Warning: This post contains very minor spoilers for I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Amazon revived I Know What You Did Last Summer and made it into a TV series, but is the show connected to the ‘90s horror movies at all? Fans of the 1997 film will recognize the premise of the new show as being intensely similar. Following their high school graduation, a group of teenagers are involved in a car accident that kills someone. To avoid the consequences that come with the crime, they decide to get rid of the body. But the nightmare isn’t over as they begin receiving threats a year later from someone who knows exactly what happened. 

While the sequels to I Know What You Did Last Summer I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, respectively — continue dealing with the ramifications of the teens’ original sin, the only thing the Amazon TV series really has in common with the films is in its plot setup. The show is a modern take on the classic story, which is based on the 1973 novel by Lois Duncan. The main characters are wildly different from the movies, with the core friends group being larger and more diverse. The supporting characters, including Allison and Lennon’s father Bruce, also have a lot more to do. 

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They are deeply involved with the plot, which is still focused on the teens without being exclusively about them. To that end, the police, neighbors, and others around the area interact with the main characters at various points, all of which widens the scope of the story. I Know What You Did Last Summer is also set in an entirely new location (Hawaii), further setting it apart from the movies. All that said, series showrunner Sara Goodman teased that there will be Easter eggs from the movies that will be put into scenes “where it felt natural.” One major Easter egg already appeared in the first episode of season 1 — Allison walks into her room to find a message written in pink lipstick on the mirror claiming to know what she did last summer. 

The scene connects to the 1997 film, which sees Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Helen waking up to a message threatening “soon” that was written on her mirror in red lipstick. What the other Easter eggs in the Amazon series will be is anyone’s guess, but it’s something that will continue to offer a nice callback to the I Know What You Did Last Summer movies without infringing on the updated take of the series. While this is not a direct connection, viewers might also notice that the character of Dylan shares certain similarities with Freddie Prinze Jr’s Ray.

All told, however, 2021’s I Know What You Did Last Summer is branching off to do its own thing, with new characters who provide a fresh spin on a familiar story. It’ll be interesting to see how and when the Easter eggs Goodman hinted at will appear in the series, but fans of the films might feel relieved to know the series isn’t trying to copy its predecessors exactly. 

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