Freddie Prinze Jr. Applauds Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Death in ‘IKWYDLS’ (Exclusive)

Freddie Prinze Jr. is always singing the praises of his wife, Sarah Michelle Gellar. 

At the premiere of the new I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot, Prinze, 49, tells PEOPLE exclusively that Gellar’s performance in the original 1997 film is one for the history books.

“Her character, it’s so great. People love that character so much, and I genuinely mean this: I think it’s one of the best death scenes in the history of horror films,” he gushes.

The reason, Prinze says, is that it  “showcased hope more effectively than any of its peers, more effectively than any horror film I can remember,” adding that he’s “seen almost all of them.”

“That final shot where she’s running towards the parade, and she’s about to make it, and this is a character that’s been governed by cowardice the whole movie, and she finally gets brave,” Prinze recalls. “When the fisherman blocks her path, she’s going to fight. And I know the whole audience was like, ‘Yeah, f—, she’s going to fight.’ ”

“And her reward is death, and she doesn’t get to be a final girl. And the crowd was like, ‘Oh my God!’ And it ripped their soul out, and I love that.”

Prinze notes that giving audiences that feeling is “what horror movies do better than any other kind of movie.”

“To get to be here with her again is awesome, because she’s always going to be a part of that, for sure,” he said of his wife, who was at the premiere with him.

Gellar, 49, starred as Helen Shivers in the original movie. When asked if she would return for the latest installment in October 2024, Gellar quipped, “I am dead.”

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I Know What You Did Last Summer follows a group of four friends who must survive a hook-wielding killer who stalks them after they accidentally kill a man.

Alongside Gellar and Prinze, the film also stars Jennifer Love Hewitt and Ryan Phillippe in lead roles.

The original film is based on the 1973 novel of the same name and was accompanied by a direct sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, released in 1998.

Gellar and Prinze met on the set of the first film. They wed in 2002 and now share two children, Charlotte and Rocky.

Prinze and Hewitt, 46, are set to return to the franchise with the new I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot. 

In the new movie, a group of twenty-somethings (Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Sarah Pidgeon, Jonah Hauer-King, and Tyriq Withers) cause a deadly car accident in Southport, N.C., and flee the scene. A year later, a killer in a fisherman’s slicker is out for revenge, and the panicked friends consult two survivors of the ’97 massacre for help: Hewitt’s Julie James, the series’ survivor, now a professor of trauma, and Prinze’s Ray Bronson.

“Whatever a high school union feels like, that’s what it felt like,” Prinze tells PEOPLE about reuniting with Hewitt in their decades-old roles. “You have no idea what’s changed, what’s the same. You’re excited to show what you think you’re better at, you know what I mean? You hope they notice it. It was all those things.”

“I love what they’ve done with Ray,” says Prinze, noting his role is “not a cameo” or a “one-scene thing.” He says director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and co-writer Sam Lansky “put so much time into Ray and Julie, and they’re such a driving force in this film that people will get what they’re looking for out of these characters.”

The I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot hit theaters on July 18, 2025.