'I Know What You Did Last Summer' killer wanted shocking twist to 'break hearts'

USA Today

2 days ago

Spoiler alert! We're discussing the major reveal at the end of the new "I Know What You Did Last Summer." If you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want to know the twist, stop reading now.
Say it ain't so, Ray!
The new "I Know What You Did Last Summer" sequel (in theaters now) concludes with one of the most shocking twists in recent horror movies: Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.), a core survivor from the original two films, is now the killer.
At least, one of them. The other killer is Stevie Ward (Sarah Pidgeon), who was with her friends when they accidentally caused a car accident and covered up their involvement − a situation quite similar to what Ray and his friends went through in 1997.
Stevie later discovers the victim of the accident was someone she knew: Sam Cooper, who she became close with after going to rehab. Sam was coming to check on her the night of the accident to make sure she hadn't relapsed. So Stevie sets out to avenge Sam's death and teams up with Ray, her boss and mentor, who uses the 1997 murders as a playbook.
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Prinze tells USA TODAY that when he first heard the idea of turning Ray into a killer, he "definitely had a big question, which is, 'Why? What has to happen to make someone go down that road?' " But after a discussion with director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson about how Ray's trauma would have led him to this dark place, he was on board.
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"Ray is dealing with these feelings of abandonment," Robinson explains. "He is dealing with all this anger. He is dealing with something that he has totally buried and repressed. When this surrogate daughter comes to him and tells him what has happened, which mirrors everything that started sending his life down this path, it triggers something in him and causes this break."
Prinze sees Ray as a "broken man," who has spent more than 20 years running from his trauma. "When he sees what happens to this young girl, and the similarities that they went through, everything comes back to him being this 21-year old boy," he says. "Now, his response isn't going to be to run away anymore. It's going to be to fight, because running hasn't gotten him anything."
For Ray, "this is about revenge," Prinze adds, noting that he truly believes he's "setting things right the way they should be." But it was important to Prinze that he not come across like a stereotypical villain.
"I wanted people to feel sorry for him in a weird way when they see his reason why," he says. "I didn't want it to come off like a James Bond villain speech. I was looking for something more nuanced, and I wanted people to be like, 'No, not you!' I wanted it to break people's hearts."
In Robinson's mind, Ray wasn't the kind of person who was capable of this in the first two movies. "I don't think that this break would have ever happened had it not been for his connection to Stevie," she says. At the same time, there are seeds of what was to come in the 1997 film, in which Ray was falsely suspected of being the killer.
"This person has been pushed around and pushed aside and told that he was a certain thing," Robinson says. "It's kind of the Harvey Dent thing (from 'The Dark Knight'). You die the hero, or you live long enough to become the villain."
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Chase Sui Wonders, whose character Ava is targeted by Ray at the end of the movie, remembers that when she read the reveal, "I threw (the script) across my room. It was so shocking." Jennifer Love Hewitt was similarly surprised, but feels the twist fits well with the first two films.
"If you go back and you watch the movies, he always was angry about who he was in that town, and who he was going to be and how he was going to be able to grow past it all," she says. "I do think, ultimately, it makes sense when you think about it. But I am so curious to see what the audience is going to say."
Prinze says he's "really proud" of his performance and happy with the direction for the character. But he acknowledges the twist is a "big swing" that may prove divisive.
"I know some fans are going to be like, 'You took Ray away from us, and that's not fair,' and I get it," he says. "There's going to be other fans that think it's awesome, and I get that. I appreciate both sides. But both sides need to know that I gave everything to that performance that I know how to give, and I committed 100%. I loved what they did with the character, or I wouldn't have done it."
And despite's Ray death, Prinze isn't ready to say this is the end for him in the franchise. "As far as saying goodbye," he says, "you never freaking know in a horror movie."