"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Posts Tagged ‘legacy sequel’

I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)

Thursday, October 16th, 2025

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (2025) is pretty much what I was hoping for: a traditional/formulaic slasher movie, sometimes slightly more clever than expected, sometimes dumb enough to get some laughs. It has a solid cast of fresh faces, just the right amount of “legacy sequel” characters (more than cameos, less than leads), and a couple fun surprises that I guess people didn’t care enough about to spoil for me even though I missed this in theaters. Thank you! I had a good time watching it at home with friends and a box of Jason Voorhees sponsored cider.

Like HALLOWEEN and SCREAM and almost TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE before it this is not a remake but a sequel that inexplicably has the same title as the original. It does feature a new group of young people who do a new cover up of a new car accident, but when they receive a note saying “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER” and start getting killed by somebody dressed as a fisherman holding a hook they recognize this as something that happened before and they go to original main characters Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt, CAN’T HARDLY WAIT) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr., WING COMMANDER) for advice.

In the trailer this seemed like a ridiculous concept – what advice could they really give? (Unless it’s “Turn yourself in.”) There’s definitely a certain amount of DIE HARD 2 “How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?” knowing absurdity at play. But the idea is that the fishing town of Southport, North Carolina has been gentrified and turned into a highly profitable resort town, and in the process information about the 1997 murders was scrubbed from the internet to protect their reputation. So trying to learn more about the crimes is the group’s only lead for figuring out who would by copying them now. Okay, I’ll go with it. (read the rest of this shit…)

Top Gun: Maverick

Tuesday, May 31st, 2022

Well, the crazy sonofabitches did it. They made a 36-years-later-part-two to TOP GUN. Tony Scott had actually developed a script and scouted locations before he died. Eventually the duty fell upon Joseph Kosinski, who had previously directed Cruise in OBLIVION (2013) and who ushered in the age of legacy sequels with the 2010 smash hit cultural sensation TRON: LEGACY [This review’s factual accuracy is disputed].

I gotta admit that I was unreasonably excited just to hear the electronic beat of Harold Faltermeyer’s TOP GUN anthem over the production company logos – I love that synthesized gong sound – and it’s kind of comical how much they mine that type of nostalgia at the beginning of this movie. The original opening title card, the original theme, “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins, similar footage of jets landing on an aircraft carrier – is this just gonna be a re-enactment?

Then we reunite with Captain Peter “Pete” “Maverick” “Mav” Mitchell (Tom Cruise, THE MUMMY), fittingly working as an experimental test pilot. He dons his old patch-covered leather jacket and aviators (both kept in places of honor as if he understands their iconographic significance) and rides his motorcycle very fast to the hangar. (read the rest of this shit…)