Humorous stab on the awful unique

Horror film characters by no means study from previous errors.

Working away from the killer, teen ladies will all the time, all the time dash up the steps and into an inescapable bed room. They know no different path.

However, outdoors the display screen, filmmakers sometimes do make life-saving course corrections.

That’s probably the most nice shock of the sorta sequel to “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (inasmuch as a reboot a couple of guidelines of school youngsters getting impaled may be nice or stunning): It’s loads higher than the 1997 model, if equally as silly.

“Nostalgia is overrated,” says Jennifer Love Hewitt’s returning Julie James, taking her personal hook to all of the zombified millennials and Gen Xers within the viewers who unconditionally love the flawed unique.

The terrible ‘90s film was launched within the wake of “Scream” blowing up the style a yr earlier. But when it arrived, it was simply one other shrieks-and-shrugs slasher flick and went off a cliff in additional methods than one.

Sure, it had Hewitt, nevertheless it had no wit. The Fisherman wasn’t remotely scary. The characters had been interchangeable. The whodunit ending featured some man we hadn’t even met. The enduring picture is crabs in a trunk!

When different critics prattle on about so-called “legacy” sequels, as if “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” is a few kind of vaunted Everest to climb, I chortle and chortle and chortle some extra.

The improved refresh, which additionally stars Freddie Prinze Jr. alongside the brand new younger solid, may be very humorous and dry. The movie is self-aware, however not within the obnoxious approach the current “Scream” motion pictures have been. And it’s cognizant of the franchise’s many, many faults.

When one imperiled character suggests the group simply “f–k off to the Bahamas,” Prinze Jr.’s grizzled Ray shoots again, “For reasons I won’t get into, I wouldn’t do that.”

The kills are rather more ugly and the shadowy Fisherman is definitely freaky.

“I Know” stored me , even when it additionally made me braindead. Make no mistake, it is a dumb film. One lady loses two fiancés and is again to wisecracking a scene later. The flick depends on apparent jump-scares and retro throwbacks. Nevertheless it’s additionally a pleasant break from all of the self-important horror motion pictures on the market with Oscar aspirations. The important thing phrase right here is “summer.”

The waters off the shore of Southport, North Carolina, could also be rocky, however one factor that’s not rocking the boat is the acquainted story.

Firstly, we’re virtually in “Groundhog Day,” solely it’s the Fourth of July. A gaggle of 5 well-heeled, well-lubricated associates drive as much as a cliffside street to observe the fireworks.

Relatively than a hit-and-run, nevertheless, this time one other automobile swerves off the street after virtually slamming into Teddy (Tyriq Withers), a drunk dummy standing in the midst of the road. The motive force plummets to their doubtless dying.

Teddy rings his highly effective dad to repair the mess, Murdaugh murders type, and the group agrees to by no means communicate of the incident once more.

One yr later, at her engagement celebration, airhead Danica (Madelyn Cline) will get an ominous letter amongst her presents: “I know what you did last summer.”

Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s movie then hitches onto the most recent fad — the unique scream queen, hardened and battle prepared, goes as soon as extra unto the breach. Suppose Jamie Lee Curtis within the “Halloween” reboot or Neve Campbell within the 2022 “Scream.” Julie, now a traumatized psychology professor, reluctantly will get roped in.

Her younger prototype is Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), an untethered free spirit with points. She flirts with harmless Milo (Jonah Hauer-King) and is trailed by the suspicious Tyler (Gabbriette Bechtel), the host of the homicide podcast “Live, Laugh, Slaughter.”

Most attractive is Stevie, a townie who works on the native bar, performed by fresh-from-Broadway Sarah Pidgeon. Come to think about it, Pidgeon is the human embodiment of the Nineteen Nineties.

Someone brutally dies, after which the self-absorbed, unlikable, helpless survivors haven’t any resolution however to throw a shower bomb within the tub and hook up. You see? Mocking Gen Z is the good American pastime.

After a very ridiculous ending — nonetheless leagues higher than the primary film’s — a post-credits sequence suggests {that a} sequel may very well be within the playing cards. However, actually, by now the stationary shops are out of paper. The Sharpies runneth dry. Discover me somebody who doesn’t know what they did final summer season.

All of us bear in mind how effectively a follow-up labored for this sequence the final two instances.

I say: One and completed, then give ‘em the hook.