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17th July 2025
03:37pm BST
One of the most iconic horror film franchises ever is the I Know What You Did Last Summer series of slasher movies.
This is for a variety of reasons. Loosely adapted from a '70s novel of the same name by Lois Duncan, the original 1997 film has an unforgettably evocative and tantalising title.
On top of this, though, it also boasts a tremendous sense of place and atmosphere, focusing on a group of young adult friends living in an idyllic American seaside town. This is as their lives are turned upside down after they accidentally kill a stranger in a car accident and decide to cover it up.
Already struggling with the guilt of what they did, a year later, they begin receiving messages from an unknown source who, as the title suggests, claims to know what they did. Following this, they start being picked off one by one by a mysterious figure in a raincoat wielding a hook (another indelible image).
Having already spawned two sequels and a TV show, a 2025 movie reboot in the franchise - also titled I Know What You Did Last Summer - is arriving in cinemas this week.
JOE caught an advance screening of the follow-up, which features a new group of young adults who find themselves in a similar predicament as those in the 1997 film.
To get answers to the mystery of who the hook-wielding fisherman is stalking them, the friend group seeks out the survivors of the original series of killings.
JOE can confirm that this is a sequel that retains everything that made the first movie so iconic, while also building upon it to tell a deeper, more emotional story.
We spoke to the cast of the reboot, including actors Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers and Sarah Pidgeon, who all play members of the new central friend group.
Each of the rising stars had a different answer when it came to what makes the franchise so beloved.
Wonders told JOE: "I feel like the fact that it's rooted in so much Americana and it's about these dislocated youths who are trying to figure out how to grow up.
"There's so much love within each of the characters, and I think there's a lot of character-driven themes that are very easy to latch on to."
Adding to this, Withers says: "I think the movie plays on nostalgia. We all know what having friends feels like. With the original, a lot of people felt that within their bones when seeing it, and I think that's what this movie does as well."
Hauer-King believes the franchise captures "a feeling of summer," comparing it to "that feeling of being either out of school or out of your job for a bit... this really particular moment in time where things feel exciting and different".
On what the reboot adds to the series, Hauer-King continues: "I like how this one has has been updated to track people who are at a certain point in their lives where they're still very young but they're also at a stage where they're being expected to make some decisions about what they're meant to do with their life.
"They're all going on these different routes and directions, but they're all connected by their long history of being at school together and being friends.
"That's something I just could really relate to, having these friendships with longevity, but then also people are changing and starting to choose different kinds of lives. And so, how much do they stay connected and how much do they not?"
Cline agrees, summing up:
"This is a horror movie. It's slashy, stabby. But it's also a movie about friendship."
Following in the footsteps of other beloved slasher franchises like Scream, Halloween, Candyman and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this is a legacy sequel that blends a new batch of characters with those from the original. In this case, the returning cast members are Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt.
As for what it was like working with the veterans of the I Know What You Did Last Summer series, Pidgeon responds:
"It was so special to be such a fan of the original and then see where those characters are now and how true those characters still remain in Freddie and Jennifer, but also the story that they've tracked of these lives that have been lived between the originals and now.
"I think what was most exciting, apart from watching them work, were all the stories that they told us in between... just to give us a better picture of what it was like filming [the original two movies] 27 years ago for them.
"[That] was really special... They were incredibly generous with their time."
On Hewitt and Prinze Jr., Withers adds: "The love they had for the franchise just oozed out, and... just made us love this even more.
"And [there was] the advice that they were able to give us... They had a lot to offer, and they gave us little nuggets here and there to hold on to, and I'm grateful for that."
Wonders was also full of praise for Hewitt and Prinze Jr., adding: "They're also the kindest people ever. They're so kind and they feel very maternal and paternal to all of us, and feel very protective not only of this story but also of us and our paths through this industry, which is really special."
Co-writer and director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge) also spoke to JOE about the sequel, saying her goal was to please fans of the franchise while taking big swings - something we believe she accomplished with aplomb.
When we asked the filmmaker what she wished to retain from the original and what she wanted to update, she told us: "The original is a favourite of mine. I'd seen it so many times. It was very easy to come back to it.
"For me, it was about the smaller things rather than a lot of big things. I wanted there to be a lot of small Easter eggs so the true fans felt like they could go: 'Oh my god, look at that! Oh my god, look at that! Oh my god, look at that!' in addition to obviously the bigger swings that we did in the film."
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