“I Know What You Did Last Summer,” which is in theaters now, is a reboot/legacy sequel to the 1997 original. In the earlier film, a group of adorable teens (Ryan Phillippe, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr.) run over a pedestrian and, a year later, pay for their crimes in hilariously gruesome ways.
In the new movie, which treats the original film as canon, a new group of slightly older youngsters (among them: Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Tyriq Withers and Jonah Hauer-King) are responsible for another innocent person’s death and, a year later, are ruthlessly murdered one by one. But in an attempt to stay alive, they reach out to the survivors of the 1997 original – Prinze Jr. and Hewitt. Hewitt’s character is now a psychology professor and Prinze Jr. runs a bar in the same small town of Southport.
But questions have swirled about another original cast member’s involvement in the new film – specifically Sarah Michelle Gellar, who played pageant queen Helen Shivers in the original film. Sure, she died during what is referred to in this movie was “the ’97 massacre,” but there has been much speculation. Let’s get into why the chatter has been so intense and whether or not she is actually in the movie.
Major spoilers for the new “I Know What You Did Last Summer” follow (obviously).
Why are people questioning her involvement?
Most of this speculation stems from a single incident – in November 2024, she posted a photo from the set of “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” specifically of a director’s chair emblazoned with the new movie’s logo. This obviously got people talking, with speculation beginning that she would return for the movie, despite the fact that in February 2023, she said she wouldn’t be back. She said this again in the fall of 2024, saying, plainly, “I am dead.” But the facts remain – she was on set in November 2024, saying later that she was just visiting her husband, Prinze Jr.
Still, hope remained alive. And that hope was rekindled earlier this week when Gellar made an appearance at the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” premiere. Sure, she could have been attending with her husband and supporting the franchise that helped make her a household name. But it could have been something more …
So, is Sarah Michelle Gellar in the new “I Know What You Did Last Summer?”
Yes. A couple of times.
Go on.
The first time we see Gellar’s Helen Shivers, it’s on a T-shirt worn by Gabbriette Bechtel as a hot goth podcast girl. We also see her in a photo in the house of Hewitt’s character Julie James, who is now a professor at a local college. But that’s not the last look we get at Helen Shivers.
But is she in the movie, for real?
Yes.
Please explain.
She appears as a ghostly vision to Madelyn Cline, who plays Danica Richards, the Helen equivalent in the new movie. They were both pageant queens and Helen appears just as she did in the 1997 film, against the backdrop of the pageant itself. Adding to the ghostly aura is the fact that Gellar is digitally de-aged, making her look exactly like she stepped out of the original “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Helen warns Danica that she deserves what she’s going to get – and that she is going to die horribly, very soon.
What else?
At the end of the vision – and this is one of the coolest visuals in the entire movie – Helen starts to decay and turn into a ghoul. Danica is justifiably freaked out and wakes up from this nightmare. Scary! It’s an ingenious way to bring back a deceased character from earlier in the franchise and echoes the way that Skeet Ulrich returned to a recent “Scream” legacy sequel. But hey, good horror movies – and the characters associated with them – never die.
“I Know What You Did Last Summer” is in theaters now.
