Synopsis:
When five friends inadvertently cause a deadly car accident, they cover up their involvement and make a pact to keep it a secret rather than face the consequences. A year later, their past comes back to haunt them and they’re forced to confront a horrifying truth: someone knows what they did last summer…and is hell-bent on revenge. As one by one the friends are stalked by a killer, they discover this has happened before, and they turn to two survivors of the legendary Southport Massacre of 1997 for help.
What We Thought:
After watching the new I Know What You Did Last Summer I must abide by a new rule, if the average age of the characters in a movie is under 30, I need to not watch that movie. I grew up on the original 1997 film and its sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. Like with the newer Scream and Halloween films, this is a legacy sequel. The movie is 25 plus years since the previous sequel and introduces brand new characters while bringing back some fan favorites from the original franchise. Like Scream, they are very self-aware and eventually reference the events of the previous films.
Like Scream V & VI, these characters brought me no enjoyment. I instantly wanted every single new character introduced in this movie dead. I hated them all and in a slasher movie, you shouldn’t want to see the leads dead, you should root for them to survive. I honestly don’t know how anyone over the age of 25 will like these people. There is literally a scene with the two lead female characters where I had no idea what Madelyn Cline even said. She responded to Chase Sui Wonders’ character with words that I believe were in English and I had no idea what they meant or what she was trying to say.
The biggest issue with these legacy sequels/soft reboots is that they are sequels in today’s world to movies from decades ago. The original movies encapsulated that time period, my time period. These sequels encapsulate today’s time period which I’m fine with if that’s the audience you want. Don’t shoehorn in fan favorites to make us older fans show up. Even with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. returning, I don’t feel like this movie was made for me. And making a movie that isn’t for me is perfectly fine, but they are selling this to both crowds and no one in my age group will think this is better than the original films. It’s a bit more violent and gory which I appreciate, but it also wants to show how progressive it is compared to 1997. There is a lesbian sex scene that is so randomly out of place that the only reason it is there is to show how far movie characters have come since 1997. They replaced booze with weed because weed is more acceptable than 1997 as well. These are vapid, one dimensional, self-absorbed nothing human beings that are only relatable to an audience of similar ages.
When I was asked what I thought of I Know What You Did Last Summer after the screening I said I’d rather have blown my brains out than watch that movie. Is that a bit over-reactionary? Probably, but it was over 90 degrees yesterday and this film wasn’t worth leaving my house for. They should have remade the movie and not made it a legacy sequel because it’s 100% for a NEW, YOUNGER audience. If you like Scream V & VI and movies like Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, then you will love it. If you’re over 30 you’ll be like Abe Simpson being the old man yelling at a cloud meme or Clint Eastwood yelling “Get off my lawn”. I’m fine with a movie not being for me, but don’t try to get me interested with characters I liked put in a movie that is clearly for a younger audience.
The Nerds Templar 