Summary
Amazon’s I Know What You Did Last Summer has all the audacity of an all-consuming mystery, with teens screaming into a space of the unknown while presenting creeping thriller tropes.
This review of Amazon Original I Know What You Did Last Summer season 1, episodes 1-4, does not contain spoilers. The first four episodes will be released on the platform on October 15, 2021, followed by weekly episodes up until the finale.
If there’s ever a classic remake that fits a modern-day YA series, it is I Know What You Did Last Summer. After Amazon gave Panic and The Wilds a roll of the dice, remaking the 1997 film makes a lot of sense. The streaming service is far off competing with other giants in this genre, but they are showing a good hand so far. Amazon’s I Know What You Did Last Summer has all the audacity of an all-consuming mystery, with teens screaming into a space of the unknown while presenting creeping thriller tropes.
It’s predictably generic to the YA theme, but we expect nothing less, with a story surrounding smartphones and hormonal house parties. Audiences will be pleased that the characters are on-the-nose but likeable, with the first four chapters reeling audiences in with gore and thirsty twists. The characters are based in a community that feels enclosed and all-knowing, and even the police have little to do apart from delve into the mystery from the outside of an eccentric group of teens.
It’s teens living in an adult world, and we have to relish in it. I Know What You Did Last Summer follows a fateful night at a house party. Involving twin sisters, one of them is run over and killed by their friends while fuelled on drugs and alcohol. Rather than go to the police, the group of friends decides to make it look like the young girl had been washed away by the sea in a fateful accident while in a cave. The main story moves forward a year later, with the same group of teens and the other twin sister being haunted by a mystery person who begins taunting and murdering in the community. It’s clear the murderer knows what they did last summer, and alas, the title is created.
I Know What You Did Last Summer relishes in all-encompassing secrets; young teenage love and rivalling twin sisters take centre stage to make a toxic environment for the writers to enjoy and the audience to ponder over. While the Amazon series is far from being “a great” in this genre, the first four episodes do enough to make it appealing. There’s an expectancy that wherever this series leads, it will be a grandstanding finale.
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