I Know What You Did Last Summer

Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, I Know What You Did Last Summer follows several friends, including Chase Sui Wonders’ Ava and Madelyn Cline’s Danica, as they’re stalked (and killed) by a maniac in a fisherman’s slicker. It’s a comfortably familiar slasher-movie setup that is, at the outset, employed to decent (if unspectacular) effect by Robinson, as the filmmaker, working from a screenplay written alongside Sam Lansky, delivers a mildly watchable endeavor that benefits from a brisk pace and several suspenseful interludes – with the latter especially true of a compelling sequence detailing the murder of a brash podcast host (Gabbriette Bechtel’s Tyler). There’s little doubt, then, that I Know What You Did Last Summer slowly-but-surely wears out its welcome as it progresses into its sluggish, underwhelming midsection, and it’s clear, certainly, that the lion’s share of blame for the picture’s failure lands squarely on the uniformly bland roster of unappealing protagonists – with, in particular, Cline’s hopelessly one-note and thoroughly grating turn bringing the proceedings down on a regular basis. And while it’s difficult not to get a kick out of late-in-the-game appearances by series veterans Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr., I Know What You Did Last Summer has, by that point, confirmed its place as a missed opportunity that fares about as well as its lackluster predecessors.

** out of ****