“Nostalgia is overrated,” snarls Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) at a crucial moment in “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s sequel/remake/legasequel of the 1997 teen horror classic. Poor, traumatized Julie has spent years leaving her past behind, only to be dragged back into it.

The statement also feels like Robinson’s spiciest take on the proliferation of legasequels. Sure, she’s remaking a ‘90s classic, but she’s not going to serve it up reverently. In fact, her twists on the material might anger a whole lot of fans, which is at least a different approach to most of these projects. But, nostalgia is also the necessary evil for tempting those fans to the theater. Can the new “I Know What You Did Last Summer” have it both ways?

Not quite. The inherent tension at the core of this new film is in the battle of old versus new, and ultimately, old wins out. While Robinson and co-writers Leah McKendrick and Sam Lansky update the material, their script is rife with too many underbaked ideas to cohere into anything resonant, revealing that the elegant simplicity of the first film — four teens, one bad mistake, a spooky seaside town, and an urban legend — was the key to its success.

Back in 1997, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” was regarded as the silly younger sibling to the sharper, smarter “Scream.” Both were written by Kevin Williamson, the official bard of witty teen dialogue (e.g., “Dawson’s Creek”). “Summer” wasn’t as savvy and self-aware as the groundbreaking slasher “Scream,” but it was deeply sincere, especially in Hewitt’s wounded bird performance, and a few expertly rendered suspense sequences became instant classics, like the demise of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s beauty queen Helen Shivers.

If you’re unfamiliar with the premise of “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” the story follows a group of young friends who cause an accidental death on the Fourth of July while out driving recklessly. A year later they start receiving anonymous notes from someone claiming to know what they did, and are subsequently stalked and slashed by a killer in a rain slicker wielding a large hook.

In the new version, the characters are older, young professionals in their early 20s, not high school seniors, and so, the terrible accident has to be adjusted in order to match the audience’s credulity. Unfortunately, that means its power is also weakened — what happens doesn’t quite match the level of guilt they feel and the vengeance that’s meted out. All this, for that?

The Julie stand-in is Ava (Chase Sui Wonders) and her beauty queen bestie is Danica (Madelyn Cline). Ava’s high school boyfriend is the utterly dull DC politico Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), and Danica’s rich playboy ex Teddy (Tyriq Withers) is their town’s golden boy, the son of wealthy real estate developer Grant Spencer (Billy Campbell). A fifth friend, Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) is added to the mix, recently sober and trying to get her life back on track, when it all gets derailed by their rabble-rousing. The accident, the reunion, the guy with a hook, it all proceeds apace with a few extra layers.

The bloody town lore has been covered up by Grant in order to turn Southport into the “Hamptons of the South,” a bit of “gentrifislaytion” as coined by true-crime podcaster Tyler (Gabbriette Bechtel). She’s in town to unearth the facts of the ’97 massacre for an episode, and gets far more than she bargained for. As her friends start dropping, Ava turns to Julie, now a psychology professor, and Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) the owner of a dockside bar and Stevie’s boss.

Writers Robinson, Lansky and McKendrick bring up all these fresh ideas (is the killer trying to drive down rent in Southport? What of the true crime podcast boom? What is the significance of Danica’s woo-woo spirituality?) and then just let them hang, loose threads in the wind. All we have to cling to is our original pals, Julie and Ray, whose stories are far more compelling than any of these newbies, whose relationships seem forced and tenuous at best.

Talented cinematographer Elisha Christian references some of the look and feel of the original film, but doesn’t capture the haunted nautical vibe that made it so atmospheric and surprisingly stylish. There’s snap and wit to the friends patter, and Cline and Withers have a palpable chemistry, but everything else feels weightless; it doesn’t land.

Then there’s a twist and reveal that becomes a canonical betrayal completely unsupported by coherent motivation, and the whole gambit falls apart. The new “I Know What You Did Last Summer” might thumb its nose at nostalgia, but the problem is that the nostalgic bits are the only parts of this worth watching.

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‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’

2 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for bloody horror violence, language throughout, some sexual content and brief drug use)

Running time: 1:51

How to watch: In theaters July 18

Amy Lindgren

It’s feeling like a tough job market for new college graduates, whether they’re holding a two-year or four-year degree, is getting tougher. With some employers delaying their hiring and others conducting layoffs, it’s not a great time to have a degree but limited experience in one’s new field.

Most new grads have tried multiple job search strategies, with perhaps varying levels of success. That’s a good start, but the tougher the market, the longer these steps can take to pay off.

If you’ve recently graduated, you still need to do something worthwhile even if job search is going slowly.

With that in mind, here’s a baker’s dozen of productive things to consider for this awkward space between graduation and the start of the career you’re pursuing.

Note that these ideas are intended as companions to an ongoing job search. In most cases, you wouldn’t be shutting down your process so much as streamlining your efforts to make room for something else.

• 1. Take on a gig job. Driving for Uber or delivering for DoorDash may not feel ultra-productive but it can provide cash flow and the opportunity to meet people.

• 2. Work for a temporary agency. In years past, temping had been a rite of passage for unemployed new graduates. It’s also a not-uncommon pathway to permanent employment, even when the initial job is unrelated to your career goal.

• 3. Take lower-level or unrelated jobs. Don’t let pride keep you from a retail or hospitality job (presuming those aren’t in your career path). Work is work, and you’ll benefit from both the income and the schedule.

• 4. Ask past employers for interim work. Returning to former employers can pay off faster than forging new connections, since they already know you can do the job.

• 5. Take or create a volunteer job. Here’s where you can better control the content of the work itself, even if you’re sacrificing pay to do it. Consider your career-related skills, then look for nonprofits or startups that could benefit from them.

• 6. Craft an internship. This is another version of the self-crafted volunteer gig. In this case, you’re asking an employer in your field to take you on for a specific period of time — perhaps 4-8 weeks — where you would simultaneously learn and contribute to their team. It can be a tough sell, but easier if you have contacts.

• 7. Start a business. Sometimes the quickest path to employment is to hire yourself. Despite the temptation to offer services in your chosen field, remember the goal is to move forward on something quickly. Consider instead tried-and-true options such as lawn care or house cleaning for neighbors and family friends.

• 8. Take in-person courses to build hands-on skills. Pivoting to training options, consider which hands-on skills you could benefit from learning. Anything from nursing assistant to line cooking to low-voltage wiring or computer repair could become a fallback source of income.

• 9. Earn an online certificate. Hewing closer to your career path, consider certificates that will matter in your field — perhaps data analytics, project management or employee coaching, for example.

• 10. Write about issues in your field. If you have ideas or even questions about topics in your career area, putting them together on Substack, LinkedIn or another platform could help you grow your expertise (and possibly make contacts as well).

• 11. Coach or tutor kids in your community. It may not fit into your career plans, but community involvement will always score points with future employers. It can also be a rich source of contacts, depending on the program.

• 12. Sign up for an immersive experience. AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, fire service work — these can turn into a job search pause, but sometimes that’s just what you need when the market isn’t cooperating.

• 13. Earn the next degree. That’s a standby, but it may not be bad advice. Depending on how far you were already intending to go in terms of education or training, adding the next level now can shelter you somewhat during a rocky market. Just don’t do it for the wrong reasons — a tight market doesn’t mean an impossible one. If you’re going to take this leap, it should be part of a larger plan.

Okay, that’s a starter list, but it covers a lot of territory for things new graduates can do while riding out a difficult job market. Come back next week for a closer look at how a stripped-down job search can pair effectively with these “non-career” pursuits.

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Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.

By JESSICA DAMIANO

I hate to break it to you, but just like your calendar can’t tell you the best time to harvest, it won’t provide you the perfect date to attack the pests waging war on your plants.

Timing effective pest control is all about understanding how the weather affects insect life cycles.

We know that most plants and insects emerge in spring, advance through summer, and, in cold regions, go dormant over winter. But beyond those general seasonal cycles, there’s no way to predict precisely when, for example, seeds will sprout, garlic will be ready for harvest or pests will be at their most vulnerable.

Those developmental stages vary from year to year because they’re dependent on the weather.

That’s where growing degree days come in.

GDD is a cumulative system used to determine exactly when plants and insects will reach certain stages of maturity. And with so much variability — with different pests having different life stages that are vulnerable (or resistant) to different control methods at different times — it’s a helpful tool for gardeners.

The system, introduced by the French entomologist René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur in 1735, is a measurement of heat accumulation that accurately predicts when seeds will germinate, crops will mature and specific pest populations will hatch and reach advancing stages of maturity.

The progression of an insect’s life cycle, like much of the natural world’s biological activity, is dictated by environmental factors like temperature. And because not every life stage will succumb to treatment, weather is the only thing that can truly accurately inform the timing of many control methods.

Here’s how it works

The average daily temperature is typically recorded on March 1, and for each degree over 50 degrees Fahrenheit, one point is assigned. Then, every day throughout the remainder of the season, the number of degrees over 50 is added to a running tally. If the temperature is exactly at or below 50 degrees, the day is assigned a score of zero.

Let’s say the temperature was 53 degrees on March 1; the GDD on that day would be 3. If it was 60 on March 2, the GDD would be 3 plus 10, or 13. If the temperature was 49 on March 3, that would add nothing, and the accumulated growing degree days would remain at 13. The tally continues to grow through a regionally specific date in the fall.

Seems complicated? The good news is you don’t have to crunch the numbers yourself.

Your local cooperative extension office likely tailors and tracks this information for your region, and many post the GDD, as well as pest- and plant-specific GDD guidelines, on their websites. In addition, the agricultural company Syngenta offers a handy tool among its GreenCast online resources that quickly generates the GDD for your zip code.

What does this mean for your garden?

As an example, Colorado potato beetle eggs and pupae are not susceptible to pesticides, so attempting control during those stages would be pointless. But their larvae are vulnerable to the natural biological control Bt from the time they emerge until they reach ¼ inch in length. Rather than heading out into the garden with a ruler — or spraying every day and hoping for the best — you can time the application for between 65 and 185 GDD.

Similarly, the first generation of euonymus scale insects are most vulnerable to Neem oil and horticultural oil treatments between 400 and 575 GDD.

And for pre-emergent crabgrass controls, like corn gluten meal, to be effective, they should be applied just before 200 GDD. That’s why I recommend a treatment window that coincides with the time between when the first forsythia blooms and the last of the lilacs fade: It’s a visual cue tied to nature’s reaction to temperature.

Depending on the variety, most tomatoes, which love the heat, are ripe for the picking between 1,000 and 2,000 GDD. But, for the record, my tomatoes always let me know when they’re ready.

Jessica Damiano writes weekly gardening columns for the AP and publishes the award-winning Weekly Dirt Newsletter. You can sign up here for weekly gardening tips and advice.

For more AP gardening stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/gardening.

The Wild on Friday released the game schedule for this year’s Hockey Day Minnesota festivities in Hastings, including an outdoor game between the AHL teams for Minnesota and the Nashville Predators.

The 20th iteration of Hockey Day will be played at United Heroes League’s outdoor rink in Hastings with a weekend schedule beginning Jan. 23 with a 5 p.m. puck drop between the Iowa Wild and Milwaukee Admirals.

Saturday’s schedule includes three high school outdoor games, as well as the Wild’s 8 p.m. game against defending NHL champion Florida at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul.

Hockey Day Minnesota

All games at United Heroes League outdoor rink, Hastings except where noted:

Friday, Jan. 23

Iowa Wild vs. Milwaukee Admirals, 5 p.m.

Saturday, Jan. 24

Hastings vs. Park Cottage Grove girls, TBA

Hastings vs. East Ridge boys, TBA

Rock Ridge vs. St. Thomas Academy boys, TBA

Minnesota Wild vs. Florida Panthers, Grand Casino Arena, 8 p.m.

— Staff report