401: I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)

SPEAKER_00 0:04

We come to this place for magic. And we got it, movie magic.

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. We come to this place for magic. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

A total joke. A waste of time.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Or a slash. Totally killer. Pun intended. We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're writing these movies with a perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the classic horror connoisseur Sean.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

What did you do last summer?

SPEAKER_03 0:50

And the Croaker Queen Paris. And don't you fucking forget it. This week we're back in theaters to check out another legacy sequel to a classic slasher.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

And if you support the show, you'll also get to hear our B side at the end of this episode where we get into what horror movie we would want to be a true crime podcaster in.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

Before we get down to business, though, we want to thank a few members of our family.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Let's follow up on some people. We know what you did last summer, Drea, Marika, Quimby, Jeff, Simon, and Noah. You became patrons. Thank you so much for being with us, y'all. Let's also welcome Christian to our family. Now, I will say by becoming patrons, you are legally required to join our murder pack, so you better not tell anybody, okay?

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Yeah, we believe in discretion.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

And non-disclosure agreements. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

Well, 27 years ago, in the spirit of nondisclosure agreements, after a group of teens in a small fishing town swore to take a secret to the grave, the terror in Southport continues this time with a new generation. Filming took place across Sydney and California under the direction of Jennifer Caton Robinson, who set out to explore how the past shapes the present and how unprocessed trauma can echo across decades. Robinson, who also wrote the film, approached the project with the intent of honoring what came before while charting a new course. The original stars return, reprising their roles not just as survivors, but as people still reckoning with the consequences of what happened long ago. This installment exists in direct continuity with the first two films, intentionally sidestepping the ambiguous final moments of each. Rather than treating those scenes as canon, Robinson focused on the emotional through line, aiming to provide closure both for the characters and the audience by connecting them to a new generation. This week, we're talking about I Know What You Did Last Summer. What were you both expecting going into this?

SPEAKER_01 2:45

I mean, this is one of those films I feel like that can go either way, right? It's a legacy sequel, a requel, if you will. So there are rules that I feel like need to be followed here, right? This has to continue the original story while introducing a new cast to carry the franchise forward. So it has to be anchored in legacy characters, but those characters should be returning to kind of pass the torch to new ones, right? That's what we're looking for. And I feel like these legacy characters, they're no longer safe in these requels, as we come to find out, right? So are we gonna lose one of these characters? We don't know. I feel like these new characters usually have some kind of direct connection to the legacy characters. There's just a lot of things to expect. So I was expecting all of this and slightly concerned that this is going to fall like into just fan service and just rely on nostalgia without any real substance. Because usually legacy sequels, they're kind of a mix between a direct sequel and a reboot. And so you would think that it would be, I don't know, you would think it would maybe disregard any other movie than the original. But I feel like I read somewhere that it may not be ignoring the events of the sequel. I still know what you did last summer. So there's just a lot in my head of like how they're gonna tie all this together. Whatever it is, I'm just hoping that it doesn't become just pure fan service.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

I share that sentiment with you, Sean. However, I have not I've yet to be burned by a requel, like a reboot legacy sequel moment. Scream did it really nicely. Okay, let me correct myself. I have yet to be disappointed by a requel of a film I liked. Can't save the rest for any of the other franchises that I never cared for. But I had high hopes going into this. I was like, I love the original. And actually, Chris, you recently put out a video kind of recapping the first three or the franchise thus far. And it made me realize that I had never actually seen all of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and I've never seen any of I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, which at this point I'm grateful for.

SPEAKER_03 4:46

Yeah, you didn't have to.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Now with that being said, yeah, nope, and now I know. Thank you. Go watch that video if y'all haven't. And I really went into this optimistic. I was at one point literally today, I was like, wait, is it PG 13? It better be fucking rated R. And it was rated R, thank God. I was also hoping for it to be like an update on the original with some modern deviations. And I wanted it to have some sort of originality because I knew there were going to be some recurring characters as I as I'd seen from the trailer. So I was really hoping that it wouldn't be too like Scream 5 or like too fan service-y, like you were saying, Sean. And then as soon as the movie started and the soundtrack kicked in, I was like, oh, I forgot this movie also has an incredible soundtrack. I hope we get more of that this time around, too.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Yeah, I went into this with very much an open mind. I think the benefit that I have is not purely loving and adoring and just being completely enamored with this franchise the way that I am with other franchises. I enjoy these movies, and by these movies, I should be clear, I enjoyed the first two. The third one is just absolutely horrific. Do not waste your time.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

But I was literally gonna say, like, you could coming off of the last one, you can really only go up from there, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:57

You know what? You set the bar low so you can aim high, I suppose. But I want to be very clear that everybody talks about I Know What You Did Last Summer as living in the shadow of Scream when it was written beforehand. And it's one of those things where you have to give it credit for its place in the slasher subgenre because every leader needs its first follower. Not that it was the first of anything, to be clear, but Kevin Williamson really just struck gold when Scream exploded the way it did, and then I know what you did last summer was a great follow-up. I still know what you did last summer, doesn't get a lot of credit for I think being as solid as it actually is. But going into this, I knew two things. One, we got our legacy characters coming back, and I was open to being pleasantly surprised uh by them. And I knew that the director of this film loves the franchise, and there's nothing better than having someone passionate about the property to really helm its future, and I was really excited by that. One thing that concerned me, and I tried really to avoid any opinions that were going around online from early screenings, but we had one of our listeners respond to an Instagram story of ours and said, Wow, that was that was a universal hack. So it did make me a little nervous going into this. I was a little concerned.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

You said the director was like a fan of the franchise. You can definitely feel that in this movie. The very first feeling you get while watching this movie is nostalgia. From like the opening credits moving over the water in the same way that the original opened, right? Only this was daytime instead of nighttime, to really all the nods and callbacks and Easter eggs cast out through the depths of this film. I can honestly say that I did have some fun early on, also trying to play the who done it game, figure out who the killer is gonna be. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of fun, there's a lot of nostalgia in this movie, so I can feel the love for the franchise, right? But there were still some moments, I think mostly due to the acting, which we'll get into into in a bit, that just felt kind of silly, not convincing, and not in a charming way that you would hope in kind of like a silly horror movie.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

That's interesting you mentioned that, Sean. And I will also say that is concerning that you mentioned that. I enjoyed my experience watching this film because I felt a lot of different feelings. I laughed a lot with my audience. It was like a mostly full theater of, I'd say like 60% queer people. Um, but we had a great time. There were laughs, we screamed, we gagged, we were entertained, to be sure. Now, you know me, I've been entertained by slap, and I've been entertained by the finest, also known as the substance. And I think this movie finds itself somewhere in between, but I've I didn't feel nothing, and I felt nothing before, and I'm not a fan.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

Yeah, this was such an experience. I love that you had a great theater audience around you, Paris. I went to see this earlier with Allie, and there was one guy all the way to my left. There was a group of maybe like three to four people all the way to our right, and there was like one more patch of people in the theater. It was mostly empty. Listen, I I'm not mad at having a small intimate theater experience, but I did notice that I had some reactions. I know Allie had some reactions, but I wasn't hearing or seeing a lot of reactions from other people, which was a little concerning because I was like, wow, I feel like I'm watching a completely different movie. But watching this really pleasantly surprised me. Even going in very open to things, I went in with tempered expectations and I had so much more fun than I thought I would. Sometimes with these requels, the new characters, the new cast are hit or miss. And I found myself really enjoying the people that we got. Sean, you mentioned even the opening shot and the way that it approaches the title card. We have the traditional fonts and then a new styling for the central, like the main I Know What You Did Last Summer title. And even just subtle touches like that. Show we're honoring the past and we're going in a slightly new direction. And I'm okay with that. We did this in Halloween, we did this in Scream, we did this even when Star Wars came back out in theaters and continued with a sequel trilogy. The first film and the installment of what you get is going to be a retread and a way to dig up the nostalgia and say, hey, let's just remember where we've been, let's honor it. Okay, great, we're gonna move on with something new. So going into this and experiencing this movie, there was a lot of laughing, there was some tension. Yeah. I think it executed some of the Who Done It in a fairly effective way. There was a prediction that I made pretty early on that we'll talk about in the spoiler zone. But I think the most accurate word I can give is just entertained. This is an entertaining movie. It was fun.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

And you know what kept it fun for me, Chris? And this is actually a big surprise because I almost always hate this in movies, is their utilization of just like modern slang and lingo. I think this movie made a really bold choice to like cement itself in the year 2025 in such a way that I think also kind of mirrors the original. Um, it's very much like you know exactly what time period this is. This is a 90s film. Uh, and I think we're gonna be able to look back on this movie and feel like this, oh yeah, that was 2025, all right. And it was also like how the characters kind of they grew on me in ways that I wasn't expecting from this movie. I kind of love the original for its flat characters that are kind of, we can say controversially performed, but I think in some cases like really poorly performed in a way that's kind of fun. And these characters, at first I was like, okay, nothing characters got it. She's her, she's her, he's him. Okay, sure. But as they developed it, I was like, oh, actually, I kind of like these people, and I feel like I would be friends with these people. And to have them humanized in like a a requel of I Know What You Did Last From was not something I'd expected.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

The characters were honestly a very pleasant surprise. I was really, really invested in them. And I think one of the cool things that this movie did was it gave you a scene, and I really enjoyed the first trailer that we got. It kind of played out beat for beat in cue with a meditation. Even that, there was some footage they used in there that didn't that doesn't make it to the final film. And so if you go in just expecting that moment, sure you still get it, but it doesn't completely destroy the dynamic of who everyone is. And I found that to be again a very pleasant surprise. Another thing they did with the characters, they had the nerve to take some risks. Some of them work, some of them I'm not a hundred percent confident work in to the degree that I think they could have. But I gotta say, this movie does something that legacy sequels have often talked about doing, have attempted to do, but have never had the conviction to really stick the landing on and really see through to the end. And that was a great surprise for me, even if a little predictable earlier in the film, the history that we get with other requels says, Oh, they're probably not gonna really commit to it, but damn, they committed.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah. Because I think I know which part you're talking about, and I felt mixed feelings about that surprise. Um, but they absolutely did commit to the bit in a way that was certainly notable.

SPEAKER_03 13:28

We have a lot to discuss about that particular section in the spoiler zone. I can't wait to get into the dialogue.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Yeah, I definitely see what you're saying there for sure, and it's not really the you know, the characters that surprised me so much as the legacy characters, because I feel like we got way more screen time than I thought we were gonna get with the legacy characters, which was kind of a nice surprise, I would say, for the film, right? Because sometimes we just get a cameo, just a fun little cameo, and it doesn't feel right. It feels like it's almost just thrown in there just because, whereas they did a pretty good job with the legacy characters, like incorporating them into the story and making it feel like it fits in the right way, right? So I think that was a surprising element. I think the other surprising element to this film was that, you know, Chris, you said entertaining. I I feel like it was surprising that it was still it still found a way to be fun, even though there were a lot of semi-predictable parts throughout this movie, if that makes sense. It was still kind of fun, still kind of entertaining to watch, even though you can kind of see where the movie's going early on if you're savvy to what's happening. But I guess that could also ultimately be a disappointment. I don't know. But my biggest disappointment in this movie, I don't know, the characters y'all related to, it's not the character so much, it's just the acting. It was a big disappointment for like a good majority of this film. The acting just I just didn't feel it. It felt like un I don't know, the reactions just didn't feel genuine.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

I'm curious which performances rubbed you the wrong way, Sean. I can't wait to kind of dive a little bit deeper into that in the character section. Oh. I thought the acting was suspiciously good for an I Know What You Did Last Summer movie.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

What a way to qualify that statement, Paris. Suspiciously.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Listen, I'm a huge fan of Final Destination. Yeah. I'm like, I don't require good performances for my quality slap. Um, but here I wasn't expecting it. And I feel like we kind of got it, but maybe not. You know what else we got?

SPEAKER_03 15:30

We got a good time in terms of the humor. This movie, I think, has a great depiction of a brutal fisherman. So we have the classic character, the hook does some damage. We're also inventive with some new tools of the trade. We get things that I think we've been craving for a while in this franchise, but it also has a great beat of comedy that really punctuates some key moments with some levity. And I think it really did a good job, really knowing how to be self-aware with that. In some moments, it almost airs on the side of uh just a little too much, but I was having so much fun that I didn't even mind.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah, I mean, minus maybe a few jump scares in this movie. I don't think this one is gonna really get you, right? Like, I feel like it definitely had opportunity to build some suspenseful moments. I think throw in a couple more jump scares, get those cheap thrills in, you know what I mean? I feel like there was a room for a little bit more of that, but at the end of the day, it really didn't have a lot of that, and because of that, it wasn't it wasn't even like summer slasher jumpy, right? Like there was just only an a couple parts that really gave you what you were looking for in that summer slasher kind of vibe.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

I I will say, I know Allie jumped like at least once or twice. I think this is a movie where if you do not watch a lot of these movies often, there's enough in here to make someone jump if they are new to horror movies or just aren't as desensitized or numb to it. Not that it's gonna be super scary, but I think it will be effective for people who are newer to the genre.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

I would be interested to see if that's true, Chris, because I think my audience was technically the first AMC showing of this film at New York or Los Angeles' The Grove. So I think maybe everybody that was already at that specific showing was maybe like more horror, more horror savvy and um articulate. But there were a lot of jump scares that just did not elicit a reaction whatsoever from my audience or myself. There were, I'm trying to think if there was even a single moment that I was like scared, you know, because I think in this type of a slasher, you know that it exists in such a bubble and such like a an enclosed universe that there's really nothing actually to be afraid of. But I did enjoy how we didn't get much gore, but the gore we did get, we didn't shy away from. I was happy about that, but I think this movie was probably funnier than it was scary. I agree with that.

SPEAKER_03 17:57

Listen, if you can be funny, then you have to really be careful to be effective with that humor. And I think there's a lot of stuff in this movie that would not have landed comedy-wise were it not for the actors who were delivering them. Teddy, for example, is a character who I had zero expectations of going in. Even towards the beginning, I was like, alright, I'm kind of over this. But then he warms up, he warms up as the movie goes on. So I wasn't super mad at it. And I will say this, thinking about just the journey that these characters go on, thinking about the way the story unfolds, this is a requel. Every requel gets shit for retreading the same hollowed grounds. How original can you be? It's less of a conversation for me about originality and more of a conversation of what are you doing to modernize the story to make it relevant and palatable for newer audiences, like a new generation of horror fans. I'm okay with some things being different and letting it go as the old guard, but you have to do it well. And I think as a legacy sequel, this could have really just easily echoed the 1997 original, and it does in a lot of ways, but it also doesn't because it reimagines core elements through a modern lens, it incorporates current technologies, it uh goes into some themes that I think we're more equipped to talk about now versus the 1997 culture, and there's a lot of even social dynamics that I think are at play here. There's a clever inversion of some of the tropes that we see. So I'm open to it. I'm excited by what they did and how they executed it, and I'm excited more so to see a younger generation's take on this movie because this will be for them. I think what I know what you did last summer was for us.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

That that's interesting. I definitely think that, yeah, I'm aligned with that. I do think you're right. It is tough with legacy sequels because you have to try to find where you fit in in the story, right? And so, like all the stuff you're saying, right, I feel like makes it original in its own right, but it also at the same time, it didn't like create too much depth to the story, right? I don't feel like it it really did a whole lot to change like the formula of this movie. Not that you have to because it's a slasher and you ultimately kind of want to stick to the formula that works that worked in the first one. So there's gotta be an element of kind of regurgitating the same type of formula in some way. But it is always tough with legacy sequels and things like that. But I do think this one was able to shine through in some moments that give it enough charm. You know what I mean? So I don't know. I'll give it some originality for that.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yeah, I totally agree. When you have a requel or a legacy sequel like this, everybody's eyes are on you of like, how are you gonna be different? How are you gonna honor the original while being original? You know what I mean? It's sort of like an impossible task that's asked when we do a project like this. Um, for me, I think I don't know, I don't want to sing this movie's praises too much, but I feel like it found the perfect balance between like reverence, nostalgia, fan service, and also modernization. I think, like I said, this movie very much kind of makes a lot of the same choices as the original, but the their relative choices to the current times we're in. So again, like sort of just deciding to bring back certain characters in one way or another to kind of honor them and also learn from them. I think this movie did a really good job of setting itself aside from the original in that it corrects a lot of mistakes that I think the original fell into. There are maybe some, I don't know, you might feel justice, you might feel justified, you might feel vindicated, you might feel validated when you watch this movie because I think in a lot of ways it hears you. This movie hears you if you watch the original and it says, hey, we agree. We might have made some mistakes, but this time around, we'll get it right.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

I'm excited to see what specific mistakes you're Referring to from the original, but I want to walk through the path of some of those choices because the ending in this movie was certainly a choice. It was a choice, and really a number of choices were made that were both solid and also a little too much, maybe not enough in some circumstances. And there's I feel like four distinct parts or sections of the ending that I have mixed feelings on.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

What I can appreciate is that it doesn't try to reset the board and it doesn't try to, I think, overly tease or overly commit to something else that it can't deliver. I think it opens the door. But one of the things that I appreciate is that it gives closure in a way that feels emotionally satisfying and it feels true to the tone that the movie has worked so long to establish since it began. And there were some elements, again, that I I didn't truly love, but what this ending shows is confidence. And boy am I a fan of confidence in this in this context.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

I feel that, Chris. This move this ending had a lot of a lot of confidence. It made a lot of choices. There were a lot of bold choices to be made. And it didn't hold back. It was like, you know what, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, and we're gonna stand ten toes down. This is very much a movie where we have an end, we have an end end, there's an end, end, end, and I think dare say there's an end end and end. And some of them I liked, some of them I didn't, some of them I felt complicated about. But I think overall, I can say that I am satisfied with where we landed.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Yeah, for sure. I I think there are a lot of ends to this movie, and depending which part of the end you like is gonna be up to you. But the main, I guess, ending of this movie was pretty predictable. It's super predictable, right? Like I feel like you know what's gonna go down by the end of this movie, and so that kind of takes away from one aspect of it, but there, you know, if we're alluding to like some of the other snippets that we get, which we're gonna break down a little bit more in the spoiler zone, uh, there's some really strong stuff in there, some really good stuff in there that I think gives you hope for what could be to come in the franchise.

SPEAKER_03 24:20

Well, I'm excited to see how those snippets translate to some optimism and some hope for the future. But before we start rating this film, Sean, how would you describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_01 24:29

What can I really say about the gore in this movie? It it somehow didn't feel as violent and graphic as I thought it would have been for a slasher in 20 fucking twenty-five. You know what I mean? I really thought we were gonna go a little bit harder with the kills and the gore and the effects in this one. There were some good shots, but they were all quick. And I don't know if they struggled with maybe I don't know if it was like a budget thing for the Gore and effects specifically, or if they kind of fell into that CGI trap that somehow like always looks worse than prosthetics, you know what I mean? But despite the amount of like hook slashing fun that we do get, because we got a lot of the hook action, it somehow only earns like a medium gore score. And I feel like that's slightly generous.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

It is, but also the original was famously low on gore.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

So it's true, very true.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

Just a little bit of an update. And what about the animal report, Paris?

SPEAKER_00 25:26

There were no crabs, fish, croakers, or animals of any kind harmed in this film.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

Well, let's go ahead and get into our ratings then. I know he did last summer from 2025. Was it a hack? Or a slash. I'm just gonna kick us off just to get this out of the way. This film exceeded my expectations in several different ways. It delivered something that felt both respectful to the franchise and still daring and confident enough to stand on its own. This has a balance of tone, a balance of style, a balance of character work that makes it, I think, one of the more enjoyable legacy sequels that I've seen recently. And that's saying a lot because I really enjoyed what we got from Halloween and The Scream, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre was fun for me in a specific way, but it wasn't like a great objective movie. And I think that's where these movies tend to stumble. It's just there's so much that you have to get right in this perfect storm, and it almost feels like catching lightning in a bottle. And this managed to be so much more fun than I ever realistically expected it to be. You know, Paris, you mentioned its ability to blend homage to its past with subtle shifts to keep it fresh for a modern audience. It's a very delicate balance and a very fine line to walk. We had some great cameos, one of which I really wasn't even expecting and almost didn't want to allow myself to believe to believe that it could happen. And I found myself invested in the current generation of characters and actually caring about what happened and the order in which it happens. Even for the ones that I didn't care about, I still enjoyed getting them to their expiration date in this movie. This was an effective execution of passing the torch to new characters without feeling like you're in the way. Like you're just stuck in the past. This movie used nostalgia, but it used it thoughtfully and not lazily. But this also had the nerve again to do something that other legacy sequels have wanted to do, have considered doing, but have never had the nerve to really commit to. Sean, you mentioned earlier that you were concerned about there being a lot of fan service. I am a fan, I was serviced, and I was serviced well. This is a slash.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Let's keep these services going. I'm also gonna slash this movie, y'all. I too am a fan and I too felt serviced. I came. Everyone in my audience came. We were pleasantly surprised, we were gagged. It was mostly an audience of queer people, and I did say that earlier, but we went through a lot. We laughed, we cried, we gagged, we screamed at one point. There was applause. There was at one point a collective gasp that really I wish I could have captured on film because it was just such a unison moment of synchronicity between an entire audience and an unexpected reveal. And those kinds of moments don't come often, especially nowadays, especially with like a reboot or anything where you're rehashing something old and unoriginal. I think here this movie has it all. It has a final girl in a clockable wig. It has a himbo in a steam room, and it has a ton of fan service. Let me see what else I wrote down because I really loved it. Oh, as I left the theater, I overheard three old sun-damaged gaze. And one of them was like, you know, it really wasn't that scary. And the other one was like, yeah, it was more fun than scary. And then they were all like, yeah, it was more fun than scary. And I think that tells you everything you need to know about I know what you did last summer. It's more fun than scary, and it is a lot of fun. Now, with that being said, I'm gonna give it a slash for sure. There's maybe one thing that I'm like, you kind of did a little bit much here, but then I'm just sort of endlessly critiquing feminism at that point. So let's leave it at slash.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

I love that for you both. I do think this movie was fun. I do. I think this movie was pretty much exactly what I thought it was gonna be or feared it to be. I don't know, which it is. I think it was definitely made for the fans, for sure. I feel like because it's packed to the gills with nostalgia, there's like those familiar beats to the original film. There's a fair amount of Easter eggs and references for those who remember the hook-handed legend all too well. And even though there is this undeniable charm in the film's commitment to honoring the franchise, you can't really ignore the fact that the acting isn't really that good in this movie. Even down to our boy Freddie Jr., it just wasn't good. And the kills and the effects certainly left something to be desired. And so this is actually a tough one for me because it is self-aware, it is a little bit campy, and it is surprisingly entertaining, even if it doesn't truly escape the shadow of the original. But at best, it is kind of a guilty pleasure slasher that knows exactly who it's for. And outside of the legacy that I think it leans on, when you strip away the recognizable title, I feel like you strip away the nostalgia, you strip away the callbacks, you strip away the legacy characters and all of that stuff. And I know that's kind of unfair to say, but when you strip away some of that stuff, I feel like this movie as a horror movie would just sink faster than a body in a stormy fucking harbor. You know what I mean? Maybe even if you had the legacy characters, I feel like if you just take the title away and the nostalgia away, it doesn't work that well. It just becomes kind of regurgitated. It is fun, but not everything is great about this movie. And it's in the stuff that's not great, it doesn't feel like a fun, like culty, campy film. You know what I mean? And it somehow feels like it's not only like riding on the coattails of the predecessor a little bit, but it also feels like it somehow falls back under the shadow of Scream because it kind of feels like it's like riding on the coattails of the success of the Scream requil. And I feel like I don't know, now we've maybe come full circle, things like that. Who knows? I think it's fun, I think it's flashy, I think it's full of fanfare, but if you take it all away, I don't know what's left. Maybe just a hook line and blunder. But this one has to be a hack, even though it had spirit.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

Sean really said if you strip it down and make it a completely different movie, it's not a good movie.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Yeah, Sean, you take away everything it has and then say it's got nothing.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

I know that was kind of an unfair way to put it, but genuinely, like if it wasn't an I Know What You Did Last Summer film and you don't have all the fanfare and you just have the slasher, it doesn't, it doesn't feel right. It doesn't hold up, it wouldn't be a slash. And I don't know. I don't know. Well, it only it could be a slash to a specific amount of people. I love the original. I think it's really does a good job in paying respects to the franchise and things like that, but I feel like it is just a fanfare movie. I think that there's a potential at the end of this movie and what they could do to make a really fun and great follow-up to this movie, and there's potential there to be even better, but we'll see.

SPEAKER_03 32:29

Well, we will see indeed. Because I think we have some choice words to hash out together in the spoiler zone. But okay, you heard it. I know what you did last summer. Has earned one hack and two slashes, and we have so much more to discuss in detail. But hey, if you've seen this, buckle up for the spoiler zone. We're about to get there right now. You can also join the conversation about this movie for free in our Discord server, which we've linked in our show notes below. If you haven't seen it yet, and you're listening to this review and you're taking in our scores and thinking about do I want to stream it, do I want to go to the theaters, either way, you're probably gonna want to catch up on the franchise. So, if you need that refresher on the franchise, you can follow the link in our show notes to catch up with our latest YouTube video that Paris mentioned at the top half. Alright, next up, the spoiler zone. We'll see you in a bit.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Welcome to your Manslaughter Meditation, Queen. Let's begin. Close your eyes and clear your mind. Think back on the past in the summer. Think about anything you might have done. And think about how it really wasn't your fault. Who could blame you? No one does. Because you're blameless, and because nobody knows. Now, exhale your anxiety and any fears you may have that people know you committed a murder. Because that's what it was. A murder. And in this moment of absolute calm, begin to feel the branches emerging from the shadows with a hook. Oh shit. No, look behind you. Get out of the bath, bitch.

SPEAKER_03 34:33

If you're anything like us, I know what you did last summer in theaters right now, has brought a wave of 90s nostalgia just crashing right back. Seeing some of our favorite horror icons return was a full-on blast from the past. And if you're hooked on that feeling and you want to go even deeper into the pre-Y2K horror vault, you're in luck. The iconic in Search of Darkness docuseries is back, and this time they're diving into the unforgettable era of 1995 to 1999. Now, if you can do the math on that, that encompasses Scream, it encompasses I Know What You Did Last Summer, and yep, it encompasses I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. It's a comprehensive love letter to the horror films that define the end of the millennium. So if you're a lifelong fan or new to 90s horror, this doc is packed with everything you'd want. The classics you grew up with, the hidden gems you may have missed, interviews with the very actors, directors, and special effects legends who brought it all to life. Pre-orders for In Search of Darkness 1995 to 1999 open later this year. But you can actually check out all the campaign details using our affiliate link in our show notes. Your support actually helps us and helps fund these amazing retrospectives that we keep coming back to again and again. Earn one hack and two slashes. Now we have a lot to unpack here, unhack here, but before we get into the specifics of our ratings, let's go through those kills.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

So we have a modest nine kills in this movie, right? A couple of teaser kills that I'm sure we're gonna talk about, but the kills in this movie were interesting because for me, the best kills were the ones that we get to see the way they are propped up or staged to be found. You know what I mean? And I don't know if it's like I don't know if it's just because I liked the aftermath of the kill more than the kill itself. So I don't know. I'm curious to hear your thoughts though. Which one of these kills harpooned you through the heart?

SPEAKER_00 36:39

I will say, Sean, as somebody whose favorite kill from the Halloween requel was mostly as a result of staging of the body, I do think body staging counts as part of the kill, even if it's not seen in a later scene. With that being said, my favorite kill was Teddy and Teddy's dad. Right. Because I think it's some of the most violence that we get, besides the harpoon, but like the hook through the neck and the just really lingering as we pushed it all the way to the other side and out the other side. We kind of milked that moment a little bit longer than was comfortable, and my audience got a little squeamish, which I think is always fun. Um, you it's kind of like the most brutal, I think we get as far as kills in this movie. And then the staging of them by the docks at the wharf, like they hung up like two prize fish that were caught. I thought that was a really nice touch, especially because it's sort of like the um they're eat the rich. It was very eat the rich because they're like a netbo family in that community.

SPEAKER_03 37:36

I also just want to highlight we are days away from Shark Week at this point, and they were posed as sharks often are under these big signs on display. I really loved Teddy's death. Not because I hated him as a character, he was one who I acknowledged he had to go, but I was starting to warm up to him as the movie went on, and I think it's really interesting because he is clearly the Barry Cox of this timeline, but he had the Helen Shivers death, so he died inches away, and actually, I mean his dad finally did find him, but he died under the fireworks, he died screaming for help, completely drowned out with the noise around him, so close and yet so far away. And that was the horror of Helen Shivers expiring in the original film. Now, Paris, you mentioned this whole Eat the Rich angle. What I thought was interesting about this movie and the way that it approached Teddy, the way that it approached Teddy's father as a character, was very much this idea that your clout, your class, carries no weight in the eyes of vengeance. You had the means and you could afford to manipulate and just completely get around this man's death, but that doesn't mean your uppins won't come. So them having what I thought was some of the more drawn-out kills, some of the more violent kills, honestly lined up perfectly with the amount of culpability they had in the original sin.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

That's a good point for sure. I also just loved and we're just these kills with the aftermath, it just the shot of their eyes just like popping out as they're hanging there.

SPEAKER_03 39:21

Yeah. Can I say something though? And maybe this is again very nautical, very dead fish, very has been on ice. I don't love how quickly gray some of these motherfuckers got. Milo, for example, Milo just died. Why does he look like he's been sitting on ice for hours? And by just died, no, no, no. I don't mean when he's found in the car later. I mean when he's literally in the backseat. In the backseat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Right.

SPEAKER_03 39:49

He just very blue pretty quick. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Well, I mean, he was a very pale and let's say it British man.

SPEAKER_03 39:56

He was already blue balling.

unknown 39:58

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Um, I also really liked the kill from the I also really liked the kill of our sexy podcast girl. I thought that we were about to get Helen Shivers 2.0 because it was in the same literal, like, I don't know if they use the same set, but it was in the same setting. And I really enjoyed that because there was sort of a cat and mouse of like, we have Ava trapped in the cage downstairs, so close but yet so far to help. And then we have her doing everything she can to flee. Uh, and then I think for it all to end with an exclamation point of her being hung in front of the establishment. I thought that was a really nice touch, even though how it was really sad to see that character go. Um also it really convinced me not to buy those Steve Madden boots because everybody has those boots.

SPEAKER_03 40:42

I really wanted her to stick around a lot longer when she died initially. I thought, well shit, if Ava goes, then they're really just burying the gaze. Thank God Ava lasted to the end. But yeah, looking at her specifically, she had this moment in the trailer. It's this moment where she's looking at at Southport and she's talking about how great it is. She just wants to die. They show her attack in the trailer. I'm like, all right, this character is gonna expire very quickly. And the more we got some interaction with her, even with the way that she's introduced, and then the engagement that she has with some of the other characters, I was like, oh, I can actually get used to her. Like, I want her around a little bit longer. I want her to be the Randy of I Know What You Did Last Summer. But what if Randy was hot?

SPEAKER_01 41:28

I know it's cheesy, but I also liked Wyatt's death because, like, even though it's the one we get in the trailer, the buildup to it and the kill itself has a very iconic feel to it. It definitely is a tone setter, you know what I mean, for the film. And I I did like the whole build-up, that whole scene, the whole progression of the death, super good. But I gotta say, Pastor Judah, I want to talk about because that's a kill I wanted to actually see going down in its entirety, because the way that this dude was propped up was also iconic. This dude was literally propped up in prayer mode on his like altar or whatever the fuck that was in front of the stained glass window overlooking the ocean. What a beautiful shot. But this dude, as they kind of like panned up and over him and then kind of looking down almost, and the way he was propped up on whatever in prayer mode, eyes gouged out, it was fucking cool. And I wanted to see a little bit more of the action on that one.

SPEAKER_03 42:27

Yeah, I'm really excited to see the deleted scenes whenever this movie comes around for ownership at home, specifically because I know there was a a couple of actors that were cast and had scenes, and it just didn't make it to the final cut of the film. And I don't know if anything additional was filmed for Pastor J Pastor Judah's death, but I think it would be interesting to see because again, that staging pretty phenomenal. I really enjoyed that. And he got some vicious eye gouging that was pretty intriguing to see as well. I also just want to shout out again to mediocre Milo. I was not a fan, I could have done away with him. I thought really he was just gonna be in the way of Ava and Tyler, and then when Tyler died, I was like, well, fuck, okay, I guess there's Milo, sure. However, I did find a lot of humor in him being so bland, he did not get into the choking of it all immediately, leaves, goes out for air because he fucking can't handle the dynamic, and then gets choked.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

That was a beautiful irony, and also, yeah, such a flat, milk toast, nothing wonderbred of a character, which is interesting because I actually really enjoyed him in The Little Mermaid. Circling back to Wyatt's kill, Sean. I also really enjoyed that one. I think it was such a good introduction to our new killer's design. I think it's like a really iconic, like first reveal of that killer in that slicker in that bucket hat combo. And like, like what boots did we choose? Was it a hunter boot? Was it I think they made some really great choices with that kill and the reveal of that character. And I also loved the dynamic of the harpoon kill. Like, we got harpoon, we got fish hook, we got rope, we Got a lot of diversity as far as like nautical mariner time kills goes, and I was really you know impressed with our killer for doing that.

SPEAKER_03 44:09

I also want to shout out Ray's death at the very end because we have the classic Jennifer Love Hewitt, the Julie James, what are you waiting for? She gives it more subdued. What are you waiting for, huh? And she feels like she's talking to him. But this is very much the Karen and Alison Strode of it all in Halloween Kills, where Allison is saying, Do it, do it. She's like taunting Michael, and then Karen just comes in from the back with a pitchfork and nails Michael. That's where this moment has. And again, I get the requels of it all, the influences, everything rhymes with each other. But Ray going is, I think, such a choice. It was a choice to make him the villain, and it was a choice to killing him. And I would love to know your perspectives.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Well, one, I I definitely guessed that he was gonna be the killer pretty early on in the movie.

SPEAKER_03 45:04

Yeah, it became a very as soon as they clocked the Billy Blue hanging up in the bar, I was like, alright, well, there it is.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

And I also was on to Stevie for a while, too. I'm gonna be honest. Ever since they were they introduced her as a character and being the odd one out of the group and things like that, it just kind of and then they worked together, and yeah, there was just too many things along the way that brought you there. But to make him a villain, not mad at it, I just feel like the motive was a little bit I guess I don't know. The motive just felt kind of funny to me. You know what I mean? Like you're just the town moved on, so you're gonna you're gonna make them see again by killing people instead of you being like, what? Why would you take that out on people? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 45:48

The motive is trauma, and trauma changes you, especially when you prepress and you don't seek counseling. And I'm not saying that this was the best execution of it by any means, but I do want you to also consider how many people do we have exposed to the horrors of war and who never get treatment, right? So we have that kind of dynamic, and Ray clearly, especially when you take the reality of the first two films. Wow, he is such a far cry from who he used to be, and he saw some shit. Julie and he took very different paths, and I don't know that I feel we completely got the commitment of him being this person now. That's what I'm saying. So I 100% feels completely earned, however, I'm still not mad at it. Like it it's it's one of those where it's like, okay, I respect it on paper, I like the execution of it, Freddie Prince Jr., good for you for like really fucking committing to this and having the nerve to like how many times have they talked about Sydney being the killer in Scream? Yeah, or maybe something along those lines. How many times did they talk about you know Lori Strode adopting some of Michael Myers' evil and his darkness? So there's there's something there for sure. It it was just an interesting moment. I need to like rewatch this movie a few times to really process my feelings on it.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

Yeah, again, not mad at him being the villain. I think that's a great angle, and I understand the trauma piece, and I think if they played into the trauma piece more and we saw the descent of that character, it would have made sense. But it was the addition of the main motive, his big reveal of why was primarily because the town decided to move on.

SPEAKER_03 47:41

That's invalidation and erasure of the experience.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Like, yeah, I just didn't buy into it.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

I hear both of you right now because Sean, when Freddie was doing his killer monologue, my audience was laughing. We were laughing both at his performance and also like how kind of unearned that monologue felt. But at the same time, the parts of it that I did appreciate was the earlier parts of it where we were just talking about the trauma and the experience that he had, because it very much positions itself as like a these are two different people that experience the same trauma, and this is the two different options you have in life and like how to react to it. Do you want to become a survivor who maybe is like hyper-vigilant and has all these other symptoms, but is like doing what's right and what's good, or do you live long enough to see yourself become the villain, which I think is what we got with Freddie Prince? I don't think he sold it super well, at least based on my audience's reaction. And I was gonna I was thinking if there is a performance in here that I have notes on, it's gonna be his, but only in that ending monologue because I feel like everything he did up to that, I was just like, Freddie Prince, you can still absolutely get it. You've always had the keys to my heart and my whole, and that hasn't changed. But yeah, I I I wish they had leaned more into the trauma of it and less into the they forgot about us, they pretended like this never happened, so I killed. I'm like, mm, I don't know about that. Do it mostly because you felt sorry for the girl who all of this happened to. Like that's compelling.

SPEAKER_03 49:01

Yeah, I think where I also stumble with this, and maybe it's just my fault for like having rewatched them so closely together. He really tries to get Julie back into Southport and just to move on with life. And obviously, that is the the beginnings of this and why he is the way he is now. But it's almost like he was the one who was forgetting already. And again, this is years of repression, and I think they carry the through line all the way into this movie, and I think it makes sense, but damn, to think about the young Pretty Prince Jr. Just like really trying to get Julie back, ends the movie brushing his teeth. They had just bought a house together in this dream end sequence. I don't know, it's just it's just sad to see what happened to Ray because boy, young Ray did not deserve who he ended up becoming.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

Wait, Chris, I love that you brought that up because there was a moment where Freddie was talking about how he had been trying to get her to come back to Southport. And when she finally came back and she's on the boat and they're having that confrontation, I wanted him to say, and this I'll give as a note to the writers, a great opportunity for a line of like, listen, Julie, if I knew you would have come back for this, I would have started killing sooner. Like something like that, I think could have really landed in that moment to kind of also acknowledge the absurdity of the situation. But we didn't get that, sadly.

SPEAKER_03 50:22

Yeah. Now but you know, the other side of this is if this had gone any differently, and this is again why I respect where they did, they just would have been the next Dewey and Gail. Like, I liked their relationship in this, and we'll talk about it more in a little bit when we get to the characters. But the push and pull of Ray and Julie, and Julie absolutely not buying his bullshit, it's like there's a reason why we're not together. He acknowledges this too, but it feels very much like, oh, I know the man that I loved in high school, and I know the man that I married, and I know the man that is fucking running that bar right now, and I'm not buying any of this shit.

SPEAKER_02 51:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

The body keeps the score. Oh, they also mentioned that book in this movie, which I thought was fun. Something that I also really thought was fun, especially when it comes to the different creative elements that we see in this film. Uh, one, soundtrack didn't disappoint. Within the first four minutes, we got three songs, and I said, Okay, so we're we're doing a soundtrack. Great, got it. I look forward to one, watching this movie again, and two, figuring out every song that was used in this movie and making a playlist in it that I'm either gonna call Julie, honestly, I'll probably call it Danica, but let's be so real. And speaking of Danica, I think my favorite visual element in this film was our return, and I don't want to say too much because of the scene, of the Croaker Queen float. I love a nautical vibe. You all know this about me. I said this on the I Know What You Did Last Summer original episode for Hackerslash. I love a nautical setting. I love ropes and hooks and boats and sails and anchors. Like I'm a Pisces Rising, so I'm just really drawn to that as an aesthetic. So I would really watch any movie that takes place in like a coastal town like this, like a fisher town. Like, ugh, give me more of it. I will soak up every morsel of that. It's candy for my eyes.

SPEAKER_01 52:10

It's really great when you have a town, a fisherman killer in a port town and not a landlocked mountain town. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 52:18

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it just wouldn't work. That's why the landlocked mountain towns always have like an axe killer that's like lumberjack themed.

SPEAKER_03 52:24

I want you to watch I know I'll always know what you did last summer and then revisit that comet. Yeah, it takes place in fucking Colorado. Anyway, I 100% agree with you, Paris. The set design in this movie, incredible, immaculate. The way that we step back into the past in some of these moments, some of them nightmarish scenes, some of them genuine revisiting, genuinely revisiting this hollowed ground. So we had Tyler, and I remember Parrish, you mentioned, I remember thinking she was gonna have like that Helen Shivers kill. And she kind of does, she does the same pulley situation, but to be back into that department store and to go on this tour of Southport, I absolutely loved it. This movie was also just shot so incredibly well. I'm thinking about that scene where Wyatt gets killed, but the harpoon is fired, and when we first see the killer, it's just like this slow pushing against the harpoon, and we reveal the killer in the new in the updated costume. Fantastic. This is just another example of why I'm welcoming requels with open arms because it's also just let's take a look at our favorite characters in 4K, in AK, in IMAX, you know, the modern technology that we've been wanting to feast on, or even just in theaters.

SPEAKER_01 53:56

Yeah, no, definitely. Very fun. The set design, the costume design, you know, the updated looks for sure, all really good. I also think just one of the better parts of this movie are the nostalgic pieces that this movie has in it, because the movie itself, you know, without it, I like I said before, it wasn't super great, but you have to have fun with all the little details that you can pull from the film. I loved all the little references that you get in this movie, the references when they're trying to get that truck registration info or whatever from the tow company guy, and he mentions the Gillespie uh name, right? Which is obviously a nod to Jim uh Gillespie, the director from the original film. I loved the cameos from both Sarah Michelle Geller and Brandy. I loved all the flashbacks and the OG characters on the gravestones. There are just so many little things that you're gonna have fun with, right? With this movie, if you're a fan of the franchise, or at least, or even just the original, right? You're gonna have fun with a lot of it. And so for me, I gotta say, nostalgia.

SPEAKER_03 55:01

Nostalgia. Nostalgia's overrated. Oh, it is Paris and I being the opposite sides of the same coin. There it is, right there. But we can be the same coin in the same side for what was both of our favorite scene, I'm sure, which is Helen Shivers Return.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

Helen Shivers Return, my god, the collective gasp, mostly gay gasp that erupted when she turned around. Because we all were like, okay, obviously it's Helen. And actually, when they even started slowly panning in on her from behind, several gay whispers in the crowd. That's Helen, Helen Shivers, Helen. It was just all a Twitter throughout the hushed voices. And when she turned around, it was just a full one, the gas, it was a nuanced gasp. Let me break down this gasp for you. It was one, Helen Shivers is here. They put her in the movie, she died. We all knew it was a dream sequence, but they figured out how to do it. Two, Sarah Just, Sarah Michelle Geller looked so good. The airbrushing and Photoshop and like blurring effect that they did on her face was almost unclockable when she was lit from the front in the initial part of the scene. When she was lit from the back, it was a little bit easier to tell like the filter that they had put on her. But that bitch was giving Buffy down. She looked 17, 18 years old. She looked so good. And it was a really powerful moment. And for her to deliver all the things that we loved about her character, it just brought me back. It just reminded me why I loved I Know What You Did Last Summer, why I felt mad about that movie my entire life, because it was a mistake. It was a huge mistake to kill Helen. And this right here was them kind of correcting that mistake and saying, hey, we know Helen was the best part of that movie. In fact, the only good performance in that movie, most would say. And we're sorry. And actually, me as a fan, the director, I'm sorry too because I wish Helen didn't die. Helen's gonna pass the torch to Danica, who is a perfect Helen replacement. And we're not gonna kill off Danica. You're welcome. It was so satisfying.

SPEAKER_03 56:57

It's so good to know that this was the mistake that you're talking about. I was wondering if there were no things. Yeah, the biggest mistake is listen, Helen Shivers, iconic, and she has grown her own cult following over the years. When you have a final girl chasing like that, and then you don't become the final girl, it really just creates an empty void in our hearts.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

It's rude. It's rude.

SPEAKER_03 57:19

It really is. But this fucked me up because I remember reading again about the director's enthusiasm and love for the franchise. And she was like, I love Helen Shivers, and I've been trying to get her back. I kept trying to pitch all kinds of crazy things to Sarah Michelle Geller, and I was like, What if you were in hiding? What if you weren't really dead? And Sarah Michelle Geller was like, No, I'm dead. Sarah dead Geller. Like, I'm not, I'm not doing it. It's not my character's dead, I can't do it. So it's another they struck this balance, and I also feel like it's such a great way for Sarah Michelle Geller to just be a little spicier. Like Helen was a little bit of spice for sure. She she gave it good to Southport PD in that film, but her not being in perfect sync with who Helen was at 17 years old makes so much sense because it's a fucking nightmare, right? So we all get to just enjoy Helen Shivers and Sarah Michelle Geller just being fucking amazing. What a dream come true. A nightmare come true, but a dream come true.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

And I did come. I came. We all did. Thank God, Sarah Michelle Geller. Thank God we come to this place for magic. And we got it. Movie magic.

SPEAKER_01 58:37

Oh my gosh. It is actually one of the best scenes in the movie, no doubt. I think it's also interesting that some of the other really great scenes are the scenes that you're getting snippets of in the trailer because it feels really great the way that played out with the fake out jump scare, with Danica looking out the sliding glass door to the bathtub scene, straight to Wyatt's kill scene, right? That we do see in the trailer. It's really good. There's great moments, like if you miss these little snippets, like in the beginning when they go to Danica's party. Danica and Teddy get hooked. That's what the banner said. And that's just fun, right? We're just playing off of themes within the movie, so it's self-aware in those moments, which is kind of fun to play with. But I gotta say, that moment that Danica and Ava are walking out of the hospital is also one of the better scenes in the movie because it it was one of the better comedic elements in the movie, too. Just that levity that like lifted from you know the resolve of everything kind of being over, so we think, right? And they're walking out of the hospital, realizing what we probably, you know, have all maybe thought about at one point and another. It's like, what the fuck are these characters doing for hours and days with no water, no food? They realized it. They're fucking hungry. They're hungry, right?

SPEAKER_00 59:53

I died when she said, When's the last time we ate literally anything? Because it's like, yeah, bitch, it's been like two days. It's been like a rough 48 hours. We need food.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:02

Right, right. Such a good moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:04

It really was. And that also reminds me of the scene that was originally my favorite scene before we got the incredible Helen Shivers reveal that really had no choice but to become my instant favorite scene. Um, and that was actually the bridal shower for Danica, specifically because obviously I love Danica and all of her scenes. But this is a moment where we really see her in her natural like juxtaposition, right? Like she's bright, it's like a very bright, colorful scene. It's like rich, it's affluent, it's very like proper, it's preppy, it's very like vineyard vines, and she has to perform, she has to like play the stakes of this moment of like receiving the note in front of a huge audience, and she has to play it off as both like an actress, but also as a character, like kind of lying to people, but also like who the fuck gave me this note. Um, and I think that was just like a really nuanced performance from this actress that I really appreciated, and it made me see like obviously Danica is really good at playing like the fun comedic relief, almost like dumb bitch trope, which I always love, but also there's depth to her, there's nuance to her, and there's like grit and texture to her that made me really happy. Obviously, favorite character in the film.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:12

Yeah, but even just looking at this, and there's a couple more scenes that I I want to highlight because I think it it also goes into those characters, right? Danica takes accountability for making Ava lie, or at least going along with a scenario in which she felt pressured to lie, and that was very real. She acknowledges that she hasn't been okay, that she's been torn apart, and I loved that from her. I also really enjoyed Danica's moment in this scene where they're all listening to Tyler's episode where they introduce the idea back to Southport because A, the podcast clip was just fucking hilarious with the soundboard, hilarious, but then they started talking about an anonymous note, and Danica paused it. I got an anonymous note, and they're like, Yeah, girl, this is fun. What?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

That's why we're got a big laugh in the audience.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:05

Honestly, I saw that and I thought of Paris.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:10

Listen, I didn't laugh at all in that moment. I was like, T, she did. Everybody else laughed, and I said, Oh, so you're laughing at me. Got it. Fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:18

Yeah. The other scene that I loved was Julie James in her home doing some work, and then she's looking at her security camera, she's getting some alerts, and she's centering herself. She's grounding herself. This is a woman with complex PTSD, and she is just doing her best to hold on. She is facing she's prepared, yes, but she's also just like and this is why I fucking love Jennifer Lo Fewit so much. I wasn't crazy about her in the 90s. Like I thought, okay, she's great, I'm a fan, sure. Ghost Whisperer. I never saw Ghost Whisperer until one episode last night. No bullshit.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:57

It's insane. It's an insane show. And the wigs out of this world.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:02

But I have absolutely fallen in love with the depth of her talent through watching her as Maddie on 9-1-1. The trauma that this woman goes through, she's just ah, she has such incredible range, and like she has played someone who has survived domestic abuse, she has survived postpartum depression, she has survived any number of like almost slasher-like moments, and she just also is just navigating life, love, and motherhood. That all sounds very dramatic and all over the place, but her talent is just insane. And I gotta say this when I step back and I look at all the mentors that we've gotten in these requels, I never expected this, but I think Julie James might be my favorite. Even Lori Strode, who I love because Jamie Lee Curtis is fucking iconic, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:53

Of course.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:54

Even she had some moments as the the second Halloween trilogy continued on where I'm like, okay, a little bit guessing until Halloween ends. Again, I love her, iconic. But Julie James is almost who I wish Lori had been in Halloween H2O. It is this I work in education, I have an understanding of things, I'm I'm dealing with things, I'm coping, and I just absolutely love her portrayal because again, she's centering herself, and we get flashbacks of the original film. Very quick, we get the crab scene, and then she grabs her note, she grabs her knife, and then when she looks at her phone, she's breathing, she's nervous. You can see that she's like not okay, like she's not like she's tough, but she's also vulnerable. She's hard, but she's also soft. And then when you get that comedic relief, because it's just fucking Ray, of course. Incredible. Like, I cannot say enough about how impressed I was with Julie James in this movie. She is now one of my favorite final girls.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:58

I do think this solidified this as my favorite requel or legacy sequel because I think it most successfully passed the baton on all fronts. It said, okay, this is where she's at, this is where she's at, and this is where he's at. Whereas I think Scream, which was previously my favorite requel, I think it had a it had a harder job because it was kind of one of the first of I mean, Halloween got the requel first, but I think tonally they're very different because there's sort of like a satirical tongue-in-cheek element of Scream, whereas Halloween is more earnest. And as a result, I think that this might be, again, my favorite requel because we have a character who went through trauma and was like, yeah, I have complex PTSD. I also have the tools and I use them because I went to therapy and I listened and I took notes and I applied the tools. And that's why I am relatively well adjusted, all things considered. And I think that's just a huge win for all of us to know that that character really made it somewhere and wasn't sort of like becoming a shell of herself or like high. Writing out like maybe the the grandma and final destination, Bloodlines, or Lori Strode. She didn't have to become a recluse, you know? She was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have a job, I'm gonna have a life, and I'm also gonna have a part of me that I will always be nurturing. And I think that was really well portrayed by Jennifer Love Hewitt. And I'm grateful. I'm grateful for it because she also turned a really bad performance into like a tongue-in-cheek performance this time around. She was like, Yeah, remember when I made that line so insane that it became iconic? Let's do it again.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:29

She did. She did. And she was definitely, I think, one of the stronger performances in the film. I think between her and most of the legacy actors, right? Outside of Freddie Prince Jr. were pretty good in this movie. I just don't know. I don't know. I don't know what happened with Freddie's performance, but it just didn't feel great. It felt kind of strange. It felt off. It felt silly, but not trying to be silly, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:00

You know, the thing for me is that I actually loved his performance all the way through all the way through this movie, except for one specific moment, and I was so caught up in feeling the moment that I didn't even annotate like what the dialogue exchange was. But it wasn't until both of them were on screen and he was in his monologue mode and Jennifer LaView was acting opposite to him, and it was just a difference in execution between them that I think made the difference in their performance feel much greater than it really was. Because I think she was just that good, and I was just so blown away by her. And that's where I think I struggled with this reveal in the end. Because it felt like evil genius maniacal monologue versus a broken man in some moments.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:48

I actually totally agree, Chris. And something that I didn't mention earlier that I forgot to say, and I'm glad you reminded me, was that even though Freddie Prince Jr.'s monologue as a killer in that movie was kind of cheesy and like didn't feel super earned, and there were like laughs in the audience at him and not with him. Immediately, Jennifer Lev Hewitt as Julie is like, that's a terrible excuse to murder all these people. Like, that's not good. Like you just you that's no excuse. Like she really called it right away, which I think my entire audience was kind of like, yeah, actually that. She said what we were thinking. But there's an element here of it again reminded me of Scream 5, the legacy sequel, the requel, where I think Stevie delivered the killer monologue reveal performance that Mikey Madsen thought she was delivering as Ghostface, which I am on record as saying famously the worst ghost face of all time. This is what Mikey thought she was doing. And it she did nothing of the sort because she wasn't as lived in, she wasn't as dropped in, she wasn't as real as the performance that we got from our girl Stevie here.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:48

Okay, I wanted to get to this because I'm not super dialed in and crazy about uh well no, actually I don't mind Stevie as a killer, but the the rollout and the execution of it, okay. I mean, once you clock that it's gonna be Ray, it makes sense to be her as well. Because I just didn't feel like they're gonna do the di the betrayal dynamic, and I felt like he really was in her corner because she was the Rey of this group. However, I know that she went on to win an Oscar, but her performance and screen in that monologue, I know people love it, I really disliked it, and I'm so glad that you and I are there on this Paris because I much preferred this this rollout, this execution of you took everything from me, and I am clearly unwell, I am clearly not stable. But it also came from a character who has been through so much shit and is broken versus this character in Scream, it was like, okay, I'm mad about it, and I got manipulated by an older man on the internet. You know, very real thing, also, but just very different in terms of like the leagues of their quality.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:59

Yeah, and I'll be honest, I did not I figured out that it was Stevie before I figured out that it was Ray. Maybe I'm a dumb bitch.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:07

No, I think I did too, actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:09

Okay, cool. But I was honestly, I was content with the ending that we got with it being Stevie. I was like, it was Stevie, shooter off the boat, great, and I thought we were done. I was honestly like, okay, I'm satisfied with that as an ending. And then as it kept going, I was like, Oh, I don't know if I how much I love the Freddie Prince Jr. element. Like we said, it was a mixed bag for me. But I think by the time we ended, ended, ended the movie, like I said in my review, we landed at a place that I'm satisfied with.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:37

For sure. I also think that Tyler's character as a true crime podcaster investigating the Southport murders from 1997 was actually kind of funny because not for the character itself, but it felt an awful like the podcaster thing in Halloween 2018.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:53

It sure did, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:55

They both fell victim to the killer themselves, but it was very similar themes there, and I thought that was kind of funny.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:03

Well, you know what? I'm open to it. You know why, John? Sometimes we talk about fucking around and finding out.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:09

We do. And you know, it would be used to be negative journalism with these podcasts, it's a big thing. A lot of people like these true crime. I listen to a shit ton of true crime podcasts.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:20

Mm-hmm. Listen, the next time they're doing a casting call for a recoil of any slasher franchise, we gotta just try to be those podcasters. Yeah, we'll fuck around and we'll find out. We would die so quickly.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:31

Actually, I don't think, and that's one thing I love about Danica here is that the dumb bitches that people always give shit for, aka me, that we always joke would die first in a horror movie. I actually think we are more clever than people realize, and we are survivors, we're scrappy. So I'm so grateful that we got such a good character as Danica, like a nuanced, really deep, rich, textured portrayal of a dumb bitch character archetype. And we get we get to keep her. We get to keep her with her dynamic with Ava, which Ava grew on me. Ava took a while to grow on me because I was like, first of all, the wig. I was like, I don't know why our main girl is in a wig. Is she our main girl? The beginning she decides on what to wear to this event and picks the ugliest green top I've ever seen with a really cute matching skirt. I was just like, who are you? I don't care about you. That's fine. It's a I know what you did last summer reboot. I'm at peace with that. But by the end of it, I feel like she really won me over. And I was like, I actually didn't care for you, and now I actually really love you, and I want to see you succeed in at least one more movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:34

At least one more movie. I really enjoyed her the entire time.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:37

Really? I didn't Ava never really grew on me. I think Danica was the only character of the new characters that I actually liked in this movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:47

We need more Danica's. Every movie, every slasher, as far as I'm concerned, honestly, every movie, if I have my way, needs a Danica. There needs to be somebody who's like actually like cool and hot and gets it and like is up to speed in that element to like represent that demographic. I felt seen by Danica, you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:04

Hmm. Interesting. I really enjoyed Ava. I mean, Danica Danica grew on me as time went on. I think because I just saw her as her probably going to be expendable. She was either gonna be the Helen Shivers or she was gonna die very early on.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:22

We were expecting her to be the Helen Shivers, right? Like we were expecting that going in, which pleasantly surprised that wasn't the case.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:30

Well, she is the Helen, but they writed the wrongs of history and they said Helen shouldn't have died, and here she didn't.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:36

We also talk about the fact that Teddy got the Casey Becker moment again, just dying crawling towards his family.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:44

Yeah, and so hot too. We also got the the homage to the previous one where just like Ryan Felipe, he had a slutty little sexy steamy scene. I was like, thank God. Also, I don't know who that actor is, but I love him and I recognize him from something. I can't place it, and I couldn't when I watched it, but I think he did a really good job as that character because it's a very specific ask to portray that type. Um, and I think he did it in a way that had like heart.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:11

Yeah, there's a lot here to love. I didn't love Milo. In fact, I think No, hated Milo. The Milo Ava hookup was something that I could have absolutely done without. That was such a weird scene. Yeah, I mean it ended up with some comedy, right? It was some comedy that it ends up with like, chuck me, punish me, I deserve it. He's like, wait, what?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:33

I think that's an interesting perspective. I think we need to shine more light on that conversation because that happens. Sometimes one person's down and the other person's like, wait, what? And I think that needs to be talked about more.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:45

It does, but also I think I just was like super over Milo because he was supposed to be positioned as maybe the Ray here, and I just I couldn't get into him from the very beginning of the movie. I don't know what bias I have that just kept me from giving a single fuck about him, but in a lot of ways he felt like almost the worst part of the movie, which is not fair to him because he acted his role very well. He played his part, he did his thing. When we think about the worst parts of this movie, I think generally it's some elements of the third act and the end, the end, end, the end, end, and and end, and end all can sometimes be like a little bit too much. There is an energy and a feeling of like it's getting to the line of a little bit too much with some characters, some aspects of Freddie Prince Jr.'s performance. And then even the final scene that we get with and even the scene that we get with Ava and Danica just unpacking on the beach. I love this moment for them and these characters together. But there's a specific line of dialogue which was yeah, this whole thing could have been avoided if men just went to therapy. And it's like, oh, we were thinking it. I don't know if we needed to say it out loud, but maybe we did.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:56

I thought it was funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:57

That was also my worst part of the film, Chris. The the too on the nose, too overt, like feminism view. And here I am again. Like I said, I don't want to endlessly critique feminism because I'm really overall satisfied. But if I did have the tiniest little note, I would be like the tears of the patriarchy mug that we have Julie drinking out of, on top of the literally out loud saying the thing we're all thinking, which is this could all be avoided if men went to therapy. I feel like the people who that was for already got it without you saying that. And when you say that, it only serves to deter the people that need to hear it, and that it wasn't necessarily for, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:39

The best part of this movie, for me, honestly, was probably the mid-credit scene. It probably was great because I wanted I wanted to see Brandy come back. I think everyone wanted to see Brandy come back, and it was just great. I actually was debating like what was gonna happen. I didn't know for sure if they were gonna bring obviously Julie to her front door, if it was going to be like a whole like killer sequence, or she's gonna find a note, you know what I mean? Like that, and they're gonna leave it like that. But I loved that her and Julie link up and they were immediately just fucking down to fucking go kill some motherfucker. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:20

Yeah. That was fantastic. And I remembered reading that the director was such a fan, obviously, of the franchise and wanted to establish Brandy is alive and well, and Carla Wilson is alive and well in this universe. So when we got to the end of the movie, I was like, Well, fuck, did I miss it? Because there's a moment, obviously, where Teddy's like, we can just fuck off to the Bahamas for a few days, and Ray says, for reasons I won't get into, I wouldn't do that. Like, okay, I hope that's not the only fucking Bahamas brandy acknowledgement that we get that yes, this happened, so yes, she still survived. I really, really loved that mid-credit scene.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:00

Absolutely. Second to the Helen Shivers reveal, that was the biggest gag of the moment for my audience. And honestly, as the credits rolled, I didn't even get up, I didn't even make to move, I just started texting people and like checking my notifications. Uh, and 80% of my theater did not budge an inch when those credits start to roll because we all knew better. And then when that scene came and we saw Brandy, everybody screamed. Because at that point the movie's over, so you can kind of feel like a little bit more free to react and like you don't have to be necessarily quiet because the lights are up at this point, and everybody screamed. We were hooting, we were hollering, there was clapping, there was cheering. It was so satisfying. And then, like, the scene went on much longer than I expected. Way longer. We're actually just letting you know so you can prepare yourself and also you can be really grateful in this moment. And that's how I left feeling.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:53

I absolutely love the way that this wrapped up. And you know what? If there is a sequel around the bend on the horizon, hell yeah. But even if there isn't, I'm still gonna re-watch this movie. This has now made it a permanent fixture for my summer rotation. I obviously would try to get at least the first one in in the summer, but now I'm committed to one too, and this one.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:21

I'm absolutely because I completely agree. The one of the main things I love the most about the original I Know What You Did Last Summer is how well it captures the essence of summertime, and it just has like the energy of summer. And this movie did the exact same thing in a way that I will be watching it summer and summer and over and over again for years to come. Happily. This is such a fun, summertime, easy, entertaining watch. It's gonna be in constant rotation now, thank God. Which is such a pleasant surprise. I'm really grateful. What a time to be alive, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:50

I can see this being like the summer vibe, horror movie that you may want to throw on, right? I definitely think it's more of like a background movie. It's not something that I feel like I have to like die hard, watch fully, full interest, start to finish. Like I would put like the thought and care into like my Halloween rotation. You know what I mean? It's just something that I I could possibl possibly just throw on while I'm doing something and have a good time with it.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:17

Well, Sean, I can't wait to see if your feelings on this movie change over time as you re-watch this, but for now, there you have it, folks. I know what you did last summer, now in this requel era, has earned one hack and two slashes. Now we certainly had a robust discussion here, but the conversation about this movie and how great Julie James is does not end here by any means.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:40

If this episode hooked you and you want to find out how you can go further, consider supporting the show by visiting patreon.com/slash hackerslash. This is where you can enjoy even more of the show, including bonus content with early access, extended episodes with our B-sides, movie nominations, and live shows.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:57

And if you want to dig your hooks in deeper, head over to our YouTube channel to check out the video that Chris put together, which is a retrospective on I Know What You Did Last Summer as a Franchise. She breaks down the twists, the tropes, and the legacy that led to this latest installment, and hit subscribe while you're there so you don't miss what's coming next.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:13

We'll see you next time, folks. And remember, trauma changes the brain in mysterious and complex ways.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:19

I probably just took too much Adderall this morning.