A new I Know What You Did Last Summer is sinking its hooks into fans — and if you ask Us, nostalgia is never overrated.
The film, which hit theaters on Friday, July 18, is the latest iteration of the franchise that began with the 1997 film starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr., Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar. The slash flick was based on the Lois Duncan novel of the same name, and followed four friends as they are hunted by a crazed fisherman after accidentally killing a man on the Fourth of July.
Hewitt and Prinze Jr. return for the 2025 movie, joining newcomers Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, Sarah Pidgeon, Tyriq Withers and Jonah Hauer-King. The two vets — who reprised their roles of Julie James and Ray Bronson for 1998’s I Still Know What You Did Last Summer but were absent from 2006’s I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer — are back to help the younger cast as they navigate surviving their own deadly secret in Southport nearly 30 years later.
“They’re not just cameos in the movie. They’re major characters,” Prinze Jr. exclusively told Us Weekly of Ray and Julie’s big return. “I don’t want people to think they’re getting screwed and just like, ‘Oh, they’re only gonna be in one scene.’ It’s not like that. They took great care of these characters.”
Jennifer Love Hewitt Returns in ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ Trailer
In fact, the actor thinks the new film is Ray and Julie’s greatest yet. “That first scene [between them], I think it’s the best scene [Jennifer] and I have done on camera, period, in all three movies. And I think people will really feel that when they watch.”
To find out what happens at the end of I Know What You Did Last Summer, keep scrolling. But warning: major spoilers and plot points revealed below:
Who Is the Killer in ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer?’
The call is coming from inside the house! OK, maybe we are messing up our slasher metaphors here, but seriously, the killer reveal of this film is shocking, intricate and bound to be divisive.
Warning: Spoilers Ahead!
While Ben Willis was the known killer of the first two installments, he remains dead in the 2025 film — but has since been replaced by a new tag team duo.
The first killer of the film is revealed to be Stevie (Pidgeon), one of Ava (Wonders) and Danica’s (Cline) friends who they lost touch with in high school. After running into her one night, she agrees to take a ride with them that fateful 4th of July. While she’s initially unaware of who they accidentally run over that night, she eventually learns that it’s Sam — her boyfriend. The pair met in a support group after they both got clean, and he was on his way to see her that night out of fear of relapsing. Although she considers suicide, she ultimately decides to kill her former pals instead.
Stevie, of course, isn’t working alone. But it’s who she’s working with that is the true shocker: it’s Ray (Prinze Jr.), one of the main targets of Ben Willis in the ‘90s, who has now become the fisherman himself. Good friends with Stevie’s late father, he promises to take care of her. When he finds out what happened to her boyfriend — mixed with his trauma from the first murders and anger over the general public “forgetting” what he and Julie went through — he agrees to help her take down Stevie’s friends.
Ray initially seems to save the day in the film’s final act — much like he did for Julie in the first film — as he ends up “shooting” Stevie and saving Ava (Wonders). Later on, however, a cut on his arm reveals to Ava that Ray actually partnered with Stevie.
“You can’t underestimate the lengths someone will go to to avenge what is taken from them,” Ray says. “You never move on from something like this. It just changes you.”
When Julie (Hewitt) comes to save Ava after putting the pieces together herself, Ray reveals that he used the 1997 murders as a playbook. He plans on framing Julie for everything but is harpooned in the back by Ava.
At the end of the film, it’s revealed that Ray seemingly didn’t betray Stevie after all, as Danica (Cline) and Ava mention that she is still alive. “Should we kill her?” Danica asks, to which Ava replies, “Probably.”
Who Dies in ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer?’
Short answer? A lot of men! The first one to go is Sam, the person revealed to be the victim of the core group’s fatal car accident at the beginning of the film, which sets the subsequent murders in motion. Both of Danica’s fiancé’s — Teddy (Withers) and Wyatt (Joshua Orpin) — die, as does Teddy’s dad, Grant (Billy Campbell). Hauer-King’s Milo also bites the dust.
Tyler (Gabbriette), the podcaster reporting on the 1997 Southport murders — and Ava’s fling — is another victim of the hooked fisherman, along with the town pastor, played by Austin Nichols.
As for the killers, Ray bites the dust when he’s harpooned by Ava while trying to murder Julie. Stevie, while seemingly shot by Ray in a shock betrayal, is revealed to still be alive in the film’s final moments.
So then who makes it out alive? Ava, Julie and Danica are the three Final Girls still standing at the end (Danica, at first presumed dead, eventually washes up on shore alive.)
Is There a Post-Credits Scene in ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer?’
In true IKWYDLS franchise fashion, there is a post-credits scene — and it’s one fans of the 1998 sequel will be thrilled by.
Why Freddie Prinze Jr. Changed His Mind About Returning for New ‘IKWYDLS’
After Julie, Danica and Ava survive the attacks, viewers catch up with Carla (Brandy) — Julie’s college roommate that survived the events of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer — who is watching reports of the murders on the news with her husband.
“People are always trying to kill that woman. I hope she’s in therapy,” Carla says before there’s a knock at the door and Julie appears. After the old friends embrace, Julie tells Carla she needs her help before showing her a photo with Carla’s face X’ed out.
“It’s not over,” Julie proclaims, and Carla asks, “Who are we f***ing up this time?”
“I was really hoping you were going to say that,” Julie replies.
