The art of art criticism — and yes, it is an art form, thank you for asking — demands that each critic understands themself, intimately and analytically, so that they understand their own taste, and can explain their taste to others. It’s not enough to have an opinion. We must be confident that our opinion is an honest reflection of who we are and what we really care about, and be able to justify how we came to our conclusions about the art we critique … and ourselves.
It is with that in mind that I state, confidently, that Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer” defies conventional ideas of what a “good” movie is. If it is a “good” movie it’s an incredibly daft one, with storytelling and characters that don’t pass the rudimentary smell test, no matter how witty and self-aware the rest of it is. If it is a “bad” movie, it is a weirdly entertaining and intelligent one, riding the line of laughable camp, and often falling over the side.
I’ve done some soul-searching and I’ve decided I fall into the second category, and I’m happy to admit it. “I Know What You Did Last Summer” is a good movie that makes most of the same creative decisions you’d expect from a bad movie. It’s like watching an “I Know What You Did Last Summer” movie directed by the Gremlins, if the Gremlins went to film school, paid attention and got good grades. This film is definitely getting away with something: If you hate it and laugh, it did its job, and if you love it and criticize it, ditto.
Jennifer Kaytin Robinson seems to enjoy everything that kinda sucks about the slasher genre and specifically this franchise, but she seems to enjoy it because it kinda sucks, not ironically. That is, after all, the charm of a slasher movie. These movies, Robinson seems to argue, don’t need elevating. They should be celebrated for all the “flaws” that make audiences feel superior to them, because slasher movies do that on purpose. They have an atypical freedom to both embrace and defy convention, for better and worse, and get away with it.
The “I Know What You Did Last Summer” series is a perfect case-in-point. One complaint about slashers is that the characters often make terrible decisions. These movies turn that into a plot point. The antiheroes of “IKWYDLS” — a rare acronym that takes longer to say than the real title (this fun fact brought to you by the letter “W”) — are the kinds of fools who would get in a preventable car accident, kill a man, and then willingly engage in a criminal conspiracy with multiple people to hide their involvement. These characters are not, have never been, and never will be rocket surgeons. So of course everything they do is foolish. Foolishness defines them.
The new “IKWYDLS” finds five new, impossibly pretty people getting into yet another car accident. This one is barely even their fault, and they actually risk their lives to save the driver from falling off a cliff. Plus, one of their dads is fabulously wealthy, so if they did go to the extremely corrupt (but in their own favor) police, they’d get a slap on the wrist and move on with their lives. But the franchise demands that they be the kind of people who’d go all-in on a cover-up. So Kaytin’s movie goes all-in on how insipid most of them are, turning them into silly caricatures masquerading as real, honest-to-goodness people.
There’s Danica (Madelyn Clyne), an adorably vapid naif who flits betwixt fiancés the way the rest of us flit between our go-to coffee orders. There’s Teddy (Tyriq Withers), a rich layabout who randomly hits the sauna all alone while being hunted by a serial killer, just so he’ll be ready to kick his ass (sure, Teddy, whatever). There’s Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), the person who tried to do the right thing, who gets so distracted by her hunky ex-boyfriend Milo (Jonah Hauer-King) that she doesn’t notice how overtly suspicious he is. And there’s the working class Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon), who got dragged into this crap but kinda sells her soul, becoming a token blue collar friend to the wealthy and reaping the rewards.
A year later they get messages that read “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “You’re Next” — sadly, not all the notes are the titles of slasher movies — and a fisherman with a hook starts killing all their loved ones. So they turn to Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt), who survived very similar murders twice before, and Julie never once considers the obvious: that there might be a copycat killer. No, to Julie, killer fishermen with an inexplicable kink for your itinerary one summer hence are just a thing that happens sometimes. So she tells them to rehash the plot of the first movie. Even her ex-husband Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) thinks that’s a terrible idea, but he ends up doing it too.
Look folks, that’s what we’re here for. We’re here for “Last Summer” shenanigans. And we’re here to relive that first, very entertaining movie and occasionally riff on the first, very ludicrous sequel. (The third movie, “I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer,” has been forgotten. Sorry, history, but we’re rebooting a franchise here, not curating an archive.) We get cameos whether they make any sense or not. And not just from former stars, but from former props. The parade float that Sarah Michelle Gellar stood on nearly 30 years ago shows up again, and for some reason it’s in a warehouse, and for some reason the warehouse is in a cemetery, and for some reason it’s in near-mint condition.
Logic, be damned! And begone! Everything about the new “I Know What You Did Last Summer” strains credulity until credulity breaks open and spills fake blood and candy everywhere. And that’s for the best. The “IKWYDLS” movies, though memorable and fun, don’t warrant the self-serious legacy sequel treatment, as if they were culturally-defining classics that gained historical significance over time. The first “IKWYDLS” was mostly just well-timed, swiftly capitalizing on the breakaway success of Wes Craven’s “Scream.” It was a well-produced campfire morality tale about sexy fools, and so is this new one.
But Jennifer Kaytin Robinson knows exactly how trashy the material is, and never pretends it’s powerful stuff. It’s a lark, a kitschy commentary about these ridiculous movies, which also understands that the ridiculousness makes them lovable, and that our love — though sometimes ironic — is genuine. And that says a lot about us, and our (sometimes bad) taste in 1990s nostalgia.
A Sony Pictures release, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” opens only in theaters on July 18.