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Welcome, Popversians, to another edition of The Coldest Open, the column where I, your humble horror host, examine the history of scary cinema through the first moments of its standout entries. As I write this, we are scant days away from a slasher reboot nearly 30 years in the making, and I'd thought we'd mark the occasion by going back to its roots. That's right, tonight we'll be talking about Jim Gillespie's I Know What You Did Last Summer.

The way Coldest Open works is this: I'm going to be breaking down five different hallmarks of every great cold open in horror, then judging whether the movie in question pulls them off. If so, that hallmark will get ranked with a 'Cold' verdict; if not, it'll get ranked with a 'Warm.' At the end, we'll tally up those verdicts and determine a temperature, ranging all the way from Lukewarm to Absolute Zero.

Before we begin, a word - what makes I Know What You Did Last Summer such an interesting slasher is that it takes the tropes of the genre and rearranges their order. For example, the 'reason for revenge' is usually established before the movie begins - think young Jason’s death in Friday the 13th or Freddy’s public execution in A Nightmare on Elm Street - but in this film, we don’t get it until almost 20 minutes into the story.

With that in mind, know that this edition of The Coldest Open is going to work a little differently than the previous ones, though I’ll try to stick to the same criteria that we’ve been using since the first one. Sound good? OK great, then buckle up, because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Which I’m realizing now is a pretty poor choice of words.

I Know What You Did Last Summer's Cold-Blooded Killer

One of the biggest trope-reversals of I Know What You Did Last Summer is the fact that the first on-screen death (well, what we think is a death) isn’t at the hands of a farm-equipment-wielding maniac - it’s caused by a couple of unlucky teens who’ve just graduated high school. And what makes that so impactful is that Scream scribe Kevin Williamson spent the first 15 or so minutes of the movie making you love them.

The unlucky youths are witty, have a great dynamic, and most tragically, are all on paths toward promising futures. Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt) is on track to study law, Helen Shivers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) has what it takes to be a famous actress, and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is, well, adorable. Only Barry Cox (Ryan Phillipe) is truly obnoxious, and even he gets a slight moment of redemption before the friends’ horrible accident.

Remember, it’s Barry that spots the pedestrian they’re about to mod down first. Granted, he also spilled the booze that distracted driver Ray in the first place, but still. Dude’s trying.

Verdict: Cold

I Know What You Did Last Summer's First Person to Get Iced

Now, at this point I bet you think we’re going to talk about that mysterious roadkill, don’t you? Well, again, I Know What You Did Last Summer does things a little differently, and the first death of this film is actually off-screen. The murdered victim in question is David Egan (Joseph Quint), and director Jim Gillespie does an incredible job of setting him up in the first few moments of the film.

When we first meet David, he is exhibiting all the signs of 'victim in a murder mystery'-itis. He is introduced above crashing waves on a rocky cliff, carries a mysterious locket, and flinches at the sound of movement near him. We’ll come to eventually believe that is was him that was slain on the snaking Southport streets, and even though that won’t be the case by the end of the movie, you have to give the movie some major credit for their opening misdirection.

Verdict: Cold

I Know What You Did Last Summer's Polar Plot Intro

Unfortunately, the fake-out of Egan’s character being the opener’s innocent victim doesn’t wind up paying off. And I know that I’m cheating by looking beyond our opening moments here, but where this particular area of the cold open fails is that it doesn’t set up enough plot to make the resolution really land at the end of the movie.

As you know if you’ve seen this movie (and, wow, sorry if you haven’t - we’re kinda spoiling the whole thing, huh?), Egan is neither the victim of the car accident or an innocent person. The real story is that Egan caused the death of his fiance, Susie Willis, in a drunk driving accident, and that Susie’s father, Ben, murdered him as revenge. Ben was on his way away from the crime scene when he was struck by the teens’ car; an accident that he, shockingly, survives.

If that feels rather convoluted to you, it should - its reveal at the end of the movie requires a lot of exposition and connecting dots that were mostly invisible up until its final moments. Obviously, the cold open shouldn’t have set all of those pieces up, but the fact that it set up so few affects the ultimate power of the movie’s end.

Verdict: Warm

I Know What You Did Last Summer's Frozen Snapshots

Since we’ve already talked about the atmospheric visual into to David Egan’s mysterious character, I want to turn your attention to the moments right before his murderer gets the ol’ roadkill treatment. That is, the scene in which Ray, Julie, Helen, and Barry all sit on the beach, arguing over the exact details of an urban legend. The classic 'Guy with a Hook,' legend, to be exact.

Already, this scene has its meta bonafide in spades - the teens are literally arguing over the format of a slasher story while one is taking shape around them. But the visuals of this particular moment are what really bring the effect home. Gillespie’s use of the campfire as the primary lighting in this moment immediately tells the audience that they’re in for a spooky, summertime tale, while the churning ocean in the background portends the secrets lurking just underneath their situation.

Verdict: Cold

I Know What You Did Last Summer's Bone-Chilling Music

And finally, we can’t leave without talking about one of the most important parts of any horror movie opener, no matter how rearranged - the music. And even before of the heavy metal rock that’s playing right before the teens’ presumed fatal accident, I Know What You Did Last Summer proves that it knows how to thematically set up its events in the very first 30 seconds of the film, as we hear a warped version of a hit summer relaxer play over the crashing waves of the opening credits.

That number is ‘Summer Breeze,’ originally a groovy sound of the seventies by Seals and Crofts. “Summer breeze,” go the original lyrics, “Makes me feel fine // Blowing through the jasmine of my mind” - it all sounds so light and seasonal in the original, but when doom metal band Type O Negative got their hands on it specifically for this movie’s opener, it went from innocent to sinister in a single bass-heavy, electric heartbeat.

Still, even for anyone unfamiliar with the original tune, the song carries a melody that you can tell has been given a goth makeover - a sparkling hint at the innocence about to be lost by our unlucky gaggle of graduates.

Verdict: Cold

I Know What You Did Last Summer's Cold Open Temperature: Frozen Solid

As I Know What You Did Last Summer was just entering theaters in 1997, horror itself was undergoing some radical changes. The summer before, Scream challenged the tenets of the slasher genre as no other film had before, and none have since. Two summers later, The Blair Witch Project would shake the genre from its standard Hollywood roots. I Know What You Did Last Summer doesn't get the same reinvention credit that these two movies did, but maybe it should - it was one of the early examples of a slasher plot timeline getting rearranged, which has worked successfully in modern hits like Happy Death Day and the Fear Street films.

But hey, don't let the movie's underrated nature get you down. There's a new I Know What You Did Last Summer dropping in the midst of an entirely new and weird era for the horror genre, maybe that will get the credit the original deserved.

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." Join Popverse's weekly explorations of the best opening moments of horror cinema in The Coldest Open, and then check out:

• The best horror movies of all time, according to horror aficionado Greg Silber
• The most underrated horror movies from the past couple years
• All the new and upcoming horror movies for 2025 and beyond

And much gore. Er, more. Much more.