In 1995 when I was about fourteen years old, April Showers was found dead in the primary school playground.She had been stripped naked and shot execution style in the back of the head. Dennis Mitchell, a second grade student, went to sharpen his pencil and looked out the window and saw the nude dead woman. He's fine.

A decade later the police arrested the man they later convicted for the murder. His name was John "Bubba" Edwards. His sister said the word "brother" wrong. Happens to a lot of young men in the American South. Did he murder April Showers? I knew him and his sister Amy Joy. Bubba sold drugs, stole, cheated, and fought, but I never thought him the type to kill anybody. That opinion comes from the fact that I knew Amy Joy really, really well, and the man never killed me.

On top of that, he had no reason to kill April. They had dated in high school, but she had moved on to Jake Teller who was an upstanding member of the church until the scandal. Bubba had been with Julie Duncan and took her to prom and lived with her in a trailer for years after graduation. Julie liked meth, and he liked to sell it. Match made in heaven.

The point to this is that small-time crime has a life span of a tortoise. A girl was murdered thirty years ago, I moved away ten years ago, and I can tell you every detail about everyone involved. Hell, remember Dennis Mitchell, the little boy who found her? Went on to be a lawyer until he was found to be taking a little extra from elderly clients and now works at the Chevron station by the highway. Small towns remember all that stuff like a fisherman remembers his biggest catch.

I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) rattles along on a book engine that is almost fifty years old powered by the mid-octane fuel of the slasher formula. A handful of kids cause some boring mayhem and hide the evidence. Then one year later the titular note appears, and folks start dying. Bringing in fresh blood to mix with the old and adding a twist here and there does not revitalize the franchise.

Not to say this movie is bad. Each shot has care to it, the actors are having fun, and the writing matches the original. All that does make for good half-naked spurting blood entertainment. Bringing back the old cast to mix with talented young adults gave everyone a connected purpose even if that purpose is a tired facsimile.

The plot and general story feels too "here we go again." Are people across the country just waiting to hide accidents that will lead to righteous and gratuitous vengeance or is it just this town? The main concept of the killer is that the rich hide their problems while the poor are forced to forget, yet at least one of the kills involves someone who would keep the memory of the original murders alive. All the talk about money and the town feels like lip service as if the writers were afraid to say that being obscenely rich and powerful or that having an institutional memory of your town erased are bad things. Telling us about both and doing nothing with the information is pretty dull.

The blood-soaked movie was fun to watch, but don't make it about anything too real.

Worth a view when it shows up on a streaming.