I Know What You Did Last Summer First Look: 'The '90s Are Back' with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Fresh Blood

Here is your first look at Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr in the new ‘I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER’ movie.

via: People

It's been many summers since Jennifer Love Hewitt last played Julie James, the good-hearted final girl who can't escape her past in the 1997 slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer. Revisiting one of her earliest and most iconic roles for the upcoming sequel — not a reboot — was "very nerve-racking," the actress admits.

"I'll be super honest, I had total anxiety for 48 hours before [filming] because I was like, 'Can I do this? Am I going to pull this off?' It's a lot of pressure," she tells PEOPLE.

Hewitt, now 46, filmed the original I Know What You Did Last Summer shortly after turning 18, sharing scenes with Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe.

She and Prinze, 49, reprise their roles to shepherd a new generation of horror scream queens and kings. (They also returned for the sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, which released in 1998.) That fresh ensemble consists of Chase Sui Wonders (The Studio), Madelyn Cline (Outer Banks), Sarah Pidgeon (The Wilds), Jonah Hauer-King (The Little Mermaid) and Tyriq Withers (Him), as seen in PEOPLE's exclusive first look.

This cast is "phenomenal," hails Hewitt, who says it felt like passing a baton: "It's for them to make it their own and for me to stand by like a proud mom and say, 'It's yours now, take it and run and enjoy.' "

A synopsis for the new film sets the stage for five friends inadvertently causing a deadly car accident, and covering it up by making a pact to take the secret to the grave. A year later, someone seeks revenge while making it clear they know what they did last summer.

Sound familiar? The newbies, though, learn this happened before and consult two survivors of the Southport Massacre of 1997 for help.

Wonders, 28, says the film gets scary, sexy and campy as it "leans into how young people are interacting with each other in the world today, in the smartest and most satisfying way."

"When you get a group of young actors together, it can be a recipe for disaster oftentimes. But everyone in this cast just brought it to the nth degree. We all got along so well. The chemistry between us was so fun and natural and seamless." (The cast did game nights, bar crawls and attended concerts together between filming on location in Australia, she adds.)

Writer-director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge) says they set out for "balls-to-the-wall fun" in this modernized version, which embraces the absurdities.

"It is not a serious movie. It is a really fun, popcorn summer event," Robinson says. She warns, though, the horror elements are "ratcheted up to a hundred in this — it's much more brutal."

"There's definitely more methodology to every kill in this movie, unlike the first, which is kind of just him stalking them and going after them," she explains. "There's not a lot of gore or blood or violence in the first one. There certainly is in this one."

It's "terrifying," says Hewitt, who doesn't count herself a horror-movie fan since they often "freak me out." What wasn't scary was her reunion with costar Prinze, who plays her onscreen boyfriend Ray Bronson in the films.

"It felt like a high school reunion," says Hewitt. "It felt like that moment where you're like, 'Oh my gosh, I have butterflies in my stomach and my heart is beating really fast because I have not seen this person in 150 years and now we're back, here we are.' "

She adds, "We just had to jump right back into Julie and Ray, but when we did it felt like we had never left, honestly."

Robinson says it was a "crazy, out-of-body experience" directing scenes with Hewitt and Prinze. "They're both so lovely, and I really can't understate this: so hot. They're so hot!" says the director. "It felt exciting on set, and I think it feels exciting onscreen."

Hewitt says she gives her "stamp of approval" on how Julie has evolved 28 years after the events of the first film. Plus, the actress understood how meaningful it was to be asked to continue the I Know What You Did Last Summer legacy.

"As a female in Hollywood, in your 40s sometimes you can feel forgotten about," says the 9-1-1 star. "I was really touched emotionally and honored that Sony would have me back, that the franchise would have me back, that Jen wanted me back and that the audience wanted me back. It really felt like an honor. Stepping into her shoes again was really fun."

Going into the project, Wonders thought it would be "impossible" to live up to Hewitt's original. The O.G. actress was "generous, warm and welcoming," says Wonders, making the process smoother: "She shared so many cool stories. She's hysterical. She's cracking jokes all the time. At the end she was like, 'Come to me if you ever need advice, career-wise, navigating the industry, or boy advice.' It feels very surreal. Her and Freddie, I consider them mentors at this point."

Of course, there will be plenty of nostalgic callbacks and easter eggs throughout. "There's lots of '90s in there, so get excited because the '90s are back again!" says Hewitt. "And there's lots of twists and turns. I don't think people are going to expect anything that's coming. It's a really fun ride."

Explains Robinson, "We approached it like super fans, so I think people are going to be really happy. All the things that you want to see in this movie, you're going to see in this movie."

I Know What You Did Last Summer is in theaters July 18.