up with Ava in an airplane bathroom — because hey, why not? — and is there merely to repeat the name of her Live, Laugh Slaughter podcast several times as a joke and say “There are a lot of similarities to 1997,” which, y’know: No shit!
Rather, it’s the sensation that you’re watching something that’s sloppy, overthought, undercooked and can’t decide whether it wants to honor the original (it fails), add to both the in-house lore and the longstanding genre tropes of the slasher canon (it does not), or some combo of both (two missed opportunities for the price of one). We won’t comment on one particular bit of fan service, except to say that it may be time to outlaw de-aging technology once and for all. We will say that after the movie ends on a mildly satisfying note that unites both the vintage and the nouveau I Know What You Did Last Summer strains, it then delivers what may be the single lamest set-up for future installments ever committed to film. Seriously, we’re convinced that director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and her cowriter Sam Lasky were told by studio execs that they needed to add five more minutes to suggest nothing ever ends, and they turned in a purposely god-awful coda under duress, only to have their bluff called. It’s that horrible.
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Which prompts the second big question hovering over this IKWYDLS reboot: How did they fuck this opportunity up so thoroughly? You’ll find your anger level rising like the tide as the film leaks whatever good will it’s built up before the middpoint. By the time Hewitt is forced to exclaim “nostalgia is overrated” in what the film believes to be a snarky meta-commentary — after poorly peddling that very same thing for close to two hours — you’ll want to grab a hook of your own and slash the screen in fury. The movie does not earn the right for such an insincere have-your-I-Heart-the-’90s-cake-and-eat-it-too gesture. It barely earns the right to a theatrical release. This is the kind of I.P. cash-in that earns franchise resuscitations a bad name.
From Rolling Stone US
