I wish I could hate the I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot (but I don't)

Jake Yates-Hart 22 November 2021

Image courtesy of Michael Desmond/Amazon Prime Video

Amazon Prime’s reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer takes a major and risky departure from its source material. Based on Lois Duncan’s novel of the same name, Last Summer retains the main narrative elements of it’s predecessor but focuses on a new group of teens tormented by their stalker.

The series follows Margot (Brianne Tju), Riley (Ashley Moore), Johnny (Sebastian Amoruso), Dylan (Ezekiel Goodman) and twins Alison and Lennon (Madison Iseman) as they are hunted down by a serial killer who knows about their accidental hit-and-run the previous summer.

The novel and 1997 film have a close place to my heart for its character driven storytelling and excellent exploration into guilt and trauma. Series creator Sara Goodman still includes these elements, but for better or worse, twists them in order to tell a slightly different story.

Yet, it is hard to discuss in detail what works about Last Summer and what doesn’t without giving away the first twist, so spoilers from here on:

Image courtesy of Michael Desmond/Amazon Prime Video

It is revealed at the end of the first episode that the hit-and-run victim is Lennon, with her twin Alison behind the wheel. But the group mistake the twins for each other and agree to hide ‘Alison’s’ body in the same cave that their mother took her own life.

The sisters’ relationship is incredibly well written and layered; It manages to lean into the twin cliché (the former is an unpopular introvert, the latter a mean girl valedictorian), without making their relationship just that.

Iseman is a powerhouse in her roles as Alison and Lennon, adding nuances to the twins that separates them from one another, but still share a level of vulnerability.

The complete breakdown of their relationship is the crux of the show, as we explore the different dynamics the twins had with other characters, which pushes them further apart, and how this ultimately leads to their argument in the pilot.

When Alison returns from college a year later, she has acclimated to her new life as Lennon, posing as her in front of her friends, weaving in the themes of the novel about how those we’ve known our whole lives can (quite literally) become complete strangers to us.

Image courtesy of Michael Desmond/Amazon Prime Video

Last Summer definitely prefers style over substance, but that isn’t entirely detrimental to the show’s enjoyment. Cinematographer Anka Malatynska is excellent at conveying the strange tone of this show about a bunch of drug-fuelled teens trying to dodge a serial killer.

Throughout the season, we call back to the first episode in which Malatynska’s stylistic choices are most evident. A projector fills the party room with bright blue colours that ever so slightly shine or refract over Lennon’s face, as if she’s underwater, foreshadowing her death.

Malatynska opts for close ups of the characters that help viewers get a stronger sense of what they’re thinking or feeling, backed up by some remarkable performances from the cast.

The editing in Last Summer is another standout. The episodes are almost Lynchian as the cutbacks to previous scenes unveil more about the characters and their relationships.

Image courtesy of Michael Desmond/Amazon Prime Video

Yet, the story itself is a complete mess. While the 1997 adaptation leaned more towards teen-slasher rather than the thriller roots of the novel, what made the film so compelling thematically was how well written the characters were.

The 2021 series, however, delves too deep into horror, sacrificing the book’s themes and great characterisations for blood and gore.

Goodman made a good call to swap out the white, middle-class foursome from the film with a sextuplet of mostly queer friends from different racial and economic backgrounds.

This raises the stakes for the group later on as they argue over whether they should confess to killing ‘Alison’, causing friction between the friends. How wealth, status and identity play into our characters’ decision to cover up their crime is an interesting theme to explore.

But a year later, the group are hardly phased by what they did last summer. It’s an extreme departure from the source material’s depictions of guilt and trauma, and ultimately left me feeling a lot less interested in the plot. After all, horror is at its most terrifying when the characters that we root for are in danger.

Image courtesy of Michael Desmond/Amazon Prime Video

As for the serial killer’s identity? Well, I truly wasn’t expecting the reveal - so, props to the writers! The bad news: The amount of plot holes it causes will give anyone a migraine.

This is mostly because the writing is too self-aware that it’s a whodunnit, so a lot of the red herrings don’t make sense, but parts of it are simply due to lazy storytelling. There are some great bits of foreshadowing, but not enough to avoid the killer’s identity coming so out of left field.

Yet despite these issues, I still somehow found myself enjoying the series. The kills are brutal and creative, the performances from the cast are top notch, and I appreciated the references to the film and novel scattered throughout.

It’s definitely not a great adaptation, nor does it feel like a spiritual successor to the 1997 movie, but it has an enjoyment factor that makes it addictive to watch - and sometimes all you need is mindless viewing, and Last Summer is perfect for that.