Scream VI SPOILER WARNING. Major events from the film, including the killer’s identity and the film’s ending, are discussed below!
…We really mean it!
Scream VI has arrived, and in the process, once more proven the enduring strength of the popular horror franchise. After last year’s successful fifth movie revived the series after eleven years of dormancy, VI opened even better, breaking the record for biggest opening weekend for any Scream to date with $44 million.
On the heels of that terrific opening, I spoke to Scream VI directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who comprise two thirds of Radio Silence Productions alongside Scream VI Executive Producer Chad Villella. We discussed some of the big plot points from the film and where the story ultimately went, from the first-ever use of three killers working together in the series to the surprise of all six of the returning characters – including newer characters Sam (Melissa Barrera), Tara (Jenna Ortega), Chad (Mason Gooding), and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and legacy characters Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) – making it through the film alive.
The filmmakers also discussed hidden audio cameos – something they included quite a bit of in the last installment as well – plus the continuing fan interest in one perpetually offscreen character, along with much more in our full spoiler chat below.
Fandom: So, I’ll admit I gave myself a slight pat on the back, because I said to a couple of people the week before I saw Scream VI that I felt like there would probably be more than two killers for the first time in this one. Nothing had been telegraphed from the trailers or anything, I just had this feeling it felt like it was time. Was it the same feeling for you guys?
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: Yeah! I mean, we read it in the script when [Guy Busick] and Jamie [Vanderbilt] wrote that and we had that experience of reading it for the first time and going, ‘Oh, I see what you’ve done here. I like it!’ Because I think whether we were conscious of it or not, it did feel like ‘Hey, that’s a great way to take this’ and there’s no reason not to do it. Because we’ve seen the two [killers], we’ve seen the one, we’re basically expecting one of those. Let’s go a different direction. And then you get there and it’s, ‘Well, of course!’ But you have to get there.
Fandom: Even before the “There’s three of them” reveal, the scene when Chad is seemingly killed and actually getting to see two Ghostfaces in full costume and mask working together – which we previously only got the tiniest tease of in the first fakeout opening of Scream 4 – to film that sequence, was there a thrill to it on set?
Tyler Gillett: Yeah, we talk about those sort of moments where on the page you just go, ‘Oh, this is gonna be a thing! This feels special.’ That was definitely one of them. And part of what felt so special… Maybe special is not the right word, but there was something profound about Chad getting just absolutely brutalized as well. Mason is just such, like, a force for good that shooting that scene, it was hard. Even though we knew we knew he was going to survive! He was air quotes ‘dying’ and it f**king hurt. It was hard to shoot. It was really hard to shoot. We’ve talked a lot about the ripple effect of that moment. There was a version where we could have had him [only] stabbed twice and had the same outcome. But you need to feel like, Jesus, we’re in the third act and it’s gonna be tough. It’s gonna be a lot. Everyone’s gonna be put to the test. But yeah, that was a moment that we knew to take considerable care with. Like the double knife wipe, all of that stuff. It felt like, f**k, if you’re gonna do this thing with two Ghostfaces, you have to do it right. You have to do it justice.
Fandom: Well, I can tell you there was a massive cheer for the double knife wipe from the Thursday night crowd at the AMC Burbank 16. Now, all six of the returning characters make it through this thing…
Tyler Gillett: A twist on a twist!
Fandom: How much did you debate if they’d all survive or not?
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: There was lots of debate. At the end of the day, the thing that we kept going back to was we wanted to make kind of a secret feel good movie and that we wanted this to be a movie that you can watch over and over and always get that good feeling at the end – which I know is a crazy thing to say about Scream Roman Numeral Six. But for us, it was a big part of this. And there were definitely moments later on in post [production] where it was like, ‘All right, we’re pulling too many punches. We’ve got to cut one of these [characters] loose’ and we really fought hard to keep them because we were like, ‘I don’t think we do.’ On the first viewing, you’ll have that feeling of, ‘Really??’ But mileage varies on that and the characters are aware of it, which keeps it in line within the guardrails for us. Because the movie is able to comment on it and kind of have fun with it. And at the end of the day, with us watching the movie 150 times in the last three months, it really makes it a movie that you can kind of… It can become a comfort movie in the way that we always want movies that are comfort movies. Again, I know that’s crazy to say about Scream Roman Numeral Six.
Fandom: When I spoke to Melissa [Barrera] about the ending, she told me she felt that Sam’s struggle with her inner Billy Loomis and just how dark she might go is not a settled issue. Was there a version of this where maybe she left with his mask and didn’t discard it?
Tyler Gillett: No, that was always going to be the final shot of the movie. I think that the idea that that darkness is still in her though is right. Melissa has the right interpretation of that. We talked about how if Scream 5 was her kind of being willing to recognize and embrace that in herself, then this movie is her being willing to share that with her sister, with the person that she loves. This idea that you can’t really have togetherness until you understand each other’s darkness. Part of what our identities are is that dark place that we’re afraid to share and one of the moments that we really love in the movie is that moment when Tara gives her sister the look before Sam stabs Bailey in the eye. And it’s a moment of understanding, it’s a moment of Tara saying, ‘I get it. I get you and it’s okay.’ And obviously it’s heightened and f**king insane and it ends with some dude getting stabbed in the brain but that felt like a really cool evolution of that idea. There’s definitely, we think, more to be done with that darkness.
Fandom: Sam and Tara’s mom is notable by her absence for two movies in a row. Although, honestly, so is their dad, when you think about it – the man who initially thought he was Sam’s dad, that is.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: It’s like Peanuts.
Fandom: [Laughs] Yes, exactly! How much discussion have you guys had about their mom and who she is? I will add, by the way, on Fandom’s Scream Wiki, their mom was the number nine most popular page this past weekend.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: That’s crazy! She has to be up there with the most popular characters who don’t exist. There was a big scene with her in the original script for Scream 5.
Tyler Gillett: It was a good scene.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: Yeah. And it was basically Sam having… There was a little reckoning between them. It was a really good scene, but it got cut for a myriad of reasons. And I’m genuinely not even sure how everybody knows her name is Christina and where that came from. We’ve talked about her a lot in terms of the effect she has on the sisters, you know, but in terms of seeing her in something, I mean… It’s wide open, I guess! People seem to be excited for Christina Carpenter.
Fandom: Yes, they are! So the name Christina is correct?
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: That’s correct. That was the name in the script [for the fifth movie], yeah.
Fandom: That reminds me how you guys have now made it onscreen canon that Billy’s mother’s full name is Nancy Loomis, which I read was first in Kevin Williamson‘s Scream 4 script, right?
Tyler Gillett: Yep!
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: And also Sidney living on Elm Street.
Tyler Gillett: That was in the first [movie’s] script.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: Sidney living on Elm and we made it in 5 a thing people knew.
Tyler Gillett: Yeah, it was a piece of trivia which is never stated in the movies.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: It’s in Kevin’s script, though, yeah. In the original script.
Fandom: To your credit, as much as I’d love to see Sidney Prescott again, this movie felt complete without her. Can you say how she would have fit in if Neve [Campbell] was in the film? Because the way the movie is now, I ask, ‘Where would Sidney have even come into this?’
Tyler Gillett: It was early enough in the process that we were navigating all of this that things didn’t have to change dramatically. Structurally, the script was in a really solid place. It was like a bit of an off ramp and you kind of get a little bit of a sense of Sidney and her life, but there wasn’t a hugely sort of pivotal different path for the story. It was about the Core Four and their relationship. I think, at the end of the day, our job in the absence of that character was to make sure that you still really felt something meaningful and dramatic and significant and emotional with the Core Four. That was the thing to dig into and that became the assignment of this movie. Make the audience care about those characters the way that Wes and Kevin made us care about Sidney, Gale, and Dewey.
Fandom: In the subway sequence, obviously you’ve got people dressed as a bunch of very iconic horror villains and you’ve got fun stuff like the girl dressed like Grace from your film Ready or Not. Oh, and my wife and I both loved hearing the voices chanting ‘Evil dies tonight!’
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: Hey, you caught it!
Tyler Gillett: Hell yeah!
Fandom: We did! But is there something else I should be looking for or listening for next time I see this movie?
Tyler Gillett: Yeah, lots of things.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: Plenty! You know, it’s funny, with the subway specifically, we always find ourselves catching things in it. How many times have we, during the edit, been like, ‘Hey, wait, was that… Oh my god, I didn’t even know that made the cut!’ You know, it’s that kind of thing. Because we had this much and then [only] this much makes the cut but, still, there’s a ton on the periphery. It is everywhere.
Tyler Gillett: There are other fun Easter egg things that are vocal specific. Tim Robinson cameos in the movie as the voice of Paul 2.0, Quinn‘s off-camera boyfriend [heard behind a door in Quinn’s introduction scene].
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: Akiva Shaffer, one of The Lonely Island guys…
Tyler Gillett: He’s the voice of the Ghostface on the train that sort of fake scares Mindy.
Fandom: Oh, the one who leaps out and grabs the seat?
Tyler Gillett: ‘Sorry!’ Yeah, that’s him.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: [Radio Silence partner] Chad Villella is one of the newscasters.
Eric Goldman: Am I right that one of the masks on the subway is meant to be the unmasked Jason from Jason Takes Manhattan?
Tyler Gillett: Oh, the swampy dude? I don’t know what that mask is from..
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: I don’t either. I’m not sure. I think that was off the shelf…
Tyler Gillett: Yeah, a bargain bin.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: A portion of the costumes are just generic stuff that a consumer could get. We wanted to make sure that it wasn’t all really well made horror icons. [Costume Designer] Avery Plewes was really making sure that they felt lived in and real and not like the costume designer version of them.
Fandom: Well damn, I’m still going with my dream of it being unmasked Jason.
Tyler Gillett: Let’s just say yes!
Fandom: Congratulations on your big opening weekend! Look, I’m no Hollywood studio exec, but I think you’re getting that greenlight on another movie soon. I know you couldn’t tell me anything storywise yet but how much have you thought about where you’d want to take the next installment of this?
Tyler Gillett: That is so fully not up to us and we are fine with that. Guy and Jamie hold the keys to the kingdom and I imagine their brains are hard at work on what could be next. But we know as much as everybody else knows, which is zip. Just that this movie had a great opening weekend and people seem to really love it, which we’re just absolutely amazed and tickled by. We hope that there’s Scream forever, man.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: To be clear, not a movie called Scream Forever.
Tyler Gillett: No, no, definitely not.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: We definitely don’t want that.
Fandom: Let me ask you a couple of specifics on plot minutiae here that I’ve been curious about. We know there were nine masks from the previous killers but we don’t get all nine accounted for. Like we learn that one left behind was used by both Charlie and Jill but there’s not one mentioned for each of them. I don’t think Amber‘s mask is mentioned and Mickey‘s isn’t, right?
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: Mickey’s is not.
Eric Goldman: Do you guys know where all nine ended up?
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: This is the discussion that was ongoing during the process. This movie, the mystery of it, was a really fun part that we wanted to make sure was really at the forefront of the story. And we had little places to mention, ‘Oh, the Mickey mask!’ And it just felt forced. It was like, oh, you don’t need it. While technically, it’s the correct information, it feels convoluted, right?
Tyler Gillett: Like then there are questions [about it].
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: Yeah, you lose the thread and it starts to become… It just feels not like a mystery, it starts to feel more like fanservice. So we cut all that stuff.
Fandom: It seems like Detective Bailey is the one who committed most of the murders but that Quinn killed Gale’s boyfriend. But I wondered, did Ethan kill anyone? Or was he technically not a murderer when he died, even though he was helping Bailey and Quinn?
Tyler Gillett: We talk about Ethan killing Paul 2.0. That’s one that we think could have been either Ethan or Bailey. The idea that Ethan has just been sort of hanging out in Quinn’s closet, hiding, waiting for the right moment to step out.
Fandom: So maybe he didn’t make his econ class after all is what you’re saying?
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: [Laughs] Yes!
Tyler Gillett: Yeah, and Jack [Champion] was in the costume for some of that. In the photo that gets airdropped to their phones, that’s actually Jack in the Ghostface costume.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: And walking in [to Quinn’s room as Danny sees him]. He did all that.
Tyler Gillett: We like to find moments to put them in the Ghostface costume. And Jack is such a mega Scream fan. Literally every week, he was like, ‘Can I wear the costume? Can I pop in and wear the costume for this scene?’
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: The sweetest. Oh my God, he’s so sweet.
Fandom: Did Richie do the drawings of the previous films’ victims that we see throughout the shrine?
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: Those are Richie Kirsch originals.
Eric Goldman: Ahh, see, there will be an underground market for those.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: Yeah, get those rare Richie sketches! And we had Jack [Quaid] really be a part of this one, which is really special to us and I think to him too. He obviously gave us the video [of young Richie] that’s in the movie, but he also did all the voiceover from the fan films. Every time it’s a Ghostface, that’s Jack Quaid doing it. We thought it was really cool to have him play that part in this.
Fandom: I know we’re about out of time but I wanted to mention the whiteboard where you see photos of all nine previous killers from the entire series. As a fan of the series, I thought to myself ‘I’m so happy all these actors cleared using their likeness!’
Tyler Gillett: Us too, man!
Eric Goldman: [Laughs] So you were glad you didn’t have to, say, obscure the photo of one of the killers in some weird way?
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: It got a little hairy!
Tyler Gillett: But yeah, we love that. We love a good murder wall. We talked about how, ‘Oh man, this is a moment for us as filmmakers.’ And Jamie and Guy too, to have a whiteboard with a bunch of suspects and crime scene photos, we’re suckers for those scenes and love how that ultimately turned out.
Click below to see the cast of Scream VI weighing in on the more spoilery aspects of the story, including Dermot Mulroney explaining the unusual manner in which he found out he was playing the killer while still not knowing which character he was playing.
