I Know What You Did Last Summer

In the original I Know What You Did Last Summer, some very '90s teenagers are targeted by a killer clad in fisherman's garb and armed with a hook. Nearly 30 years later, a new sequel fires up a very similar plot. The movie includes a new group of young people — including Chase Sui Wonders and Madelyn Cline — and a few key survivors from the first go-'round (Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr.) But does it live up to the legacy of the original? Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/ See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:20Stephen Thompson?

  In the original I Know What You Did Last Summer, some very 90s teenagers are targeted by a killer after they attempt to cover up a crime against him. The original film was hugely profitable, but its sequels yielded mostly diminishing returns. Nearly 30 years later, a new sequel with the same name fires up a very similar plot, albeit with new young people and a few key survivors from the first go round. But does it live up to the legacy of the original? I'm Stephen Thompson. Today, we are talking about I Know What You Did Last Summer on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

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• 2:12Stephen Thompson?

  Joining me today is Vulture TV critic Roxana Hadadi. Hey Roxana.

• 2:15Speaker 03

  Hello. Thank you for having me on.

• 2:17Stephen Thompson?

  It is a pleasure. Also with us freelance music and culture journalist Rihanna Cruz. Hey Rihanna. Hey Stephen. And rounding out the panel is Jordan Cruciola. She's a writer and producer and the host of the podcast Feeling Seen on Maximum Fun. Hey Jordan.

• 2:30Speaker 04

  Hello. Thank you so much for having me.

• 2:32Stephen Thompson?

  It is a pleasure to convene this panel for this most important issue. So the first I Know What You Did Last Summer brought together 1997's equivalent of The Brat Pack. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, and Freddie Prinze Jr. all hit a shameful secret involving a fateful car accident the prior summer. They were stalked and in some cases slaughtered by a killer clad in fisherman's garb and armed with a great big hook. Now, I Know What You Did Last Summer has been sequelized with a new gaggle of young people led by Ava, played by Chase Sui Wonders, and Danica, played by Madeline Klein.

• 3:09Stephen Thompson?

  You've got your car accident, your cover up, your reunion a year later, all of it taking place in the same town of Southport, North Carolina, where the original murders took place. Which means, of course, that we check in on the first film's key survivors. Julie James, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, has moved away and tried to move on, while her ex-husband Ray Bronson, played by Freddie Prinze Jr., has stayed in town and opened a bar. Both of them are brought in to try to help and to sprinkle in Easter eggs for fans of the original movies. The new I Know What You Did Last Summer was directed and co-written by Jennifer Kate and Robinson. It's in theaters now. Jordan, I have one question for you.

• 3:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 3:47Stephen Thompson?

  What did you do last summer?

• 3:49Speaker 04

  Last summer, I bumped into Jennifer Kate and Robinson in Stamp Proper Goods on Hillhurst in Los Angeles, when I think she was working on I Know What You Did Last Summer, literally happened. And I am here to say, I am thrilled with the fruits of her labor, and apparently, I'm here to fight today.

• 4:11Stephen Thompson?

  You are fighting, I think, with a lot of people who have seen this movie thus far.

• 4:14Speaker 04

  Like, most of the time, I understand when I'm gonna be, when I'm gonna be at odds, like, cause that happens to me. And I'm like, all right, listen, I will be the defendant. But this time, I'm like, how is everyone so far away from my experience of this movie, having had a great ti- I'm genuinely shocked at the consensus feedback on this.

• 4:36Stephen Thompson?

  You are pro this movie, to be clear.

• 4:38Speaker 04

  Pro this movie. Walked out and was like, what a good time. Shocked that this is not the common experience.

• 4:45Stephen Thompson?

  Well, we'll get to on what basis you feel this way in a moment. We're gathering some general impressions. Roxanna, what did you think?

• 4:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I'm so worried about Jordan on a variety of levels. Look, I will say that I found this moderately entertaining. I think my biggest issue with it is I think that the movie itself does not know how much it is satirizing the entire idea of what it's doing versus genuinely redoing the first movie, right? So I think there's like an inherent tension with like, is this intentionally funny? Is it unintentionally funny? And I also think that a lot of this movie is also unclear as to whether it likes the characters that it has created, or like if it hates young people in general and just wants to like kill them

• 5:40Speaker 03

  all off. I don't know. It's sort of a fascinating artifact.

• 5:44Speaker 04

  I am sure it's not that one.

• 5:46Speaker 03

  I, I don't know.

• 5:48Speaker 04

  Listen, I will get into as the delegation who lives with a 25 and a 24 year old, and that will be a part of this conversation.

• 5:55Speaker 03

  I'm 25 and I hated it.

• 5:59Stephen Thompson?

  Yes, that's where I am. I'm in a mid place. You're in a mid place. All right. Rihanna, you maybe have tipped us off to how you're feeling.

• 6:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, I did not like this movie. I did not find it enjoyable. I was rolling my eyes the entire time. I feel like this movie for me is the endpoint of the new gen franchise sequel reboot. And it's hard for me to not compare this movie to like, other franchise reboots that I liked. Like, I think this movie lacks the campiness of the Scream reboot. I think it lacks the inventiveness of the Final Destination reboot. The- Magnitude even of like the Halloween reboots, I feel like is not here. I think this movie kind of just feels disposable. None of the cast members left a lasting impact on me.

• 6:51Speaker 05

  The cinematography looks like it's all like vertical for TikTok videos. You know, like the type of video designed to watch in like one eighty parts. You know, I know what you did last summer, twenty twenty five full movie. What bumped for me is that I feel like this movie doesn't really have any stakes from the OG car accident. You know, I, I think like something that the first movie, right? The nineteen ninety seven, I know what you did last summer, as they repeated several times in the movie. What that movie did is kind of frame the characters in this sort of air of guilt and grief that they have over hitting somebody with their car. In this movie, the initial accident, nobody hit somebody with their car.

• 7:36Speaker 05

  A guy swerves off the road. They can't pull the car back to save the guy. And so they're all guilty about it. And for me, it's like, okay, like, there is like a dubious culpability there that does not drive the plot effectively for me.

• 7:54Stephen Thompson?

  Yeah, I agree with you completely, Rihanna. I found the whole kind of catalyzing scene to me made very, very little sense. All the arguing that they're doing in the aftermath of like, oh, we have to keep this a secret. I'm sitting here like, why?

• 8:08Speaker 05

  Right.

• 8:08Stephen Thompson?

  We've just heard a broad range of opinions. And my opinion is that I like and enjoy Jordan Cruciola enormously.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  Much like I like and enjoy film enormously, as is my role on this program.

• 8:25Stephen Thompson?

  I just found this completely. I, I, I just thought this was a mess. I thought the script was bad. I too was kind of constantly trying to figure out whether the filmmakers were kind of in on the joke. Kind of like with the recent Jurassic Park movies where they're centered on this concept that the public is bored with dinosaurs. And it's clearly a metaphor for people are bored with Jurassic Park movies. So why are we making one? This has these several sequences where like the Jennifer Love Hewitt character at one point is like, yeah, nostalgia sucks. And it's like, yes, why are you here? I found it so clunky, particularly, I thought the Freddie Prinze Jr. performance was really a problem. Yeah.

• 9:05Speaker 04

  Oh, I really liked him in this. I loved salt and pepper, grizzled Freddie Prinze.

• 9:11Stephen Thompson?

  I got no problem with salt and pepper or grizzle. I would be the last person who should have a problem with such a thing. I thought his lines were badly written. I thought his lines were badly delivered. I found, plot wise, especially once you start answering some of these questions and kind of solving the whodunit, obviously, we're not going to spoil anything. I thought the explanations made no sense at all. I found it completely unconvincing and completely silly, but not necessarily crossing over into fun bad. At times, it tips into fun bad, but compared to a fun bad movie like, say, Trap, this film did not reach those dizzying highs of so bad it's good. It mostly was kind of going

• 9:55Stephen Thompson?

  through the motions and it just didn't work for me at all.

• 9:59Speaker 04

  I'm just so far afield from every single one of you.

• 10:02Stephen Thompson?

  Well, talk about what you love. What did you love?

• 10:03Speaker 04

  Okay. The thing is, I'm watching a summer slasher.

• 10:06Stephen Thompson?

  Sure.

• 10:07Speaker 04

  The car crash-ish thing happens. I, too, was watching it being like, this actually doesn't seem like a big deal and you could explain easily, like, hey, I was out near my car in the road and somebody swerved and this accident occurred and it seemed like a pretty easy explanation. But once we moved on from the scene, and I understand that those are the table stakes, I don't care. I was like, no, but this is the reason they're all upset. So I know that. So now we're moving forward. I can goldfish in a bowl. And like, the cast, that was probably the thing I was most nervous about coming in because even when you have somebody like, at the top of their game, like, say, everything in the production is going great, cast chemistry, particularly from that aughts, millennial, teen horror era, is the thing you just cannot bottle. But like, Chase Suie Wonders has

• 10:52Speaker 04

  a following. I actually loved her in this. I thought she was a really good leading girl. I thought she was really dynamic in that, like, distressy, scream queen kind of role. Madeline Klein gave me bimbo supremacy. We don't do great bimbos in horror that much anymore. And her as, like, the rich girl Speaking in sort of like self-help ease, very much kind of like the most sort of stereotypical Gen Z avatar. Thought the true crime girly was very fun. Tariq Withers, I thought he was super compelling in your Avatar Ryan Phillippe character. I liked the whole this place is gentrifying and that caused a problem because I was like, why are we watching a bunch of rich kids this time? It's kind of funny, but then it played out in a way. It made sense. I was scared. I got scared throughout this movie. I jumped throughout this movie. I got a gay scene where Renee wrapped new music was playing in this movie.

• 11:36Speaker 04

  This was what I went to a summer movie theater for. I'm befuddled. I'm out of step with as often the critical consensus, but truly the passion with which the critical consensus is seemingly blaming this movie for the entire fact of the reboot conceit has blown me clear out of those North Carolinian ocean waters.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  I could not be more on the other side of everything. Said, I really, I did not think that this cast had any believable chemistry whatsoever. I really needed more.

• 12:10Speaker 04

  I am not a hater. The Milo character absolutely did not register for me, did not exist. Do not remember.

• 12:15Speaker 03

  Which is so funny because I think he had the only line delivery that really worked for me in the scene where they are researching the nineties phenomena because a conceit of this film is that the events of 1997 have been erased from collective memory for some convoluted reason. And they realized that, you know, things popped off back then with a note that was sent saying, I know what you did last summer. And Madeline Klein is like, oh, I got a note that said, I know what you did last summer. And the actor who plays Milo was like, yes, that's why we're here. And that deadpan delivery is the only moment where I was like,

• 12:57Speaker 03

  I think that this cast is in on the joke to a certain degree. But the characters were so thin for me. The relationships did not feel lived in in any particular way. It really just made me long to watch like that Sarah Michelle Geller performance again from the first one.

• 13:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:19Speaker 03

  Because I feel like that had something tangible that I just did not connect with with this new group.

• 13:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, I watched the first one right before going to the theater to watch this new one because I was like, okay, like, let's compare and contrast. And I think the cast was a really big sticking point for me in both movies, because I think the first one, you really get attached to these characters. You know their specific personalities. This one, the new one, it feels kind of like random, kind of cobbled together personality traits.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 13:52Speaker 05

  And when I was watching, like, the motivations for each of the characters felt very strange and kind of unmotivated. I particularly think of like Chase Sweet Wonders, who like has two random sex scenes, you know, like, I'm all for bringing sex scenes back into movies, you know, like, I think we've been missing them lately. But I felt like this movie was so like unnecessarily horny because it's like, why is this character having sex in the middle of this movie? Which is part camp, but also like, kind of confusing for me. I don't know. I I was just like, not really connecting with what these characters were doing and why they were doing it. And it felt

• 14:36Speaker 05

  like often they just like cast people based on like, oh, we need a Freddie Prinze type character. Okay, like, this guy's gonna be Milo, you know, and it's like, all right.

• 14:45Stephen Thompson?

  Yeah, I definitely felt like several of these people were sort of cast as avatars from the first film, as you guys have mentioned.

• 14:53Speaker 05

  Oh, for sure.

• 14:53Stephen Thompson?

  My issues with this film aren't even as much with like the young cast and their performance, so much as this script, which is so clunky and so all over the place and really feels like it's been workshopped enough times that you have a bunch of scenes that just don't go anywhere. I think when you're talking about like the sex scenes and how out of place those sex scenes, you know, fit in this film, and I too, I'm always happy to have, you know, movies be horny.

• 15:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. I love De Palma.

• 15:21Speaker 04

  There's a drought of effectively horny movies. So true.

• 15:23Stephen Thompson?

  Right. And so that stuff is fine, but it all just feels like a jumble. It feels disjointed. Like, you're seeing a lot of scenes that don't actually have a reason to exist.

• 15:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:32Speaker 03

  It felt very unmoored. I think what it comes down to for me is like by changing what kicks off the movie, by changing it from this is something they actively do. They actively choose to dump a man's body into the water and either drown him or cover up his death by changing it from something. They make an explicit decision in that first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They commit a crime.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, they commit a crime.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  Right. This is not they choose to do something. This is something happens to them. And I just think changing it from like a proactive beginning to a reactive beginning really colors the rest of the film. I do think that there are some jump scares here. I don't like primarily the jump scare like conceit in this film is just screeching noises and flashback to the accident, which I don't love.

• 16:26Speaker 04

  That really worked for me. I thought that was actually really well deployed in this one. And normally that feels like this is what you missed on Saw to me, but I actually like, I really liked the panic flashbacks in this.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  See, I feel like it goes back to the earlier point of this was a movie created to be spliced into pieces on TikTok.

• 16:43Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 16:43Speaker 03

  And so you need the flashbacks to remind people of what happened if you missed an earlier clip of the 180 clips that this movie is now in on TikTok. And so that was an issue for me. And so it's like, there are moments here that are really bloody and really gruesome and some really great images like Danica using a blood red bath bomb. Like there are some really smart things, I think. And they're just sort of weighed down by like to Stephen's point to me, this script that I'm like, okay, if the villain was gentrification all along, I'd love to see the other parts of this town. I'd love to see the other people who live here. I'd love to have a greater understanding of what.

• 17:28Speaker 05

  This is doing to this community and the movie felt very insular for too long, I think.

• 17:34Speaker 04

  Like, I was thinking that as well. Like, I was kind of wondering about the greater nature of the town in the movie. Like, that is definitely something I was doing. I can see how if you were unsure of like how in on it are the people in this movie of like the satire of the joke or the loving winks. I just felt very bought in. I don't like to cite like the person who made this movie, but like, I feel like with Jen Kate and Robinson, and she co-wrote it with Sam Lansky. You look at the stuff that she's done and with Sweet Vicious and with Do Revenge, it feels like she's such an in on the joke kind of entire sensibility. And you you look at the humor that excites her and the characters that she chooses to write in. Like, there was never a moment for me where I was going to, I think, question whether or not she loved these characters and she loved their like sense of humor they were going for and their personalities.

• 18:18Speaker 04

  So I think foundationally, I wasn't having that undermining feeling that might have matriculated out throughout the rest of the movie. And maybe like shooting holes in it the entire time. Like, that was something that was very much built in the foundation of how I was watching it was like understanding that for being like, yeah, I believe she is on the same page as these characters and she knows where the humor of this is going. So I was like linked arms with her sensibility in that way.

• 18:39Speaker 05

  That's interesting. I feel like when it comes to the director and the way that the script is written, it's a vibe that you have to catch and I just don't catch it and.

• 18:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, I hear that. I hear that.

• 18:49Speaker 05

  I like saw that the director of this movie had directed two movies prior to this one. Do Revenge and Someone Great, two movies that I really did not like and also would give two stars. So a great consistent filmography to me.

• 19:06Speaker 04

  I absolutely, that is not anything I would even try and make an argument. It's just like, if it's not the vibe that you've ever caught, there's no reason why you would catch it here. Like, if those movies didn't sit right with you, this is not going to be the one that converts you to this person's style. I 100% agree with that.

• 19:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  I want to ask, two out of five or two out of 10? Like, what star level are we talking here?

• 19:26Speaker 04

  Fair question. Fair question.

• 19:28Speaker 05

  I would give it, you know, on Letterboxd, I gave it a two out of five. I think I would bump it down to a one and a half out of five.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 19:35Speaker 05

  The more I think about it, you know, one of those things that like you sit with it and you wrestle with it and you're like, actually, I think I gotta bump this down to half star.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 19:43Speaker 04

  Okay, my one question, as with the original, what would it be, and I know what you did last summer movie, if it was not compared to Scream? This is the movie's legacy, this is the movie's bags that it carries with it.

• 19:53Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 19:54Speaker 04

  You know, you said that you preferred like the direction that like the Scream movies took.

• 19:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:58Speaker 04

  What was it about that in this movie's closest comp where in the parlance of our times, one might have described in 1997, I know what you did last summer is Scream's quote unquote reheated nachos. What did you find that the revamps of Scream were doing more effectively in this movie's sort of older sister kind of comparison that you weren't feeling in this one?

• 20:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, I think like the Scream reboots, the closest analog I have is like the campiness. When you're rebooting a franchise in horror now, you know, there like needs to be an element of like being in on it.

• 20:30Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 20:30Speaker 05

  Or you have to like subvert the formula. At this point, we've seen so many horror reboots that are about like trauma and trauma sticks with us.

• 20:39Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 20:39Speaker 05

  And the trauma is around and we need to acknowledge it. And I think what the Scream reboots did really well is granted, they were like one of the first in recent memory to do that, but also they leaned into the campiness that has like always been inherent to the Scream franchise.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:55Speaker 05

  I think the I Know What You Did Last Summer, the first one specifically, not talking about the brandy one, not talking about I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer.

• 21:03Speaker 04

  Yes, the source code.

• 21:04Speaker 05

  Right, the first movie, I don't think it's particularly campy. I think it has an air of dread to it. I think there's a really heavy emotional guilt that lies over the movie.

• 21:15Speaker 04

  I Know What You Did Last Summer is a sincere movie.

• 21:17Speaker 05

  Right, and I think what the Scream reboots did well is tap into the camp that was in the original movie. There is really no camp in the original I Know What You Did Last Summer, and that's why if there was camp in this, because I didn't see it, but I'm sure there is. It did not land for me.

• 21:35Speaker 04

  Gotcha, okay.

• 21:36Speaker 03

  I think also. The new Scream's actually, I don't really enjoy. I feel like they're chasing the feeling of watching Skeet Orich suck fake blood off his fingers. Like, those movies, to me, are like chasing the high of that image. And I don't think that they get there. But I do agree with you that I think one of my biggest issues here was just tonality. And the fact that it doesn't really fit what I think of the lineage of this movie, which is really about the impending doom of becoming an adult. And I just, I didn't get that from this, really. I didn't get the sense that, like, I don't know what any of these people were doing

• 22:22Speaker 03

  before they came back home, you know? So it just felt like that level of like, they're characters who are created to be creatively killed off. I wanted more than just like the blood that spills out of their bodies, if that, you know, makes sense.

• 22:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. I think a movie that I really liked from this year is Final Destination: Bloodlines, because like you watch it and it's like the way that these characters are being killed off and disposed of is obviously like the main event. But when you compare something like that with the new I Know What You Did Last Summer, it's like the kills don't really land super well, because you're like, oh, okay, like, you know, maybe the hook is tired at this point, I don't know. Honestly, the best part of the movie for me is when they shot somebody with a harpoon gun. I was like, okay, yes. Yeah, that was outstanding. I was like, we need more of that.

• 23:15Stephen Thompson?

  That was outstanding.

• 23:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, it was. I was just looking for something that I think wasn't there. Yeah. Gotcha, okay.

• 23:22Stephen Thompson?

  And the award for outstanding achievement in the field of harpooning goes to...

• 23:28Stephen Thompson?

  All right, we want to know what you think about I Know What You Did Last Summer. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/PCHH and on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/NPRPopCulture. We'll have a link in our episode description. That brings us to the end of our show. Roxana Hadadi, Rihanna Cruz, Jordan Cruciola, thanks so much for being here.

• 23:47Speaker 05

  Thanks for having me. Thank you.

• 23:49Stephen Thompson?

  Thank you. This episode was produced by Carly Rubin and Mike Katzif and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next time.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.