I Know What You Did Last Summer is getting the reboot treatment with a legacy movie, and it’s the perfect chance to use the novel’s original killer twist. The 1990s saw a rise in slasher movies, and among them was I Know What You Did Last Summer, directed by Jim Gillespie. The movie was loosely based on the 1973 novel of the same name by Lois Duncan, and though it made major changes to the source material, it was a commercial success. I Know What You Did Last Summer got two sequels (one a direct-to-video release) and a TV series, and the franchise is now coming back to life with a legacy sequel.
I Know What You Did Last Summer took the premise and characters’ names of the novel but made major changes to the tone, the victim, the villain, and what the latter does to the main characters. The movie took inspiration from the urban legend “The Hook”, with the killer being a fisherman who used a hook to kill his victims. The sequel, I Know What You Did Last Summer, also had the fisherman as the main killer, and he was brought back again in the lesser-known third film, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. The still-untitled legacy sequel can’t repeat its villain, so it’s the perfect chance to use the book’s original victim and killer.
I Know What You Did Last Summer Should Use The Book's Killer
In Lois Duncan’s novel, the victim and thus the killer of the story are completely different from what the I Know What You Did Last Summer movie presented. In the novel, Julie, Ray, Barry, and Helen accidentally run over a young boy on a bike, who they later learn was named David Gregg. Although Ray anonymously calls an ambulance for the kid, David doesn’t survive, and the group makes a pact to never tell anyone about what happened. The rest of the story is similar to the one in the movie, with the group receiving notes from an unknown source teasing them about David’s death.
Some of the main characters are attacked by this unknown presence, but unlike the fisherman in the movie, the villain was a lot closer to the group than they thought. The villain in the I Know What You Did Last Summer novel is Collingsworth “Collie” Wilson, Helen’s new neighbor, who was actually David’s older brother. It’s also revealed that Collie is Julie’s new boyfriend, Bud, who took that name as David used to call him that because he couldn’t pronounce “Collingsworth”. After knocking Collie unconscious, the police arrive and Julie and Ray agree to confess what they did last summer.
Now, the ending of I Know What You Did Last Summer’s movie adaptation set a sequel up by revealing the fisherman, Ben Willis, survived, though the hand with which he carried the hook was severed. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, on the other hand, showed Ben Willis being shot multiple times, but the final scene was ambiguous as it’s unclear if he really attacked Julie at her home or if she was dreaming. I Know What You Did Last Summer 4 shouldn’t continue using Ben Willis and his family as the killers, and should instead go for the novel’s killer.
The I Know What You Did Last Summer Book Twist Was Better Than The Movie
I Know What You Did Last Summer’s villain twist in the movie was not only an unnecessary change but the writers also added details that weren't needed. While Ben Willis was the man that the group ran over and threw into the water, Willis had just killed a man named David Egan, the boyfriend of Willis’ daughter, Susie, who died in a car accident. Willis’ reason to target the group was because they ran him over and dumped him into the water, even though he had just killed a man. The book’s twist is a lot more effective as it makes more sense that the brother of the victim would look for revenge, more so after how David’s death affected his whole family.
The victim in the book also works better as the group did something to try to help him (calling the ambulance), allowing them to retain a semblance of innocence. The I Know What You Did Last Summer legacy sequel is still in the early stages of development, so plot details are a mystery, but it’s the best chance to do justice to the source material.
