“I Know What You Did Last Summer” - Still?

With the success (I use this term loosely) of the Scream franchise’s reboot, and the profitability of scary movies in general, it was inevitable that another bygone horror franchise would be brought back from the dead. Afterall, horror movies are almost always cheap to make, people never get horror movie fatigue, and nostalgia is a powerful box office force. Or so I’m told.

I’m sure that’s what the studio executives were thinking when they assigned a random intern to go dumpster diving in their subterranean landfill of DVD cases. When that intern stumbled across a battered copy of I Know What You Did Last Summer, they excitedly ran to the executive suite, threw the DVD at the leather chair facing the window, then Uber’d to their college campus to change majors. And that is how reboots get made. Or so I’m told.

I Know What You Did Last Summer is an obvious choice to resurrect...if the target audience is people who were teenagers in the 1990s who still have bad taste in movies. The original I Know What You Did Last Summer was not particularly well-liked by critics (43% positive rating) and pulled in only $125 million. Its sequel plummeted to a 10% critical rating and $84 million box office, effectively killing the franchise. A direct-to-DVD sequel in 2006 and short-lived Amazon Prime series in 2021 served only to prove that people really didn’t like the franchise. Yet, here we are in 2025 with another requel (I will always hate the writers of Scream 5 for coining that term).

Rebooting a 1990s horror franchise isn’t the only lesson I Know What You Did Last Summer took from the Scream reboot. Like Scream 5, I Know What You Did Last Summer is very much a remake of the original but also a sequel (in this case, to the second film - I Still Know What You Did Last Summer), brings back the original survivors, all but puts a nametag on the killer early in the film, and isn’t scary at all.

In case you weren’t a teenager in the 1990s and never saw it, the original film’s plot was that a group of young people accidentally ran over a guy with their car, tried to cover it up, then were systematically murdered a year later by a killer seeking revenge who knew what they had done. This remake has the exact same plot but dumbs down the setup so much that even the Fast and Furious writers are shaking their heads in incredulity.

This time, reunited friends Danica (Madelyn Cline), Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Teddy (Tyriq Withers), and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) are watching fireworks from the side of a road on a cliff with a blind curve. A car comes speeding around the bend, swerves to avoid hitting Teddy, crashes into the guard rail, and plummets to the ground below. Teddy calls 9-1-1, then convinces the group that they need to leave before the cops and paramedics show up. But why? Even if they were worried they could be blamed, the obvious lie is to just tell the cops the car was speeding around the curve and lost control, simply leaving out the part where Teddy was standing in the road. They even tried to stop the car from falling when it was teetering on the cliff’s edge. Not only is this a scenario where fleeing the scene and keeping it a secret makes no sense, talking to the cops and fibbing would have strengthened the killer’s motivation.

Speaking of the killer, wow was it obvious early on who the killer was. I won’t tell you why or how, but it’s nearly impossible to miss. The only real question is if there is just one killer or multiple killers. Scratch that, two questions. The other question is why does this movie feature exactly no scary scenes whatsoever?

The original I Know What You Did Last Summer was a straight slasher flick. It went for scares. The remake tried to reinvent itself more as a comedy horror, but forgot to tell most of the actors about the comedy part and forgot to add elements that make horror movies frightening. The result was a very non-scary contrast of Wonders, Pidgeon, and Freddie Prinze Jr. taking the movie way too seriously, Hauer-King and Jennifer Love Hewitt phoning it in, and Cline and Withers stealing every scene because they got the memo about the comedy part.

Yes, Hewitt and Prinze Jr. return and in their original roles. Sarah Michelle Geller returns as well, but only in a dream sequence. Which is a shame because she also nailed the comedy part in her one scene.

By the time the credits rolled - including a very predictable mid-credit scene - the only question I had was how much of the movie’s entertainment value was intentional. Many in the audience had fun watching it, but I think it’s because they saw it in a packed audience. Given the bad screenplay, laughably stupid dialogue, lack of frights or thrills, and mostly bad performances, it’s the kind of movie that typical leaves audiences grumbling. I think Cline was so fun to watch that she lifted an otherwise lackluster movie to the kind of movie you watch with a bunch of friends, a bunch of alcohol, and a bunch of running commentary. Which is how the entire franchise should be watched. Still.

Rating: Ask for sixteen dollars back. Or so I’m told.

“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” - Blanc. Benoit Blanc.

As we enter the homestretch of 2022, the never-ending debate over good sequels vs. bad sequels vs. Hollywood-has-no-creativity gets a new entry - Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. I don’t know how people from that third group keeping getting into this debate, but we really need to change the locks. With those cranks out of the way, let’s figure out if Glass Onion is good, bad, or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

The basic trick to making a good sequel is the same trick for making all good movies. Write a good story, dummy. It doesn’t matter if the sequel is a continuation of a previous film or a standalone franchise entry. Audiences want to revisit universes and characters that they enjoyed and are just looking for a good story to take them back again. In order to finish making a good sequel, the rest of the trick is a balancing act. Give the audience just enough of what made the previous film(s) so memorable, but not so much that the audience wants Ace Ventura to die a horrible death.

Glass Onion has one thing in common with Knives Out - master detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). Okay, two things; the other being that Glass Onion is subtitled as A Knives Out Mystery. However, Glass Onion never so much as whispers about Blanc’s previous Knives Out case. The clever part of this is writer/director Rian Johnson wrote another mystery filled with backstabbing or the potential for backstabbing. If that is going to be the way of every Knives Out mystery, count me in.

This time, Blanc finds himself invited to an island owned by tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton). Bron is hosting a group of long-time friends for the weekend to solve an elaborate murder mystery game. Upon the group’s arrival at the island, Bron is surprised and confused to meet Blanc among the group since Bron didn’t actually invite Blanc. Also confused, Blanc explains that he received an invite to the island and shows it as proof. Bron surmises that one of the guests regifted their invitation to Blanc. Later, one of these guests ends up dead and now there are two mysteries to solve. Who killed the friend and who wanted Blanc there in the first place? And why? Like the Thrombey family in Knives Out, everyone on the island wants something from Bron, giving us and Blanc plenty of suspects.

The group is comprised of Claire (Kathryn Hahn), Lionel (Leslie Odom Jr.), Birdie (Kate Hudson), Peg (Jessica Henwick), Duke (Dave Bautista), Whisky (Madelyn Cline), and Cassandra (Janelle Monae). In addition to their relationships with Bron, these people all have histories and relationships with one or more of the rest of the group. As Blanc starts to peel back the layers and more is revealed about the cast of characters, we are drawn further and further into the mystery, trying to deduce who the killer is before Blanc can enlighten us. Johnson weaves such a well-crafted story that, in at least one point during the movie, we believe each character is either the murderer, the one who summoned Blanc, or both.

By this point in the film, Johnson has succeeded with the basic trick of writing a good story and is off and running with the balancing act. One of the best aspects of Knives Out was the playful, yet serious tone. That same tone is present in Glass Onion, but with the ratio pushed a little more towards the playful side. Much of this has to do with Craig clearly enjoying portraying a character without a license to kill, but also because the film doesn’t start with cops investigating a suicide. Rather, it starts with a group of friends on a zoom call, a la 2020, playing Among Us online. What could be more playful than that?

Also carried over are the structure and excellent flow of the first film. The film begins linearly, introducing us to the various characters, setting up the situation until we get to the murder, then twisting and turning us back through previous events for discovery, while continuing to move us forward toward the answer to the mysteries. Wisely, Johnson resists reusing jokes, specific motivations, and signature character traits (besides Blanc’s), all of which would have cheapened the film.

Most importantly, the tone and flow don’t work without good performances. Every actor, down to the myriad cameos peppered throughout, gives their all to ensure Glass Onion is every bit as enjoyable as its predecessor. Standing out are Monae and Norton, especially when they are together. Cassandra’s loathing of Bron is as palpable as Bron’s smarm, both actors feeding off each other in ways that directors only dream of. And of course, Craig is as charming as ever, playing the “Kentucky-fried” detective to perfection to both disarm and outwit his adversaries with his Southern affectations.

It was very refreshing to see a sequel live up to its highly regarded brethren. By the end of the film, all of the loose ends are tied up, the mystery is solved, and we aren’t left hanging to wait for another film to continue the story. The best part is that the film is so enjoyable that the sadness we felt at Craig hanging up his Bond tuxedo has been replaced by elation at him donning a Southern accent.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back, but do ask when the next sequel is coming.