Below is a spoiler-free review of the first four episodes of I Know What You Did Last Summer, which air on Amazon Prime on Oct. 15.
Following the enormous popularity of 1996's Scream, the inferior, Jennifer Love Hewitt-led I Know What You Did Last Summer snuck in to share the credit for reviving the slasher genre. Its coattails-riding success spawned a pair of abysmal sequels, ultimately cementing the fact that the horror series was never very good to begin with. Thankfully, Amazon Prime's I Know What You Did Last Summer limited series has nothing to do with the films, save for the fact that it's loosely based on the same source material – Lois Duncan's 1973 novel. And luckily, the show is leaps and bounds better than the movies. Still, a number of issues hold it back from becoming the sort of binge-worthy horror Netflix recently delivered with Midnight Mass.
The set-up is similar to its predecessor: A group of teenage friends are involved in a fatal car accident on their graduation night, and are then haunted – and hunted – a year later by someone who knows their dirty secret. Basic premise aside, the series features a fresh cast of characters, a new Hawaiian setting, and absolutely no sign of a meat hook-wielding madman in a rain slicker.
I Know What You Did Last Summer's first episode wastes no time introducing its central characters, an obnoxious, self-absorbed group of horny, hard-partying teens with little regard or respect for anyone or anything. If it isn't obvious, this is the show's first major problem: there's really no one to root for or relate to among this lot of pretty, privileged young adults.
Madison Iseman, as identical twins Alison and Lennon, delivers the most layered, complex, and thoughtful performance of the bunch. And, when she's assuming the role of the former sibling, she's easily the series' most sympathetic character. Watching her embody a pair of sisters, defined by aggressively divergent personalities, is always a treat, but it also spotlights the flaws in the other characterizations.
Alison and Lennon's friends Margot, Riley, Dylan, and Johnny – played by Brianne Tju, Ashley Moore, Ezekiel Goodman, and Sebastian Amoruso, respectively – all deliver solid performances, but they're just not given great material to work with. While they're not quite reduced to shallow, slasher film stereotypes, they also aren't afforded much opportunity to shed the irresponsible, selfish-teen facades that initially define them.
While the series premiere will find you struggling to pick a favorite character, its final act will still pull you in hard with a pair of absorbing plot twists. Assuming the accident that sets the mystery in motion is common knowledge, the show smartly serves it up as a mere appetizer to a much meatier main course. Best of all, these surprising turns aren't presented as one-and-done shocks, but complex plot points that could, potentially, take the narrative in any number of compelling directions. In this way, even if you see these twists coming a mile away, they still pack the potential for a satisfying payoff.
The opening episode's cliffhangers – as well as a gruesome discovery made just before its credits roll – will have you immediately pressing play on episode two. Unfortunately, while the next chapter delivers on some of the previous installment's promise, it also revisits some of its flaws, while introducing entirely new ones.
In the year since the event that's put the recent grads on an unknown killer's hit list, some of them have grown even more intolerable. Johnny and Dylan show some welcome emotional maturity and remorse in the wake of that horrible night, but Riley and, especially Margot, are more interested in delivering sarcastic quips and clever pop-culture references than reflecting on what they were involved in, or the fact they're being hunted by a psychopath.
More than a problem with how these characters are written, however, these frequent attempts to pepper dialogue with snarky, relevant references speaks to the series' tonal inconsistencies. The show contains its fair share of darkness – not the least of which being the vehicular homicide at its story's center – but there's rarely a serious, emotionally charged moment that isn't undercut by a dumb sexual joke or other immature comment. It's not unusual for a scene to feature two characters crying and embracing over something really heavy – like, you know, a close friend being brutally murdered less than 24 hours ago – then quickly pivoting to a blowjob joke.
This uneven tone is pretty prevalent throughout episodes 2-4, especially when characters meet in the present day to try and piece together what's happening. But the series also relies heavily on flashbacks, which generally fare much better. The teens are still pretty insufferable in these pre-accident scenes, but at least their gross personalities aren't weighed against the heinous acts they'll soon commit. The flashbacks also offer some welcome backstory on the group, as well as tantalizing plot details that help fill in the present-day puzzles.
These glimpses into the past pop up more frequently as the series progresses and, as a result, pave a more engrossing narrative path that slowly, but continually creeps closer to pulling back the curtain on the killer. Episode four, which also takes another satisfying, surprise turn, does an especially good job making the present more engaging by letting us peek into the past. If this trajectory is any indication, I Know What You Did Last Summer's second half will be better than its first.
In terms of delivering satisfying scares, the series spins its wheels a bit, quite literally in the case of a mysterious truck – with tinted windows, of course – that stalks Lennon for much of the second and third episodes. This uninspired trope is joined by another genre classic, the always reliable “scary noises” revealed to be scurrying rats. There's also an over-reliance on jump scares manifested by people suddenly appearing in places they're unexpected; characters spend an inordinate amount of time turning around or taking corners, only to be “surprised” by a person standing in front of them. These familiar frights tend to be the norm, but there's still plenty of gory and gruesome surprises, as well as several unexpected twists that not only turn the stomach, but steer the narrative in new, satisfying directions.