Films at their best: I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)

Hello and welcome back to another week of movie reviews. 

This week we will be diving into the fourth instalment of the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise.  

WARNING - Spoilers

Plot 

Ava Brucks visits her hometown, Southport, North Carolina, for her best friend Danica Richards' engagement party. Ava, Danica, Milo Griffin (Ava's ex-boyfriend), and Diana's fiancé, Teddy Spencer, drive to see the fireworks. Stevie Ward, a friend of theirs who recently left a drug rehab centre, also tags along. While they are parked on a winding cliffside road, Teddy causes a truck, driven by Sam Cooper, to crash and fall off the cliff. The friend group swear by secrecy to keep it between themselves, whilst his father, Grant, covers up the accident and Teddy and Danica break up.

One year later, Ava attends Danica's bridal shower for Danica's wedding to her new fiancé, Wyatt. She meets a true crime podcaster, Tyler Trevino, who is in North Carolina to research a killing spree that happened in 1997 by fisherman Ben Willis. However, the night of the bridal shower, Danica receives a threatening note saying, "I know what you did last summer". That night, Wyatt is killed by a person disguised as a fisherman with a hook who resembles Ben.

Ava meets with Tyler, and she shows her the location where Ben Willis murdered two sisters in 1997. However, the disguised fisherman appears and kills Tyler, but Ava manages to wound the attacker. The gang reach out to a survivor called Julie James for help. Yet she believes the fisherman in disguise is driven by a personal connection to Sam.

Julie's ex-husband and Stevie's boss, Ray Bronson, accuses Grant of covering up the 1997 killings at a town hall meeting. They learn that Sam's truck belonged to the town pastor, Judah Gillespie. The Fisherman attacks Danica, but Teddy saves her. Milo is strangled by the fisherman, and his corpse is taken. Judah knew Sam, and Ava and Danica report him to the police, but are locked in an interrogation room instead. The fisherman then murders Teddy and Grant.

Ray urges the girls to escape Southport on Teddy's yacht, and they discover Milo's body in his abandoned car. Police officers find Judah dead and a photo of Sam and Stevie, revealing Stevie to be the fisherman. On the yacht, Stevie ambushes Ava and Danica and reveals that she and Sam met in rehab and fell in love before he died, and she is now seeking revenge. Stevie stabs Danica, throwing her overboard, where Ray then shoots Stevie off the boat.

At Ray's bar, Ava notices his injury, which is in the same spot that she wounded the fisherman, and she realises she is Stevie's accomplice. Julie rushes to the bar, and Ray attacks them. Ray reveals he took Stevie as his partner not only to help her but to seek revenge on Southport, trying to cover up his life's ruin over the 1997 killings. Ava shoots Ray with a speargun before he can kill Julie. Danica survives, and she reunites with Ava, revealing that Stevie is still alive.

Analysis

This movie was full of suspense and tension, especially between the fisherman and the five friends. However, the movie became quite repetitive after a while. More and more people were being killed, and all of a sudden Stevie's identity as the fisherman was unveiled. It was like a sudden bombshell was revealed all at once.

The filmmaking was well shot across the landscapes, especially the rich houses nestled in the middle of nowhere. When Danica's fiancé, Wyatt, was killed by the fisherman, the ceiling-to-floor patio door that Danica was staring out of did set the scene for suspense when the fisherman then entered.

There was a repeated pattern of stalking and then killing across the movie, where eventually it became quite predictable when the gruesome killing scenes were to begin.

Overall, this movie is one I wouldn't personally watch on repeat, but it is a good watch for young adults interested in horror movies where the storyline consists of rich kids causing mayhem.