I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

I Know What You Did Last Summer



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
As a fan of these nostalgia-based “soft reboots” of classic horror films, I was wondering when they would get around to I Know What You Did Last Summer. The modern-day Scream films were rather fun, and the last Final Destination film was actually a lot of fun. They had adapted to modern sensibilities while still staying true to the cheese and gore that made them so indelible to the GenX/Elder Millennial crowd and allowed the franchise to continue. BUUUUT, not all of these attempts are going to do so well (Chucky reboot anyone?) with audiences, and it looks like I Know What You Did Last Summer (the 2025 reboot, not the original) seems to be one of those misses.

Once more, we’re teleported back to Southport, North Carolina, where a group of 5 young adults is the instigators of a terrible auto accident. Friends Danica (Madelyn Cline), Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Teddy (Tyriq Withers), and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) get back together for the first time in a year and decide to head up to the top of a local peak to see the fireworks. While up there, the horsing around of Teddy facilitates a horrible auto accident where someone goes off the side of a cliff and loses their life (sound familiar). Since Teddy’s dad is the local “rich town patriarch”, he gets the kids off a murder charge and makes their very existence in the accident just vanish. The 5 teens agree to never speak of this again and consider it a done deal.

Fast forward ANOTHER year, and the group comes back together once more. But things are not as hunky dory as they had hoped. Ava is struggling to keep a solid relationship after the event, Teddy has drunk himself into a stupor, and the rest of the group is watching as the guilt eats them alive. But someone else knows of their misdeeds, as a singular note with the message “I know what you did last summer” appears in Danica’s wedding gifts. Nervous about what this means, the kids think this is just a prank, but sooner rather than later, it’s time to pay the piper. Just like in the previous two films, out comes the mysterious slicker dressed character with a fisherman’s hook, come to murder them one by one, and the ONLY help they can get is from two survivors who this very same thing happened back in 1997 (yay for cameos).

Without getting too much into the weeds, being that there are some spoilers if I do, this soft reboot/sequel to the iconic 1997 movie (I’m ignoring I Still Know What You Did Last Summer) is sort of a non-starter. I was initially excited to watch this as I have a HUGE love for the original (mostly for Sarah Michelle Gellar), and this looked like it could be a lot of fun. The two '90s films were on the tail end of the slasher craze, and squeaked in JUST under the wire before they fell out of favor. We’ve had a resurgence in the genre with soft reboots and sequels, and I was hopeful this would turn out to be decent. Sadly, it really isn’t. The movie is a passable horror film in its own right, but when directly compared to its progenitor, there’s an obvious lack of quality.

The film builds up to a fairly solid third act, with our faceless killer hacking and slashing his way through the 5 friends until we get to the final reveal. Then it gets sillier than silly. I won’t go into the third act twist as it changes up the story a TON, but it’s not something that sits well with me. I’ve watched this movie twice in the last week, and both times that final act feels forced. It changes character motivations and seems like it was done for shock value instead of respect for lore. But whatever, I digress. That being said, the rest of the movie is still only “passable” due to some weak kills and very modern Gen Z “vibes” that are out of place. Maybe I’m just getting older and becoming that stodgy old man who thinks everything was better in the past, but the Zoomer language and relationships feel like I’m an alien looking into a completely foreign world, and it just doesn’t work that well.

At the end of the day, I Know What You Did Last Summer was a missed opportunity at expanding the universe and continuing things on. I loved having Freddie Prinze Jr. back, and he did a great job with what he was given, but the landing just couldn’t be stuck. This is more of a rehash than a reboot, with beat-by-beat scenes in many ways, while wildly deviating from the tone and feel of the original. I liked some of it, but disliked more than I liked, and was left wishing the film had spent 15 more minutes on the story.




Rating:

Rated R for bloody horror violence, language throughout, some sexual content, and brief drug use





Video:

While not 4K, the 1080p Blu-ray disc manages to look superb on my 85-inch screen. Shot digitally and transferred to a native 4K DI for the home video release, the image is sharp and refined, with great colors and stunning clarity. Fine details on clothing really pops, but there are secondary, softer elements that sometimes make things look a bit dreamy and hazy. The drab interior shots are grungy and a bit soft at times, but most of the time, we have some really great imagery. Even the darker kills still show off TONS of detail levels, and the blacks are just deep and inky. The only real encoding problem that I could find (softness is mainly an optical effect) was some grain spikes here and there (the most notable being the one where Ava is in the bar at the end, trying to make her escape). Overall, this is a great-looking disc.









Audio:

Like usual, Sony relegates a 5.1 DTS-HD MA track for the Blu-ray instead of the Dolby Atmos track for the 4K disc, but their 5.1 mixes are NOTHING to sneeze at. The audio is punchy and powerful, with great bass response for the kills and crashes, and solid surround activity during said same crazy activities. There are quite a few moments of discrete surround usage (such as the infamous truck crash at the beginning of the movie) that really add to the ambiance and creep factor of the flick, and the dialogue is never in question. It’s not PERFECT, as I found the bass not as punchy as it could have been in a few scenes, but that is a minor nitpick at best.









Extras:

• Outtakes & Bloopers
• Deleted & Extended Scenes
• Return to Southport – The Cast
• Chills, Kills & Thrills – Making A Thriller

Final Score:

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Sort of a sequel/soft reboot of the original, I Know What You Did Last Summer is a serviceable horror film that just doesn’t do anything but tread water. It’s satisfactory without standing out, and doesn’t have that intensity that the original film did. Honestly, I’d probably put it on par with I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and it feels like it really just didn’t need to exist. The final credits scene opens things up for another sequel, but with how this one did at the box office, it's still a 50/50 toss-up of that ever happening. The Blu-ray looks and sounds great, though, and the solid extras are worth checking out if you’re a fan. But for just about everybody else, I would recommend a rental first.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Tyriq Withers, Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt
Directed by: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Written by: Sam Lansky, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, Leah McKendrick
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French DTS-HD MA 5.1 (Canadian), English, French, DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Sony Pictures
Rated: R
Runtime: 111 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: October 7th, 2025

Recommendation: Rental

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