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SUMMER MOVIES www.postmagazine.com 18 POST JULY/AUG 2025 Sony Pictures' I Know What You Did Last Summer was inspired by the 1997 horror film and returns to the seaport town of Southport, NC, where a new generation find themselves at the center of a similar situation to that which took place nearly three decades ago. Five friends inadvertently cause a deadly car accident and then cover up their involvement, making a pact to keep it a se- cret, rather than face the consequences. However, a year later they are forced to confront the truth when a mystery stalker reveals that they are on to their secret. After discovering that this has hap- pened before, the friends turn to two survivors of the 1997 massacre. I Know What You Did Last Summer stars Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer- King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Billy Campbell, Gabbriette Bechtel, Austin Nichols and Joshua Orpin. Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt return from the original film. Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson took on a number of responsibilities, also servings as co-screenwriter and co-executive producer on the project. While the feature is set in North Carolina, it was in fact shot primarily in Sydney, Australia, over a 38-day period. An additional two weeks were spent shooting in Los Angeles. Elisha Christian, known for his work on 2024's Immaculate, as well as the 2020 psychological hor- ror The Night House and the 2021 erotic thriller The Voyeurs, served as director of photography. "I think it's a collaboration," says Robinson of her work with the DP. "It's me coming to them and saying, 'This is what I want the movie to feel like. This is what I want the movie to look like,' and then us kind of talking about what that means. I came to Elisha and talked about movies that I really loved, and I had looked up what camera all of those movies had used — which was the Alexa 35. So that was something that we had a discussion about. If we can't shoot film, which we weren't able to, how can we get that filmic quality? The Alexa 35 was a camera that we were both really, really excited about. We had talked about Jaws as a reference point, visually, for the film, so Elisha went to Panavision, and we shot with lenses that were, if not the exact lenses, very, very similar." Los Angeles-based editor Saira Haider (Creed II, They Cloned Tyrone, I'm a Virgo) cut the proj- ect, keeping in touch with Robinson while the shoot progressed. "I would talk to her and say, 'Is there anything we're missing?' Especially when you're shooting in a location for multiple days," says Robinson. "She assembles and puts the footage together, and then says, 'You know what, if you can go back and get this pickup, or this little thing or that little thing, that would be great!' So we talk in that re- gard...'How's the footage cutting together? Do you want this or that?' But, you're not really collaborat- ing on the edit until you're done shooting." Haider worked out of rented space set up in Toluca Lake, CA. "Saira would take a day and spend time with the footage," Robinson explains. "You're always work- ing with the script, and then you kind of like watch the whole movie and decide, 'What story are we telling? What's working in this film? What's not?' And then you craft the story from there. Most days it's Saira and I in a room together, just figuring out what the movie wanted to be." Going into the project, Robinson shares that her biggest concern was not being able to use the same location for the Reaper's Curve sequences that appear in the first film. "We ended up building it basically in Australia, outside. We weren't on a soundstage. We kind of built it into this — for lack of a better way to say — this dirt pit. We built Reaper's Curve. That, to me, was always going to be the most challenging thing — this road where their the original sin occurs." The film's soundtrack also received considerable attention. She points to supervising sound editor Jessica Arkoff and sound mixer Jeremy Davis for delivering beyond expectations, calling them "absolute wizards" who brought their own ideas to the table. "The sound in this movie is very, very, very important," she states. "Sound in all horror is very important, but for me, I really wanted to create an immersive experience. So it was very cool to collaborate and create that." Ultimately, I Know What You Did Last Summer turned out as Robinson had hoped. "I do think that this is the movie that I wanted to make," she reflects. "With every single thing I've ever made, you kind of learn something new and something comes up, and there's different challenges. The thing that I've learned — I made a television show and three films — is that you can never anticipate what the 'thing' will be for the movie. There's always going to be a thing. It's always going to be challenging. You cannot anticipate what that thing is going be, so just get on the ride and have a good time, and make the best movie you can make." I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER I Know What You Did Last Summer was shot using Arri's Alexa 35 camera.