I Know What You Did Last Summer – the classic 90s slasher film that is the main reason why you just can’t look at a fish hook without getting a shiver down your spine – is getting the TV remake treatment, just in time for spooky season.
Originally announced in 2019 but with filming only commencing this year (via Collider), I Know What You Did Last Summer will come to Amazon Prime this October, it’s been announced.
Based on the 1973 novel and the (let’s face it, more well-known) 1997 adaption, I Know What You Did Last Summer tells the story of four friends, who find themselves at the mercy of a killer one year after they covered up a car accident where they accidentally killed a stranger.
The original film came out the year after Scream and helped to solidify the continued rise of the slasher sub-genre in the late 90s, helped in large part by a very starry cast of great up-and-comers (Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr) and a script from Scream scribe Kevin Williamson.
While not exactly a post-modern classic of deconstructing genre tropes, I Know What You Did Last Summer is remembered fondly mainly for its pulpy storyline and Sarah Michelle Gellar’s vastly underrated beauty queen character Helen, whose death was a) undeserved, b) thoroughly avoidable and c) robbed her of her deserving Final Girl mantle in this film (sorry, Jennifer Love Hewitt, but you know it’s true).
The less said about the two sub-par sequels – I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and, uh, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (sure?) the better. Stick to the original.
As far as the Prime remake goes, no stills or trailers have been released yet, although the cast has been announced. It will star Annabelle Comes Home’s Madison Iseman alongside Brianne Tju, Ezekiel Goodman, Ashley Moore Sebastian Amoruso, Fiona Rene, Cassie Beck, Brooke Bloom, and Bill Heck.
Horror savant James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring) will produce the series, after initially being attached to direct. He’s replaced in the director’s chair by Craig Macneill, who helmed The Boy in 2015 and one episode of Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone re-make.
The new show has been described as a “modern” take on the original story, and will shift the initial accident from occurring on the Fourth of July to the night of the main characters’ graduation.