[TV Review] Amazon Studios’ I Know What You Did Last Summer is a Personal Reimagining of a Slasher Classic

This review is written based on the first four episodes of the season

The original I Know What You Did Last Summer remains one of the most beloved entries in the teen slasher boom of the late 1990s. Released on the heels of the seminal Scream, the 1997 slasher adaptation of Lois Duncan’s 1973 novel is a contemporary retelling of a classic urban legend mixed with a cautionary tale about personal responsibility and guilt. Starring some of the hottest young actors of the time, the film examines Gen X fears of adulthood under the guise of an outlandish murder mystery. Twenty four years later, Amazon Studios’s remake of the horror classic brings this story of careless youth and devastating consequences to a new generation. While the bones of the original film's plot survive, a group of friends attempt to cover up a deadly hit and run and find themselves hunted by a mysterious stranger who knows their secret, little remains of the original story’s details. But Kevin Williamson’s script didn’t exactly hue closely to the source material itself. The new series from writer and executive producer Sara Goodman is an encapsulation of Gen Z culture told through the lens of an episodic slasher series that lovingly depicts the contradictions of burgeoning adulthood alongside the difficulty in ever truly escaping the past. 

Lennon and Allison (Madison Iseman) are identical twins celebrating their high school graduation and preparing for life in the real world. The girls have a tense relationship stemming from the unhealed wounds of their mother’s long ago suicide. Complicating this dynamic is their father Bruce (Bill Heck) who clearly favors the popular and carefree Lennon over bitter loner Allison. At a drug fueled graduation party, the twins have a fight that quickly spirals into harsh insults and devastating accusations. When a tragic accident occurs later that night, Lennon and her friends Margot (Brianne Tju), Johnny (Sebastian Amoruso), Dylan (Ezekiel Goodman), and Riley (Ashley Moore) make a life-altering choice to protect their future plans, hiding the evidence of their crime and going their separate ways. Reuniting one year later, the former friends find themselves hunted by someone who knows their terrible secret and is hellbent on revenge.

Except for the central premise and the iconic title, little remains of the 1997 film in this new iteration. Rather than an east coast fishing village, Lennon and her friends commit their deadly act of carelessness on the sun-drenched shores of Hawaii. The lush setting and beach vibe is in striking contrast to the rocky cliffs and dour docks of the original. Also gone is the hook toting killer hunting the teens from under the massive hood of his black rain slicker. Lennon is stalked by the driver of a mysterious black truck who leaves threats scrawled in lipstick on her closet mirror along with the bloody head of a goat, a sly nod to conversations she had at the scene of the crime. No longer an updated urban legend, Goodman’s series spends more time exploring the lives of its tragic teens and wisely avoids simply glorifying their grisly deaths.

In fact, the family drama and complicated friendships often overshadow the central murder mystery making it nearly impossible not to root for these deeply flawed characters. The supporting cast of friends all have distinguishable personalities rising above the stock characterizations of teen victims that plague lesser slashers. Allison and Lennon are heartbreaking as sisters struggling to recover from a terrible tragedy and trying to figure out who they are as individuals in a world that sees them as intrinsically linked. Lennon’s hard partying and promiscuity cover a painful refusal to acknowledge the truth of her loss while Allison’s self-imposed isolation screams of unresolved trauma and a fear of getting close to anyone else. Iseman delivers a magnetic performance, skillfully playing dual roles and weaving between two diametrically opposed characters at the heart of the story. She brings relatable nuances out of a complex narrative that could easily become muddled. While the dialogue is occasionally cringe, all of the central characters feel like real people, transcending their well-crafted personas to reveal frightened young adults terrified of the world they're about to enter.

Perhaps the most welcome addition to the updated story is it’s diversity. The 1990s were not known for inclusive casting and the original film stands as a prime example of non-white actors relegated to the best friend roles of white leads. While this is a problem that has pervaded the industry since its inception, it's worth pointing out here because this is a story specifically dealing with privilege. I Know What You Did Last Summer’s central conflict hinges on the characters' fear of how reporting an accident will ruin the bright futures they have planned. While understandable, this dilemma begs questions about privilege and preferential treatment by law enforcement available to white people of means and essentially no one else. While Goodman’s series is much more racially diverse with many non-white characters central to the plot, it still shys away from addressing these systemic issues that are arguably more relevant today than 24 years ago. Perhaps as the season progresses an exploration of these themes will arise, but so far Goodman presents her characters on equal footing in society despite coming from different races and socioeconomic statuses. While it’s refreshing to see a world we wish we could have, this feels like a missed opportunity to examine a relevant problem.

Goodman’s adaptation shines when it’s examining identity and grief through shared trauma. Without spoiling anything, the central hook is exponentially more personal than the original. While the 1997 film touched on guilt and morality, the updated version explores the emotional weight of the story, building on themes of denial in the face of profound loss, unresolved grief, and trauma-informed parenting. While the subject matter is heavy, each episode includes moments of levity and tension-breaking comedy. However this nuanced tone often struggles to find its footing. Some jokes land well adding dark humor to the dense subject matter while others feel forced and callous. The kills are brutal and bloody, more akin to the slashers of the moment than it’s relatively bloodless predecessor. Expanding the world provides opportunity for a higher body count and Goodman wastes no time getting to the gory details. Her version is much more explicit in it’s gruesome deaths but also in it’s debaucherous sexiness as the teens engage in a seemingly endless flirtation implying a sexual fluidity in striking contrast with the rigid gender norms of the 90s. 

While sometimes derided for it’s overly simplistic story and frustrating conclusion, the original I Know What You Did Last Summer looms large in the world of teen horror. Spawning two sequels and boasting performances from horror royalty, the original is perhaps second only to Scream in defining a cultural era of horror filmmaking. Goodman manages to update the iconic story so that it unfolds in new and compelling ways, adding emotional depth to a relatively simplistic cautionary tale. Her version encapsulates the new generation of teens entering adulthood by examining the expectations thrust upon them by a cruel and unforgiving world in the same way the original film did for Gen Xers. With exceptional performances and a riveting emotional arc, Amazon Studios’s I Know What You Did Last Summer compels us to root for the humans in the story rather than their creative deaths, perhaps the highest achievement for a slasher.

RELATED ARTICLES

---

---

EXPLORE

---

MORE ARTICLES

---

---