‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ Post-Credits Sequel with Jack Black

On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark honors fringe cinema in the streaming age with midnight movies from any moment in film history.

First, the BAIT: a weird genre pick and why we’re exploring its specific niche right now. Then, the BITE: a spoiler-filled answer to the all-important question, “Is this old cult classic actually worth recommending?”

The Bait: Hook. Line. Stinker. In a Fun Way!

Warning: The following contains spoilers for “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (2025)

I genuinely want to know if anyone warned Jack Black about the post-credits scene in the new “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” He’s not in it, but it’s sure to draw attention to a mostly forgotten misfire from much earlier in the “Minecraft Movie” actor’s career. 

Black was 29 years old when he played Titus Telesco, a white Bahamian pool boy with a weed habit and dreads. Director Danny Cannon’s 1998 sequel “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” was critically panned, and even diehard horror fans forget about the slasher series’ zany second chapter. It’s an expansion on the original story, set at a resort on a stormy island, that reunites final girl Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) with her love interest Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.) on screen one year after killer fisherman Ben Willis unleashed the Southport massacre. 

Their undergrad happiness ends when school breaks for summer. Julie and her best friend Karla Wilson (Brandy) win tickets to the Bahamas on the radio, but Ray won’t come along because he has a job back home. The audience knows Freddie Prinze Charming will end up following Julie on vacation to propose marriage, but she’ll complicate matters by finding a second suitor in her handsome classmate, Will Benson (Matthew Settle). 

Trapped inside a creepy resort by the weather, the twenty-somethings brew enough drama between them to fuel a dramatic feature. But when a new masked villain — once again donning a fisherman’s hook, harpoon, and raincoat — starts terrorizing guests and locals, a note arrives for Julie with the hilarious message, “I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.” Translation? Someone still wants revenge for the hit-and-run accident in the first film. 

The original director Jim Gillespie stepped aside for Cannon on the sequel, and “Scream” genius Kevin Williamson handed his characters over to screenwriter Trey Callaway with mixed results. Still, the mediocre sequel has fresh wind in its sails thanks to director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s sequel/reboot, which once again brings together Hewitt, Prinze, and several other familiar cast members in theaters. 

“I was watching you on the news, and you can’t catch a damn break,” says Karla, after answering a surprise knock on her door near the requel’s end. Better known in the movie world as Cinderella, Brandy made her genre debut in Cannon’s slasher and she carries the hope of more “I Know What You Did Last Summer” sequels with her cameo in 2025. (The R&B pop sensation has only been in one other genre film, last year’s profoundly hate-able “The Front Room” for A24.)

“It isn’t over,” says Julie, holding up a picture of the girls from college. 

Karla wastes no time fishing. She asks, “Who are we fucking up this time?” 

Nothing in “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (2025) technically qualifies as revisionist history, but the events of the earlier sequel are kept out of focus until this reunion. The spirit of that post-credits scene doesn’t exactly line up with the movie it references (Brandy gets sidelined in the 1998 sequel more than I want to admit), but you should watch it for yourself. 

Sometimes painfully awkward but also wonderfully delusional, “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” opens with a scary dream in a Catholic confessional and goes sideways from there. Julie is wracked with guilt, but not even the ill-advised character Black plays should feel bad about this mostly harmless stinker of a movie — an artifact that shouldn’t inspire nostalgia but… does?

Hinging on your knowledge of Brazilian geography (I swear to God), this violent maritime puzzle combines a silly whodunit with a shallow story that isn’t as satisfying as the first film. That said, what it lacks in function it makes up for with a string of baffling creative decisions that are truly something to behold. Black’s drug dealer character is the setting sun on that whacko horizon, doomed to die based on… well, everything about him… but he’s on screen just long enough to ruin a jacuzzi makeout for Karla and her boyfriend, Ty (Mekhi Phifer). You’ll be as annoyed as they are when Titus overstays his welcome, and his death is almost too dorky to take. But there’s just something about him — floating in a pool, joint in his mouth, mysterious new fisherman lurking nearby — that people tend to like.

Sure, Black is playing on dated archetypes in a movie that regrettably also includes a messy subplot about voodoo. (It’s fine. You can ignore it. I give you permission.) But whether Black got that warning about the post-credits in the new requel or not, this particular performance coming back to haunt him really screams, “I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.”

“I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” is now available to rent or buy on most platforms.

The Bite: “No! Seriously! Don’t Do That!”

My critical opinion on the wildly divisive “Halloween Kills” from 2021 has waxed and waned over the years. But I maintain that too many of us fail to catch the intricate little details that make the best reboots that are specific to legacy sequels. 

No one remembers “Halloween II” like they remember the original “Halloween,” and even less can be said for fans of “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” compared to Gillespie’s 1997 film. It makes sense that Easter eggs referencing follow-up movies many people haven’t seen would fly over the casual viewer’s head. But rewatching the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” sequel from 27 years ago, after having just seen the requel out this weekend, you gain a stronger appreciation for the homage as your commitment to the franchise deepens. 

In other words, you and Ray should’ve gotten your asses to the Bahamas long ago. (Yes, I am aware that the film was largely shot off the coast of Mexico. No one asked you.) 

From slapstick mannequin fake-outs to a Sarah Michelle Gellar cameo that could control tides, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (2025) sets up the potential for a modern franchise that hasn’t been confirmed but is fun to imagine. The requel ignores the events of the far lesser second sequel — the direct-to-video “I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer” from 2006  — and treats the history of Southport as a duology. 

There’s no way you would know that going in, but if I have one regret looking back on my “B+” review of the new release, it’s that I didn’t recommend “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” strongly enough. There’s plenty to be said about the emotional insight it offers fans into the dark romance of eventual divorcees, Julie and Ray. But it also draws out the vibrant goofiness that makes these movies’ most devoted fans accept the arrival of a ghost on a beauty pageant float with a smile.

When Titus finally meets his demise, he’s hitting a bong and the Fisherman pins his hand to the coffee table with a hook. As the murderer searches for another weapon, his victim squawks, “No! Seriously! Don’t do that!” Caught somewhere between a stoner from the “School of Rock” and Kung Fu Panda on a tropical bender, Black is hilarious and decidedly camp. 

“I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” isn’t very good, but the original isn’t either. Gillespie directed Williamson’s script (which was an intentional step away from horror comedy after “Scream”) as a melodrama. The property became beloved precisely because it lacked self-awareness in a way that audiences could laugh about. “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (2025) shares that sense of humor too, and if the series does continue, I hope they find a way to resurrect the spirit of Titus… even if Black shies away from a ghost cameo laced with THC.

IndieWire After Dark publishes midnight movie recommendations late-night on weekends. Read more of our deranged recommendations and filmmaker interviews…