The latest legacy sequel to a ‘90s slasher classic may hit many familiar notes, but its final act sets up some truly ambitious surprises that will shock franchise fans
Warning: This feature has HEAVY SPOILERS for 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer.
It’s been 27 years since an I Know What You Did Last Summer film was in theaters. The horror landscape has significantly evolved since the late ‘90s, yet there’s been more and more of a push to return to the nostalgic creature comforts of the past. Legacy sequels have become the new normal and the past decade has featured follow-ups to Halloween, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Candyman, and even The Exorcist. This practice has become increasingly normalized to the point that a legacy sequel to 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer makes perfect sense, especially during a time where Scream’s own legacy sequel has its second sequel in production.
I Know What You Did Last Summer was never high art and much of its popularity rides on the wave of Scream’s recent success and rejuvenation of the slasher genre. I Know What You Did Last Summer’s story is perfect for a single movie, but the idea of repeated attacks happening to the same people certainly requires a suspension of disbelief. To this point, it’s perhaps the last horror movie that needs a legacy sequel. And yet, 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer manages to take this simplistic slasher morality tale and turn it into a deeper meditation on nostalgia, legacy, and how to control the past so that it doesn’t control you.
Much in the same vein of the original slasher, a night of teenage debauchery on July 4th leads to a grisly car accident and a case of manslaughter that five teens — led by Danica (Madelyn Cline) and Ava (Chase Sui Wonders) — swear to take to their graves. A year later, these guilty parties and their loved ones get picked off, one-by-one, as a hook-wielding killer, The Fisherman, enacts revenge. This is fairly standard slasher fare and neither the original I Know What You Did Last Summer or I Still Know What You Did Last Summer were particularly known for their surprise killer reveals. Nevertheless, this 2025 follow-up culminates in some major twists and turns that take lofty risks that may surprise horror fans.
Who Is Behind The Fisherman Killings?
I Know What You Did Last Summer doesn’t have a huge cast of characters and any of the more ancillary individuals like “Live, Laugh, Slaughter” true-crime podcast host Tyler (Gabbriette Bechtel) or Danica’s fiancé, Wyatt (Joshua Orpin), become early casualties. It’s certainly not past a film like this to reveal that characters who are presumed dead are actually the ones who are pulling the strings. The film thankfully avoids this temptation and really just teases one potential individual, Pastor Judah (Austin Nichols), as The Fisherman. The car crash victim, Sam Cooper, was in Judah’s vehicle during the crash and is revealed to have ties to Judah’s church. However, it’s not long before Judah also turns up dead and proves to be innocent in these affairs. He took a payout to stay silent on Sam Cooper’s death, but this speaks to a larger issue of corruption in Southport that has nothing to do with this murder spree.
It’s not until Danica and Ava escape with Stevie (Sarah Pigeon) on Teddy’s yacht that all the pieces fall into place and the truth comes to light. It’s Stevie who emerges from The Fisherman disguise and she reveals that she and Sam Cooper were romantically involved. After Stevie’s life fell apart and she was abandoned by her friends following her stint in rehab, it was Sam and the church who were there for her. Ironically, Sam’s car crash was partly because he was rushing to Stevie’s aid and trying to help her from relapsing. Stevie had no idea that her partner was in the car when the crash took place, but the truth left her scarred and terrified.
Stevie resented Danica, Ava, Milo (Jonah Hauer-King) and Teddy (Tyriq Withers) due to their decision to flee the scene of the crime, ensuring that there’s no way that Sam could be saved. Stevie takes glee in the fact that she’s able to kill the loves of Danica and Ava’s lives. She wants them to know that she was responsible for this carnage and that it’s payback for what she lost. There’s no grander endgame in sight for Stevie and she doesn’t even necessarily want to get away with these crimes. Stevie came close to taking her own life, only to decide that this revenge is the more empowering alternative, but she’s fully made peace with own demise after inflicting pain on Danica and Ava.
Freddie Prinze Jr.’s Ray Bronson, Stevie’s boss and a friend of her deceased father, ultimately comes to Danica and Ava’s aid. He shoots Stevie and her body falls off the yacht and into the watery abyss. In perfect slasher fashion, I Know What You Did Last Summer features one last bait-and-switch; Stevie wasn’t the only participant in these killings. Stevie’s trauma may have been the catalyst for this attack, but Ray gives Stevie this idea and motivates her to follow through with this massacre. Ray informs Stevie of The Fisherman’s 1997 killings and turns these into the de facto playbook for their attacks. Not only does this allow Stevie to get revenge on those who are responsible for Sam’s death, but it allows Ray a certain level of catharsis that he’s been seeking for nearly three decades.
Throughout the film there are several allusions to how Southport swept 1997’s massacre under the rug in efforts to rehabilitate the small community’s reputation and turn it into a Hamptons-like locale. Ray is tortured over the fact that the most traumatic event of his life just hasn’t been forgotten, but is actively being erased and denied. By Stevie and Ray carrying out murders in the same fashion as before, it forces Southport to acknowledge the past and accept that it can’t just be erased.
This is a surprisingly complex angle for a legacy horror sequel to take, especially by turning one of its original characters into the murderous masterplan. I Know What You Did Last Summer deconstructs nostalgia, but it’s also deeply interested in trauma. On some level it makes sense that some survivor from the original would be corrupted by the past and perpetuate the same cycle of violence. It’s unlikely that Sidney Prescott will ever be the one beneath the Ghostface mask, but Ray’s pivot to antagonist is a brave twist that fits the movie’s message. Freddie Prinze Jr.’s Ray Bronson and Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Julie James are both haunted by their past, only Julie channels this into productive empathy that helps others heal, while Ray festers and gets consumed by unresolved pain. In the end, it’s Julie and Ava — Southport’s final girl of the past and present — that kills Ray and puts an end to these killings.
Who Survives The 2025 Southport Massacre?
When the dust settles in I Know What You Did Last Summer, Ava and Julie seem to be the only survivors of this massacre. Thankfully, Danica, who was gutted by Stevie and thrown overboard, washes up on shore and recovers from her wounds. Ray, before his death, also drops a veiled hint that Stevie also survived her gunshot wounds and that he intentionally didn’t shoot to kill – which seems to later be fully confirmed in the film’s final moments.
This isn’t a huge cast of survivors, and any potential sequel would likely add fresh blood to the mix, just like past I Know What You Did Last Summer films. Between Danica, Ava, Julie, and Stevie, there’s a strong foundation to build upon in any next installment.
What Does The Post-Credit Scene Tease?
A legacy sequel often naturally looks forward with future franchise plans in mind. In the case of Halloween and The Exorcist, these were even designed as trilogies. Such an approach would be bold for I Know What You Did Last Summer, especially considering the diminishing returns of the original’s sequel. That being said, the 2025 legacy sequel takes some big swings that clearly indicate that at least one sequel is on the mind.
Up until the film’s ending, I Know What You Did Last Summer has played it rather coy regarding whether this is just a sequel to the original 1997 film that ignores I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, or if both movies are still canon. There’s a tongue-in-cheek gag where Ray advises the group to not just flee to the Bahamas for safety — a reference to the sequel’s Tower Bay massacre — albeit one that’s oblique enough to not officially make the sequel canon. Fans would likely be satisfied if this were the only reference to I Still Know. However, the film builds to an unbelievable post-credit scene that goes out of its way to say — yes, we still do very much care about I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.
The post-credit scene picks up with Karla Wilson (Brandy Norwood) watching a news report that covers Ray’s actions from the film. For a moment it looks like someone — a killer perhaps — is spying on Karla from outside her home. A frantic Karla answers her door, only to find Julie there, who she hasn’t seen in years. Julie reveals that she received a photo of the two of them, with her own face X-ed out, prompting her to reach out. The two, despite the absurdity of this situation, pledge to work together to kill whoever is after them before they’re taken out. This parallels Danica and Ava’s own murder pact to take out Stevie. It’s likely that a sequel would have these two storylines overlap as legacy characters and fresh faces continue to intermingle in this ever-growing saga.
While it’s possible that Stevie is the one who sent this threat to Julie, it seems like it’s someone who also shares history with Karla. There really aren’t many options for who this new Fisherman could be, considering that I Still Know What You Did Last Summer takes great lengths to explain how Ben Willis’ entire family — including both children — are now dead. There’s always the possibility that he had some illegitimate child that Ben didn’t know about, but it’s likely that this mystery assailant will be an original character with ties to the past — perhaps a relative of Ryan Phillipe’s Barry Cox — rather than someone we’ve actually seen before.
Then again, there’s always the option to canonize the direct-to-video I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer and incorporate its cast into this chaos. Kidding. Maybe.
