SUMMER MADNESS

24 years since teens first battled a killer fisherman, a fresh batch of youngsters get the chop in the I Know What You Did Last Summer TV series. But what did they do last summer? And is the fisherman really back? Showrunner Sara Goodman sends SFX a handwritten note

- JOSH WINNING

ACK IN 1997, JENNIFER LOVE Hewitt learned the hard way that when you leave a man for dead, you should make sure he’s really dead. Hit-and-run morality slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer pitted her against a murderous fisherman in the coastal town of Southport, New Carolina, scene of a seemingly fatal car accident. Adapted from Lois Duncan’s 1973 YA novel by Scream writer Kevin Williamson and director Jim Gillespie, the film scored over $125 million at the box office, and birthed two campy sequels and now a brand new TV series.

“I saw the movie when it first came out and I was a fan,” says Sara Goodman, the writer handed the task of taking the franchise in a bold new direction with an eight-part series for Amazon Prime. “I mean, how can you not be a fan of that movie? It’s great! My biggest fear is disappointing fans of the movie who come in expecting the movie.”

The solution? Do something different while retaining the dark heart of both Duncan’s novel and Gillespie’s movie. “What they all share is the premise of these kids who feel absolutely free and have an accident and make the wrong decision, and then have to live with those consequences,” Goodman says. “What I really loved about Lois Duncan’s novel is that it’s a little bit more psychological, a little bit more moralistic. Everything is more driven by the characters’ tell-tale hearts than just an outside slasher. Luckily, we have both!”

Rather than being a continuation of the story of the movies, in which Muse Watson’s hook-handed killer variously dissected Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Philippe, Mekhi Phifer and Jack Black (the latter with a massive set of garden shears),