After 27 years — give or take the time each sequel interrupts the flow — the killer with the fish hook and a passion for killing unruly teenagers returns to the town of South Port, New Carolina, and you ask: Why, O Lord Almighty, WHY?

On the 4th of July, a bunch of party-high teens cause a car to veer off a cliff. Traumatised for roughly five minutes, the youngsters (actors Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers) rebound from their collective guilt with the resilience only Gen Z TikTok influencers could muster — they return to their unbothered, liberated lifestyle with a renewed commitment to hook-ups and parties.

One wonders if ‘getting it on’ with others is the only prerogative in their life. Until, that is, ‘The Fisherman’ (this franchise’s gruesome murderer) returns to kill them.

Soon, bodies drop indiscriminately — but not just of the four party animals. Anyone that falls within two degrees of today’s definition of teenage recklessness is fair game.

Spawned from the 1973 novel by Lois Duncan, this entry in the movie series (the only exception is the 2006 standalone direct-to-video entry, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer), is a hot mess — and not the kind that you could have a chuckle about afterwards.

I Know What You Did Last Summer remake immediately makes it to the list of all-time mistakes studios have made

Screenwriters Sam Lansky and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, the latter also serving as the director, are hell-bent on making all characters as deplorable as possible. They have little to no substance, and their world view is constricted to superficial gloss (which one can see in their over-the-top make-up). When the hook comes for them, it’s not horror or remorse one feels, but relief.

Hurrah for the Fisherman, I guess.

Except, these youngsters are not the only ones getting a major kick in the teeth from the writers and director. Freddie Prinze Jr, Jennifer Love-Hewitt and Sarah Michelle Gellar (she returns in a bad dream, since she died in the first film), legacy characters and their actors, were inveigled by what I can assume was a hefty paycheck, because they are dealt the worst cards in the deck.

The 1997 film launched screenwriter Kevin Williamson’s career (he later wrote Scream), and made Prinze Jr, Love-Hewitt, Gellar and Ryan Phillippe stars. I fail to see this movie giving birth to any stars, no matter how popular they are on streaming platforms or television.

Blame most of the bad decisions on Lansky (who, by the way, was an entertainment journalist and editor) and Kaytin Robinson, who may well have believed that they were remixing a classic for a new generation, by making legacy characters inactive participants to the story that has little to nothing to do with them, and who are short-changed to deliver a ‘startling twist.’

In case you were wondering: the twist isn’t startling.

The only shock factor, in full display, stems from the lack of intelligence. Technically and aesthetically a dud in every department, one questions the need to make this film — or why this particular story was greenlit by the studio.

I Know What You Did Last Summer immediately makes it to the list of all-time mistakes studios have made — and likewise, a mistake for those who bought the ticket.

O Lord, for the love of all that bleeds and dies by the hooks, chainsaws and hatchets of deranged killers in slasher flicks: let this franchise die as well. Amen.

Released by HKC and Sony Pictures, I Know What You Did Last Summer is rated R (or A in Pakistan). It has bloody horror violence, bad language, some sexual content and brief drug use — everything that will get you killed in slasher movies

Published in Dawn, ICON, August 10th, 2025