Amazon rebooted I Know What You Did Last Summer not as a film, but as a horror TV show, but it doesn’t work in an episodic format. Loosely adapted from Lois Duncan’s 1973 novel, I Know What You Did Last Summer sees a group of teenagers involved in a deadly accident the night of their high school graduation party. A year later, they’re haunted by their actions and a mysterious figure who seems to know what they did and won’t stop until they’ve paid for their crimes.
In many ways, I Know What You Did Last Summer is more brutal than the 1997 film of the same name. The story is changed by way of new characters, a different setting, and a twisted mystery, one that involves plenty of secrets. The central conflict stems between Alison and Lennon, twin sisters who have disparate personalities and always butting heads with each other. Amazon ordered eight episodes of the series before filming took place in Hawaii. The story has a lot of layers to it, all of which unfold slowly over the course of every episode.
But even though I Know What You Did Last Summer has the time to flesh out its story, it doesn’t really work within the framework of a TV show — here’s what that is.
I Know What You Did Last Summer Has Thinly Drawn Characters
Because of its episodic format, TV shows have the time to flesh out its characters, their backstories, and their relationships with others. However, I Know What You Did Last Summer hasn’t developed its characters much at all, more focused on the plot of the show. The pilot episode employs flashbacks to establish Alison and Lennon’s tumultuous relationship, but the scenes ramp up the conflict between them to drive the plot forward. By the end of the first few episodes of I Know What You Did Last Summer season 1, there isn’t much to be gleaned about any of the characters beyond their one-dimensional characterizations.
The pilot perhaps too quickly jumps ahead to the circumstances surrounding the accident without bothering to explore Alison, Lennon, or their friends as people first. Considering the series is eight episodes long and not a two-hour movie, there was enough time to develop the characters and their motivations before careening towards the shocking accident that ultimately killed Lennon. Several episodes into I Know What You Did Last Summer season 1 and the characters are still too vaguely explored. What’s more, their behavior toward one another is overly melodramatic, which makes character interactions — especially between Lennon, Alison, and their father Bruce — feel contrived.
Amazon’s I Know What You Did Last Summer Isn’t Really A Slasher
All of the deaths, save for Johnny’s, happen offscreen. There aren’t any chase sequences, no gutting, no gruesomeness beyond the characters having to see bodies that have already been brutally killed. A slasher typically shows the villain’s murdering spree onscreen. The I Know What You Did Last Summer movie does this well, as does Scream. However, the TV series’ characters receive several text messages — that include links, images, videos — meant to scare and threaten them, but that leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to the suspense or tension-building that is on par with a true slasher story. There isn’t much slashing to be had in I Know What You Did Last Summer, which affects the story and its buildup.
The killer’s lack of props, like a creepy mask or a fisherman’s hook, is also an issue. Operating behind-the-scenes leaves the killer in hiding rather than out in the open, which makes things less interesting. All told, the series seems more interested in sticking to its mystery than in the killer slashing their way through town. That, in and of itself, makes I Know What You Did Last Summer far less scary than it should be, especially as it follows a different format than what’s been done before with horror, relying more on the social media aspect to heighten the tension with very little jump scares along the way.
I Know What You Did Last Summer Relies Too Much On Flashbacks
From the start of I Know What You Did Last Summer season 1, flashbacks from the graduation party (and subsequent accident) have been employed to peel back the layers of the story. However, the series overestimates the power of these scenes and the way they’re handled — namely, the flashbacks are there to provide more information about what fans didn’t see — does too much of the story’s heavy lifting. This reliance on past events curtails much of the present day elements that do work, sidestepping character building for scenes that offer very little. If I Know What You Did Last Summer was set in the past and then did a time jump to the present, that might have been better. But the fact that every episode harkens back to the night when everything changed doesn’t do the TV show any favors.
I Know What You Did Last Summer’s Mystery Falls Flat
The big mystery in I Know What You Did Last Summer season 1 revolves around who is targeting Alison and her friends. Based on the premise of the 1997 film, the primary suspect is Lennon, who was run over by twin sister Alison while driving back home on the night of their graduation party. However, it isn’t long before it’s revealed that Lennon is actually dead and is not haunting anyone at all. The confirmation that Lennon died the night of the accident shifts the narrative of I Know What You Did Last Summer closer towards the mystery despite there not being very many clues regarding who’s behind Johnny’s murder, as well as who might know this much information about Alison.
With the character development generally stalled, I Know What You Did Last Summer bides its time with the mystery aspect, but it hasn’t really gone in any interesting directions because of it. With Lennon out of the picture, it’s unclear why fans should care about the mystery. At this point, who is coming after the friends and why they’re killing others who had nothing to do with the accident (like the Snak ‘n Stuff chef) doesn’t ring true or interesting. I Know What You Did Last Summer doesn’t use its time wisely with regards to the mystery, which makes it fall flat. Four to five episodes into the series and there’s still very little information to know.