Who was the killer in I Know What You Did Last Summer? Details explored

The 2025 legacy sequel I Know What You Did Last Summer brings the hook back to Southport and answers its central question with a twist: there isn’t one killer, there are two. The Fisherman mask first comes off to reveal Stevie Ward, a recovering addict tied to the crash victim from the prologue. The second unmasking flips the franchise’s history. Ray Bronson, the original survivor, is exposed as her accomplice.

I Know What You Did Last Summer opened in theatres on July 18, 2025, from Sony Pictures, with director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson co-writing alongside Sam Lansky and producer Neal H. Moritz returning. Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. reprise the roles of Julie James and Ray Bronson, joining new leads Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, and Sarah Pidgeon.

The plot mirrors the 1997 template: a covered-up accident, ominous notes, and a methodical stalker in a slicker and hook. Then it diverges, using dual killers to reframe the franchise’s trauma and legacy for a new generation.

Who was the killer in I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)?

Two people wear the Fisherman disguise: Stevie Ward and Ray Bronson. The yacht sequence reveals Stevie first. She turns on her friends, admits she is avenging Sam Cooper from rehab, stabs Danica, and is knocked overboard after Ray arrives and fires on her.

The later bar sequence exposes Ray as the second killer when Ava spots a matching wound from an earlier struggle. Julie confronts him, he attacks, and Ava ends it with a speargun. The film closes with Stevie’s fate left open and a mid-credits tag that primes another chapter.

Stevie’s reveal is the consequence of a small-town cover-up gone rotten. She knew Sam from rehab and channels the town’s urban legend to punish the pact-keepers one year later. That tracks the franchise’s core pattern while shifting agency to a victim’s confidante. Ray’s reveal reframes I Know What You Did Last Summer as a story about untreated trauma curdling into violence.

In interviews timed to release, Robinson says the “pain not processed” theme undergirds the choice to turn a survivor into a perpetrator. Within the plot, Ray resents Southport for sanitizing 1997 and recruits Stevie to “make them remember,” planning to frame Julie to finish the rewrite. Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson stated in an interview with Vanity Fair dated July 18, 2025,

"So much of this movie is informed by a man who repressed his feelings and didn’t have the tools to work through the very deeply traumatic thing that happened to him, and how it then broke up his marriage. If you have the right tools, that pain is maybe not then turned into a murder spree."

The dual-killer structure modernizes the whodunit without discarding the series’ rules: notes, misdirection, and a mask that can fit more than one grudge.

Victims, timeline, and where I Know What You Did Last Summer leave the survivors

Across the one-year-later timeline, the Fisherman kills or targets multiple characters tied to the secret: Milo is strangled, Teddy and his father Grant are murdered at their property, Pastor Judah is found dead, and Danica is attacked on the yacht before washing ashore alive.

After the bar showdown, Ava survives alongside Julie. The movie then tees up the future: a mid-credits scene brings back Karla Wilson, signalling that the survivors’ network is expanding and the Fisherman’s legend is far from done. This beat connects the 1997 survivors with a new cohort, keeping I Know What You Did Last Summer open to continuation.

Release, cast, crew, and where this sequel sits in the franchise

I Know What You Did Last Summer premiered in Los Angeles on July 14 and opened nationwide on July 18, 2025. Robinson directs from a screenplay by Robinson and Sam Lansky, with Neal H. Moritz producing for Sony’s Columbia and Screen Gems banners.

The returning duo, Hewitt’s Julie and Prinze Jr.’s Ray, anchor the legacy handoff to Chase Sui Wonders, Madelyn Cline, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, and Sarah Pidgeon. The sequel operates as a direct continuation of the original film’s timeline, using callbacks and new murders to bridge generations while retooling the Fisherman mystery.

Stay tuned for more updates.