- Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
- Screenplay: Sam Lansky, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
- Cast: Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr.
- Cinematography: Elisha Christian
- Score: Chanda Dancy
- Genre: Slasher
- Runtime: 111 minutes
I know what you did last summer…..I know what I did – I launched this blog one sunny Friday afternoon last July. I digress.
“Nostalgia is overrated”. So says Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt), a character from the original film (and its sequel) upon her return to the coastal town of Southport because of another automobile accident. This time, a group of five friends are responsible for a car plummeting off the side of a cliff on the same snaking road as the fatality that occurred decades earlier. And what happened before shall happen again; a mysterious killer, clad in a slicker and slashing folk with a hook, seeking revenge on guilty teens.
I don’t disagree with Julie’s sentiment. Legacy sequels are all the rage these days. The ‘Scream‘, ‘Jurassic Park / World‘ and ‘Halloween‘ franchises have brought back key players as plot points. Hewitt is reunited with Freddie Prinze Jr.’s Ray Bronson, her fellow survivor from the first two films. Sarah Michelle Gellar brilliantly cameos in a dream sequence. Is this honouring the past? Or is it just drawing from the same well until it dries up?
The logic behind the characters’ actions is plain stupid – whenever they knock the crook out cold, isn’t the immediate course of action to uncover the perpetrator, no? But then, where’s the mystery in that? A few curveballs are thrown at the audience (one of which tarnishes a legacy character’s reputation completely); they’re ridiculous but mad enough to work. I’ll let the writers off the hook.
My rating: 6 / 10
SilverScreen 