Intensity 🩸🩸.5 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Written by Sam Lansky, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, and Leah McKendrick
We return to Southport in the reboot/sequel I Know What You Did Last Summer. A new crew of pretty teens is put through very similar paces to the 1997 cast. Bad decisions lead to murderous revenge from an assailant in a fisherman’s slicker, wielding a meat hook. It’s a better-looking movie than its predecessor, but it lacks the star power and charisma of the original. Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. return to lend credibility to the film, and the writing struggles to effectively use the legacy cast. Unfortunately, like its source material, The Fisherman is an uninspired generic villain.
In the nineties, two dominant slasher films helped revive the genre. The first, in 1996, was Scream. The second was I Know What You Did Last Summer. Scream was a huge success, partly because it featured a master of horror, Wes Craven. He understood the genre’s dynamics and tropes, and this partly put the protagonists front and center. They didn’t use anonymous young actors like the slasher movies of the eighties. Instead, they mined established young stars (Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard, David Arquette, and the great bait-and-switch with Drew Barrymore) and leaned on them to put butts in theater seats.
I know What You Did Last Summer copied that template, and perhaps even upped the ante. Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Ryan Phillippe were emerging hot actors and gave the movie real star power. The film’s premise was also easy to identify with. Young people make a huge mistake, cover it up, and pay for that mistake with their lives. Like Scream, the villain is the film’s real weak spot. The fisherman does not inspire. He never attained even Ghostface-level appeal, despite the movie’s box-office success.
Twenty-eight years later, the movie successor to the franchise has the same problem, with the added burden of lacking the charisma or star power of its leads. That’s not to say they aren’t pretty. It’s a beautiful cast. Despite the background of these actors, they don’t arrive with the same fanfare. If you want to know who the studio thinks the stars of this film are, look at the poster. It’s Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze. They are also an older cast. (All of them are 27 years or older.) So, the film lacks some of that youthful innocence.
The Cast of I Know What You Did Last Summer
- Chase Sui Wonders plays Ava Brucks, a woman returning to Southport, North Carolina, for the wedding of her best friend, Danica.
- Madeline Cline plays Danica Richards, a wealthy, flirty, and vapid young woman engaged to Teddy.
- Tyriq Withers is Teddy, an entitled, carefree, athletic young man engaged to Danica.
- Jonah Hauer-King plays Milo Griffin, Ava’s ex-boyfriend, who is still holding a torch for Ava.
- Sarah Pidgeon plays Stevie Ward, an estranged member of the group of friends, recently released from drug rehab.
- Jennifer Love Hewitt plays Julie James, a survivor of the 1997 Southport Massacre, now a college professor.
- Freddie Prinze Jr. plays Ray Bronson, the other survivor of the 1997 Southport Massacre, who now owns a bar at the Southport Docks.
- Sarah Michelle Gellar plays Helen Shivers, a victim of the Southport Massacre.
- Joshua Orpin plays Wyatt, Danica’s rebound fiancé, whom she engages after the trauma of the events of the first engagement party.
- Gabriette plays Tyler, a podcasting influencer who is researching the 1997 massacre for her Podcast “Live Life Slaughter”.
- Austin Nichols plays Pastor Judah Gillespie, a local priest who runs a somewhat culty church in town. Nothing suspicious here.
- Billy Campbell plays Grant Spencer, Teddy’s politician dad, who has overseen Southport’s economic boom and would like to keep its dark secrets buried.
A Synopsis of I Know What You Did Last Summer:
Southport, North Carolina, has changed in the years since the massacre of 1997. The sleepy fishing town has gentrified into a wealthy harbor town, where the wealthy have built mansions and yacht docks. Ava Brooks has returned to her hometown for her best friend, Danica’s, engagement party at Teddy’s sprawling seaside estate. Also attending the fete are Ava’s ex-boyfriend, Milo, Teddy, the groom-to-be, and Stevie, a former member of their social unit who worked the party as a bartender.
To cap off their evening, the group heads out for a drive to Reaper’s Cove, a coastal viewpoint to watch the Fourth of July fireworks. Not coincidentally, this location, on this date, is precisely where and when the original movie’s key moment takes place. The group is in full party mode, drinking and getting high without a care in the world. They stop on the side of the road, at a bluff with a great view of the fireworks. Teddy, in full horseplay mode, causes a truck to swerve and plummet over the sea cliff below. The group debates what to do. After considering the consequences, they panic, flee the scene, and promise never to talk about it again.
The party disperses, the plot hook set. One year later, they reconvene for another Danica engagement party. Along the way, Ava has an airport fling with Tyler, who knows all the lore of the murders 26 years ago, and functions as the connective exposition to the original series. This time, the groom-to-be is Wyatt, another handsome hunk of beef. At the engagement party, Danica opens a card with “I Know What You Did Last Summer” scrawled on it. The fisherman is pulling in his catch. Danica suspects Teddy did it.
Danica dumped Teddy. He did not handle the Reaper’s Cove incident well, and now he is a drunken wreck living on a sailboat in the harbor. After confronting Teddy, the rest of the gang heads back to relax and blow off steam. While Danica tries to recover in the Tub, the fisherman strikes. Teddy is harpooned on the back porch by the pool and is put on display in the living room. Game on.
The crew tries to rally by finding out who is trying to recreate the ’97 murder spree. The city officials want to bury the incident. After Ava and Tyler sneak into the abandoned Shivers store looking for clues (From the original film), the Fisherman strikes again, killing Tyler. This forces the survivors to seek out help from the people who would know best how to handle the situation: Ray and Julie. Who’s the killer? Why mimic the previous murders?
Evaluation
The movie does some things right. The original premise mostly works. The revitalized Southport presents well, with Sydney standing in for North Carolina. Like the recent Scream reboot, the film struggles to balance fans’ desire for Easter Eggs with presenting something new. The integration of the legacy characters felt forced. Jennifer Love Hewitt fans will be disappointed. She had decent screen time, but in the end, she didn’t prove to be a key factor. The use of Freddie Prinze Jr. was much more significant, but will likely prove divisive to the fan base. Count me among those who weren’t keen on his role. Sarah Michelle Gellar was force-fed in as a dream sequence. And we get a cameo from Brandy in the end-credits scene, which was fun and perhaps a clue to the next movie.
The story doesn’t do the actors any favors. The plot twists itself into logic knots and feels toothless, as if crafted by test audiences. Also, horror fans will have to admit that the Fisherman isn’t a particularly imposing villain. Very similar to Ghostface, the Fisherman is one of the characters we meet in the movie, as this is a man in a disguise. He should have a strong motive for the killings. The movie botched this badly.
By necessity, someone must be connected to the original tragedy. In this case, a strong argument could be that this was truly an accident, though an accident caused by drunken foolishness. The movie tries to set up a character as an obvious choice, but the connection is so tenuous that it isn’t convincing. Then it pulls a double switcheroo for the gotcha closing moment, and for me, this was a face-palm situation. The editing of the movie really throws the pace off, as the plot tries to keep all of the logic tied together, but it felt like an R-rated Scooby Doo moment.
Honestly, the Fisherman just isn’t that scary either, and that goes for the whole franchise. You can make the argument that this series is not bout the villain. It’s about the protagonists. And they’re not compelling this time out.
Concluding Thoughts
Madeline Cline and Tyrique Withers stand out in this ensemble. They embody dumb, rich, and pretty very well. They give more dynamic performances, and their characters, though annoying, are more interesting. The rest of the crew is flat and unmemorable. The ending of the movie was reshot to please test audiences, and it shows. The movie pulls its punches when it could have been a more powerful slasher film. But, as this is meant to be a crowd-pleaser rather than a gut-wrenching production, it went for a safer option.
I think teenagers would enjoy this movie. I’m certain that I would have as a teen, but with the more sophisticated fare out there, this movie feels thin. It doesn’t have the star power to dazzle, though all of the young cast might develop into stars in the future. In some ways, it’s better than the original. Jennifer Robinson has made a better-looking movie. The original film also came out at a time when horror was at a low point, with few releases. As a result, the franchise’s legacy is slightly inflated. I rewatched the original, and it is full of flaws as well. (Shrug)
I Know What You Did Last Summer was produced by Columbia / Sony and is rated R for violence, mild gore, and language. It is not a heavy watch, and again, it should be fine for teenage horror fans. The movie is currently featured on Netflix. It did moderately well at the box office, so if this film appeals to you, there will likely be a sequel coming.
Review by Eric Li
I know who Sony thinks the movie’s stars are by looking at the Posters. Nostalgia for the win? Not really. It’s an indictment of the new cast’s lack of charisma.
