Netflix’s New “I Know What You Did Last Summer” Disappoints
KJ Helinsky | Nov. 25, 2025
You go a whole year and no one finds out what you did last summer. Now it feels as though the walls are caving in around you, and everyone is watching you. Your relief is stripped away when you find out that someone may know exactly what you did. The latest “I Know What You Did Last Summer” invites you back to this once sleepy town of Southport to put to the test what secrets were truly buried and what secrets were not. Who can you really trust?
Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and released on Netflix in mid-October, this film serves as a sequel to the original “I Know What You Did Last Summer” released in October 1997. This remake brings in past actors such as Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr, along with fresh upcoming faces such as Madeline Cline and Sarah Pigeon.
Visually the film is very strong. The jump scares are spot on, and the setting in Southport as a whole and the cinematography is sharp. The killings start out creative, but as the film unfolds the murders get bland and repetitive. Compared to the original film, this new Gen-Z version does not meet the original's slow build of terror throughout its entirety.
I think it is safe to applaud Hewitt’s connection to the original film; she and the other original characters who appeared gave the movie a nostalgic feeling. A slight issue I have is the new characters have very little depth to them. Unlike the original cast, I did not feel like I was connected to them in any sense. With the original cast, I felt more invested into what was going to happen to them throughout the film. This new film left me asking myself ‘Why?’ many times. Why were they so eager to cover up this story? Why did Ray get in the car with her old friends who she did not like? I think that the director should have done a better job giving us depth to these characters, so that we could connect with them.
“I Know What You Did Last Summer” struggles to hold its own when compared to the original. The suspense, the eerie feeling, and the killings are all there, but everything else within the film lacks depth and leaves the audience questioning. While fans might enjoy seeing old faces within the film, the new generation is left with a surface level story. If you’ve never seen the original, it's worth a watch!