I Know What You Did Last Summer Goes Full MCU With Its Cameos
Spoilers ahead for 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer.
On paper, slashers and superhero movies don’t have much in common — one’s blood-soaked and the other is largely bloodless. But there’s always been a little more overlap than you might expect, particularly as both genres have given way to decade-spanning franchises. The extended universe of slasher films is, of course, far more disparate than anything cooked up by Marvel or DC, but it’s nearly as littered with lore and Easter eggs. There have been spiritual crossovers (Scream 2 playing on a TV in Halloween H20) and literal crossovers (Freddy vs. Jason), along with an understanding that these characters are never really gone for good. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 didn’t end with “Freddy Krueger will return in The Dream Child,” but it might as well have. In more recent years, though, the dominance of the Marvel cinematic universe has had an increasingly undeniable influence on the slasher. Consider the rebooted Scream franchise of the 2020s and its embrace of MCU staples: plot armor protecting the most beloved characters, an overreliance on dodgy CGI effects, and the return of familiar faces, even if their characters are long dead. Just as Marvel brought Robert Downey Jr. back into the fold, Scream 7 has found a way to resurrect Matthew Lillard.
It’s not surprising, then, that credits scenes would find their way into slashers, the obvious next step in the MCU-ification of the genre. Scream VI was the first film in that series to have a post-credits scene, though it’s a meta joke that has Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) stressing that “not every movie needs a post-credits scene.” The 2025 I Know What You Did Last Summer, on the other hand, delivers a genuine Marvel-style tease of what’s to come with the appearance of Brandy Norwood, reprising her role as Karla from I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. (An earlier offhand comment by Freddie Prinze Jr.’s Ray lets us know that the 1998 Bahamas-set sequel is canon.) “Isn’t that your college roommate?” Karla’s husband asks as the two watch a news report about Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) surviving yet another massacre by a hook-wielding Fisherman. “People are always trying to kill that woman,” Karla notes. “I hope she’s in therapy.”
But what at first seems like a funny nod to a widely derided sequel takes on a new tenor when Julie shows up at Karla’s door. She’s sorry to drag her back into things, she says, but she’s received a photo of the two of them with Karla’s face crossed out. The note on the back warns, “THIS ISN’T OVER.” Karla isn’t spooked so much as immediately spurred to action — she’s ready to kick some Fisherman ass all over again.
Whether or not IKWYDLS actually gets a sequel with JLH and Brandy joining forces to take down another killer remains to be seen. (Would that theoretical installment also be called I Still Know What You Did Last Summer? The mind boggles.) But the mere existence of this mid-credits scene is the clearest example yet of how slasher franchises have become the MCU. Your reaction to it might depend on how you feel about Marvel movies — and also how seriously you believe the moment is meant to be taken. Given that this new IKWYDLS is more arch and self-referential than its predecessors, and that the credits scene brings back a character from a supremely silly movie (“Ben’s son!”), it reads as at least somewhat tongue-in-cheek. At the same time, there’s a good chance that the inevitable next film does deliver on its promise. In a pointed comment during this film’s climax, Julie claims that “nostalgia’s overrated.” Judging from the hooting and hollering throughout the Brandy scene in my theater, however, the audience is inclined to disagree.
That’s also borne out by the thunderous applause Sarah Michelle Gellar received when she appears in an earlier cameo as Helen Shivers, the most tragic Fisherman victim in the original IKWYDLS. Danica (Madelyn Cline) — a Croaker Queen, just like Helen, who is also being tormented by a Fisherman for her role in covering up vehicular manslaughter — falls asleep and dreams of her predecessor. Helen looks as young and vibrant as the day she died, and kudos to the digital-effects team here for some of the most seamless de-aging I’ve seen onscreen. In her brief appearance, Gellar fares much better than Skeet Ulrich in the recent Scream movies. Helen isn’t a Force ghost or angelic vision, so she gets to be scarier than the real Helen would be. “I didn’t want to die either, but we did a bad thing, and when you do something bad, you need to pay,” she snarls as her face decays and she slashes at Ava with a hook.
Ultimately, the scene is harmless fan service and a welcome surprise for SMG fans still recovering from her criminal underutilization on Dexter: Original Sin. But there’s no denying that it also has the flavor of the MCU, which, in addition to never letting characters stay dead, so often seems guided by giving the fans what they want. That’s not necessarily a problem, particularly in a movie as fun as IKWYDLS. In a larger sense, though, there’s something grim about the reminder that in 2025, all genres worship at the altar of IP.
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