‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ director breaks down trailer

Ah, the summer before college. Nothing but surf, sand… and a good ol’ murder to cover up with your besties.

Like the original film in the franchise, 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer follows a group of teenagers — Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Sarah Pidgeon, Tyriq Withers, and Jonah Hauer-King — who are stalked by a mysterious stranger who knows their killer secret.

But this time, the teens are able to get some advice from people who have gone through a similar experience: two survivors of the 1997 Southport Massacre, Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr). Will this new group of teens confess their crimes or take their chances with their mysterious stalker?

While this is the fourth film in the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise, which began with the 1997 original, director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson looked even further back in horror movie history for visual references.

“Visually, for me, it was about going back to my biggest touchstone for this movie, Jaws,” Robinson tells Entertainment Weekly. “I was like, ‘I want beautiful colors, beautiful setting, blue water, red blood.’ For me, it’s kind of like a throwback, and what I hope is that it feels like it’s fresh in its nostalgia.”

But the Do Revenge writer-director says she’s not trying to make a “carbon copy” of other horror blockbusters. “I really wanted it to kind of stand on its own and have an identity visually. And I hope that that feels present in the film and makes people excited to see it.”

As Robinson’s fans know, she loves recruiting her previous stars for cameos in new projects. The director admits there were at least two she tried to get to appear in the new I Know What You Did Last Summer.

“I actually tried to get Maya Hawke, and we couldn’t work it out with schedules,” Robinson says of her Do Revenge star. 

“I mean the big one, I tried relentlessly, and she’s dead,” she adds, referring to another Do Revenge alum and original IKWYDLS star, Sarah Michelle Gellar. The trailer, above, briefly shows Gellar’s Helen in a photo frame.

“I tried, okay? I harassed her! But she is dead,” jokes Robinson. “I tried to pitch some crazy s— too. I was like, ‘What if it’s like you weren’t dead and you’re actually alive, but in hiding?’ And Sarah’s like, ‘I was on ice. I was the most dead a person could be. You can see my frozen body.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, but what if?’ And she said, ‘I am dead. I am Sarah Dead Gellar.'”

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I Know What You Did Last Summer gets its hooks in theaters July 18.