While Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s upcoming reboot might seem like a risky proposition, the show’s success is almost guaranteed by a recent hit horror movie from 2025, I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025. Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s reboot arrives in 2026, and that’s not the only exciting news about the revival of the iconic 1990s horror drama series.
Earlier in 2025, it was announced that original series star Sarah Michelle Gellar would return for Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s reboot, thus allaying the fears of many longtime fans. The reboot will focus on a new Slayer, which led some fans to worry that the series would ignore the original title character.
Fortunately, these fears were debunked by the news that Gellar will reprise her most iconic role in the reboot. While Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s best villains were formidable, the show would be nothing without its original heroine, and the news of Gellar’s return was reassuring for viewers as a result.
2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer Reboot Brought Back Sarah Michelle Gellar
What’s even more encouraging is the success of 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot, a slasher sequel that brought back numerous characters from the original 1997 movie. Like Halloween 2018 and Scream 2022 before it, I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025 was not a remake, but a legacy sequel.
This means the movie brought back the surviving characters from 1997’s original I Know What You Did Last Summer and pulled off a wild twist that no earlier slasher reboot has attempted in the process. Although Do Revenge director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s reboot earned mixed reviews, I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025 was a box office success.
The slasher reboot earned $65 million on a budget of only $18 million, proving that the franchise still has some life in it. I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025 also proved that Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s reboot has plenty going for it by reviving a character solely for the sake of a cameo.
Even though her character died in the original movie, Sarah Michelle Gellar appears halfway through I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025 as Helen Shivers. The legendary slasher victim is beloved among horror fans, and Gellar’s cameo doesn’t disappoint as she taunts Madelyn Cline’s terrified Danica during a nightmare sequence.
I Know What You Did Last Summer’s Success Proves Buffy’s Reboot Can Benefit From 1990s Teen Horror Nostalgia
I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025 also brought back Freddie Prinze Jr and Jennifer Love Hewitt’s characters from the original movie, but there is a major difference between their cameos and Gellar’s appearance as Helen. Namely, their characters survived the original movie, so their returns were easy to justify.
In contrast, I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025 had to dig deep to find an excuse to bring back Gellar’s character. This meant incorporating a supernatural dream sequence into another straightforward murder mystery, a creative decision that proves just how big a draw Sarah Michelle Gellar still is.
Danica meeting Helen in a dream is a strange, surreal choice, made all the more bizarre because her character never met Helen while she was alive. It’s not even clear how she knows what Helen looked and sounded like aside from them both winning the same local beauty pageant decades apart.
Despite these plot problems, I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025 still opted to bring back Gellar since the star’s presence was a guaranteed hit with audiences. Sure enough, even some negative reviews highlighted the dream sequence as a fun nod to the original and a campy delight.
2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer Wasn’t Sarah Michelle Gellar’s First Promising Comeback
This just goes to show how much viewers want to see Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s star return to ‘90s horror roles. Meanwhile, there is no doubt that her title role in the seminal show is a much bigger career high than the part of Helen Shivers.
Gellar might have stolen scenes as Helen in 1997’s original I Know What You Did Last Summer, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer remains her most iconic work. As such, seeing the actor return to the role of the eponymous ass-kicking heroine will be even more exciting than her unexpected cameo in this reboot.
Interestingly, I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025 isn’t even the first time that Gellar made a comeback in a successful teen movie. The same director also cast her as the glamorous school principal in 2022’s critically acclaimed teen hit Do Revenge, the movie that propelled Kaytin Robinson to direct this reboot.
Much like her role in I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025, Gellar’s appearance in Do Revenge was brief but memorable. As the endlessly admired, ruthless principal, the star of Buffy the Vampire Slayer channeled the ferocity that she brought to her most iconic role with a series of withering one-liners.
Both this Do Revenge supporting role and her appearance in the recent slasher reboot prove that Gellar remains a firm fan-favorite among viewers of every generation. Thus, I Know What You Did Last Summer 2025’s most unexpected cameo is evidence that Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s reboot could be a huge hit.
- Release Date
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1997 – 2003
- Network
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The WB
