The I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise has welcomed its latest film as fans eagerly awaited seeing a new group of young people face a killer after their involvement in a murder the previous summer.
Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. return as high school sweethearts Julie James and Ray Bronson, who survived the first two I Know What You Did Last Summer films, while Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers and Sarah Pidgeon lead the new film as its central friend group of victims and suspects.
The beginning of the group’s problems began on the Fourth of July, when an inebriated Teddy (Withers) stood in the middle of the road amid ongoing traffic, eventually causing a truck to swerve off a cliff to avoid him. Teddy and pals Danica (Cline), Ava (Wonders), Stevie (Pidgeon) and Milo (Hauer-King), who witnessed the incident, decide to keep it to themselves.
A year later, the gang gathers for Danica’s bridal shower. When the blushing bride gets a note that reads, “I know what you did last summer,” the posse realizes they may be in grave danger.
Read on for more about the film’s twisty ending and who makes it out alive.
Who is the killer in ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’?
After Danica’s “I know what you did last summer” note, members of the friend group and their loved ones start dropping dead at the hands of an unknown killer in a fisherman’s outfit that fans of the franchise may find familiar. Later, the group contacts Julie and Ray for help. By the end of the film, only a few remain, and Ray tells Danica, Ava and Stevie to get on a boat and leave town as soon as possible for their safety.
On the boat, Stevie reveals herself as the killer. A scared Ava calls Ray for help, and he strikes out on his fishing boat to save her and Danica. Elsewhere, Stevie explains her murdering spree: the man the friend group killed the year before was her best friend from rehab. She reveals that she learned the victim was her friend after the incident.
Things escalate when Stevie knocks Danica overboard and attempts to kill Ava. Thankfully, Ray, who’s also Stevie’s boss and a father figure to her, appears and intervenes. He asks her why she didn’t ask for help, but when she rejects the olive branch, he shoots her, and she falls overboard.
A surprise reveal: The killer didn’t act alone
But I Know What You Did Last Summer had another twist in store for viewers. After the boat reveal, Ava calls Julie, who stayed away from Southport, to let her know she survived the ordeal.
“I can’t believe Stevie was able to do it all on her own…,” Ava told Julie, raising her suspicions.
From her experience in the previous mass murders, Julie knows the coast isn’t clear, and she rushes out of the house. Meanwhile, Ava sits at Ray’s bar and soon thereafter realizes that he was Stevie’s accomplice. Ava tries to escape, but Ray approaches her with an ice hook.
Julie arrives just in the nick of time and finds Ava has been stabbed and is trying to escape. Ray spots her, and he reveals that he was the mastermind behind Stevie’s plan. He told Ava and Julie that he believes the friend group ruined Stevie’s life after the incident last summer, and he wants to teach them a lesson. Ray also said he craved revenge against the town of Southport for its erasure of the 1997 murders to bring in more residents and tourists.
Referencing the first film, Julie tells him, “What are you waiting for, huh? What are you waiting for?!”
Ray tries to stab her, but before he can, Ava fatally shoots him with a harpoon.
