Get Hooked

We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning. 

Get spooky season rolling with zombies and a slasher.

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (2025)

In February of 2023, a project was announced that I immediately saw as a candidate for a future Film Appreciation article, as it was a movie that I had been waiting for for more than twenty years: Sony was moving ahead with a sequel to the 1997 and 1998 slashers I Know What You Did Last Summer and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and they intended to bring the stars of those films, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr., back as their characters Julie James and Ray Bronson! I loved I Know What You Did Last Summer when it was first released and thought I Still Know What You Did Last Summer was a solid follow-up. It left me wanting more Last Summer movies. Unfortunately, all we got was a disappointing direct-to-video movie in 2006 and a terrible 2021 Prime Video series that deservedly got cancelled after one season. This legacy sequel sounded like it could be exactly what I had been waiting and hoping for since ‘98.

Well... it wasn’t. Not quite. It didn’t end up being Film Appreciation material, as far as I’m concerned, although I do appreciate the fact that it was made. I did end up enjoying it, just not as much as I wanted to. Still, it’s Worth Mentioning.

Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson from a script she crafted with Sam Lansky and Leah McKendrick, the new I Know What You Did Last Summer takes us back to the seaside community of Southport, North Carolina and introduces us to a new batch of characters. Ava Brucks (Chase Sui Wonders) has returned to her hometown for the engagement party being thrown for her friend Danica Richards (Madelyn Cline) and her fiancé Teddy Spencer (Tyriq Withers). Accompanied by Ava’s ex-boyfriend Milo Griffin (Jonah Hauer-King) and their former friend Stevie Ward (Sarah Pidgeon), who is said to be fresh out of rehab, they take a ride on the cliffside road from the original film – and, just like in the original film, end up in a deadly accident. Jump ahead one year and Ava once again returns to Southport, this time to attend Danica’s bridal shower as she gets ready to marry a different guy, Wyatt (Joshua Orpin). The good times are disrupted by the delivery of a note that reads “I know what you did last summer,” and soon someone wearing a slicker and wielding a hook starts stalking this core group of characters, killing them and people around them.

So, no, even though I thought the first two movies were perfectly setting up the hook-wielding killer Ben Willis to become a cool new genre icon (and all it would have taken was a bulletproof vest for him to return as a living, breathing killer after I Still Know), there is no Ben Willis in this movie. There’s someone else in the Fisherman’s slicker. It’s clear that this copycat is drawing inspiration from the original murder sprees, so Ava seeks the help of Julie James, who has a successful teaching career outside of Southport while her ex Ray is still living in town and running the bar where Stevie works.

The script is really where this I Know What You Did Last Summer fell short for me. The first two movies didn’t have the most brilliant screenplays in the first place (especially the second one), but they worked. This script didn’t work as well. There was poor writing and irritating dialogue, and some really annoying characters. Danica was apparently so popular with test screening audiences that her fate was changed with reshoots, but I don’t understand why. She’s not as annoying as Busta Rhymes was in Halloween: Resurrection (that was another case of test audiences saving the live of a character), but she is pretty annoying in her own right and there was no reason she shouldn’t end up on the body count. This is a movie where the characters are so annoying and the dialogue is so bad, one person even offers to give the Fisherman access to “my crypto wallet, bro” while being painfully murdered.

The worst comes at the end, where reshot final moments and an end credits scene ends things on a really sour and stupid note.

I tend to watch the first two movies around the Fourth of July (as that’s when they’re set), and since this one is also set around the holiday, I’ll probably make it a triple feature from now on – but I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025 should have been better than it was. Some really bad decisions (and writing) went into this one.

At least there are some good kills, and it was nice to return to Southport with Julie and Ray again. I would gladly watch another sequel, but I hope it would be better than this one.

THE VIDEO DEAD (1987)

The trouble begins when a television is delivered to a man’s home under mysterious circumstances. He doesn’t usually watch TV, but since a free one just showed up at his door, he decides to turn it on – and is annoyed to find that the only show available is something where zombies are shown roaming through the woods. If that’s not enough, these zombies emerge from the TV screen and murder the guy. Turns out, the tube was supposed to be delivered to the Institute for Paranormal Research, but by the time the delivery guys realize their mistake, the man is dead and the TV is missing.

Enter our lead characters Zoe (Roxanna Augesen) and Jeff (Rocky Duvall), siblings whose parents have spent most of their lives living abroad. Now, the parents are coming back to America and their dad’s employer has bought them a home – the place where, unbeknownst to them, the previous owner was murdered by zombies that came out of a TV. They’ll soon discover that the zombies have been roaming the woods behind the house ever since killing that man – but they’re making their way back into the neighborhood to kill Zoe and Jeff’s neighbors, not to mention to a poodle that’s said to have a skunk fetish.

In addition to the undead threat, Jeff also has to deal with the fact that he finds that paranormal TV, and it shows him some crazy stuff. Like a seductive woman that can emerge from the screen, a monster slayer called the Garbage Man, and a monstrous hand that grabs him through the screen. Soon, the TV’s previous owner, Joshua Daniels (Sam David McClelland), the person who mailed the TV to the Institute for Paranormal Research after he had a horrific experience with it, shows up to try to end this insanity once and for all. According to him, mirrors are an important tool in the effort to destroy the video dead.

Written, directed, and produced by Robert Scott, The Video Dead is one crazy, goofball movie. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it does make for a fun viewing experience. As you might expect from something with this premise, this is a horror comedy, and there are some genuinely funny moments and lines of dialogue to be found in it. (My favorite being the talk about the poodle’s attraction to skunks.) And any movie where a character is excited to use a chainsaw on a zombie because their all-time favorite horror movie is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is going to find a place in my heart.

With some cool zombie makeup that’s somewhat reminiscent of the ghouls seen in Return of the Living Dead Part II (but somehow less threatening), a woodsy setting that’s covered in fallen leaves, and some entertaining bloodshed, The Video Dead is a good one to add to your Halloween celebrations.