Parents' Guide to I Know What You Did Last Summer

This franchise, all inspired by Lois Duncan's young adult novel first published in 1973, has never worked, and this terrible tangle of bad logic, bad motivations, and overall greed is no different. The original I Know What You Did Last Summer almost had a chance, with a screenplay by the then red-hot Kevin Williamson (Scream), but it was too generic and superficial. The sequels—which required additional groups of people to assemble, cause an accident, and flee the scene—worked far less well and rank among the worst horror/slasher movies ever made. The idea of a killer waiting an entire year to strike just so they can send a sinister postcard with the movie's title is also ridiculous.

This "requel" (reboot + sequel) is painfully guilty of riding the coattails of the two most recent—and successful—Scream movies (just as the original movie did in the '90s), copying ideas such as reassembling surviving cast members from the first film. But not everything that worked for Scream works for the Last Summer crew: These characters aren't media-savvy, and they're not particularly smart. The cast of this film, as with the 1997 original, consists entirely of conventionally attractive White people without much depth, although Cline, who plays the flighty Danica (and who held her own with the cast of Glass Onion as Dave Bautista's girlfriend "Whiskey"), adds some delightfully humorous touches to her character. And, unlike many horror movies, there's a real sense of mourning and guilt here, as characters experience regret and trauma over their actions and losses. But, overall, I Know What You Did Last Summer is less like a day at the beach than it is a day in the pits.