Editorials
‘Scream VI’ – 12 Things We Learned from the Blu-ray Commentary Track
Ghostface takes Manhattan in Scream VI, the latest installment in the slasher franchise. The home video release includes an informative audio commentary with directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, and executive producer Chad Villella.
Here are 12 things I learned from the Scream VI Blu-ray commentary…
1. Samara Weaving was the first and only choice for the opening scene.
Samara Weaving, who starred in Radio Silence’s Ready or Not, was the first and only choice to play Laura, the ill-fated film studies professor that serves as the opening kill. The actress has stated it’s the closest character to herself she’s ever played.
Gillett says, “We were walking to dinner in Montreal when we were like, ‘Let’s just call her and see if she’s game.'” They did so, and “she was super, super game to come and hang out with us for a few days.”
The photo that appears on her character’s phone is Weaving’s real-life husband (and Cocaine Bear writer), Jimmy Warden, and their dog, Muzzy.
Prior to production, Weaving sent audio files to the filmmakers featuring her reading the lines with and without her natural Australian accent. They ultimately decided to go with the accent to make the character more unique.
2. Roger L. Jackson originally lent his voice to the opening scene.
The opening scene originally had Roger L. Jackson’s unmistakable Ghostface voice speaking to Laura on the phone. It made it as far as test screenings before being replaced by Tony Revolori as Jason.
Vanderbilt explains, “It was sort of a situation where it felt like you were hearing Roger for too long a period. He’s so wonderful that by the time we got to [Ghostface’s call with Jason], you felt like the punch of ‘Oh, my God, Roger’s on the phone’ had kind of come out of it a little bit.”
Ghostface’s call with Jason originally featured a joke about Marvel movies — written before Spider-Man franchise actor Revolori was cast — but it was cut for being too meta.
3. Hasta El Fuego is a reference to Bad Boys for Life.
Horror references are a cornerstone of the Scream franchise, but Scream VI also has an unexpected nod to Bad Boys for Life. Hasta El Fuego, the name of the restaurant from the opening scene, originates from the 2020 Will Smith/Martin Lawrence sequel, although it has taken on new meaning among the filmmakers.
Vanderbilt explains, “It started during the pandemic because we couldn’t all hang out and see each other, so we would talk about movies we all wanted to watch and then discuss on the text chain. Then the text chain became Hasta El Fuego, and then the restaurant became Hasta El Fuego.”
“Really these movies are just a collection of dumb jokes taken too far, right?” chuckles Bettinelli-Olpin.
4. The head in the fridge belongs to Thom Newell.
The carved-up body of Jason’s partner in crime inside their fridge was added after the original shoot to amplify the intensity. The head belongs to Thom Newell, who the Radio Silence team met on Southbound. He attended the photo session on his lunch break then had to return to work covered in fake blood.
In addition to serving as post-production supervisor on Southbound, Newell has worked on American Horror Story, Godzilla vs. Kong, You’re Next, V/H/S/2, and Chucky, among others, in various capacities.
The character’s name, Greg Bruckner, is a nod to filmmaker David Bruckner (Hellraiser, The Ritual), with whom Radio Silence collaborated on V/H/S and Southbound.
5. Blackmore University’s name is an in-joke.
The name of the college that the characters attend in New York, Blackmore University, is another in-joke among the filmmakers. As Vanderbilt explains, it originated with casting director Rich Delia during the making of Scream 5.
“Rich Delia, when he sent out sides for Sam in Scream, there was a monologue about ‘I’m the daughter of Billy Loomis,’ but we really wanted to protect that secret. So he instead inserted the name, ‘My father was John Blackmore.’ So you have all these incredibly talented actresses sobbing in their auditions, reading the revelation that their father is, in fact, John Blackmore, which we found hilarious. And then when we started working on this movie, we gave it the code name Blackmore.’
After failing to come up with a satisfactory fake college name, someone suggested using Blackmore for that as well, to which everyone agreed.
6. Sam and Tara’s apartment was repurposed for another scene.
The set for the apartment that Sam, Tara, and Liana share was repurposed and redecorated for Jason and Greg’s apartment in the beginning of the movie, which was shot toward the end of production. Bettinelli-Olpin points out:
“Jason and Greg’s apartment is the same set as the Carpenter sisters’ apartment with a handful of walls moved and the entrance moved to the other side. So this was a set that was essentially tweaked and recycled because we were shooting this so late in production.”
7. Frat party costumes include Murder Party, Hot Rod, and I Think You Should Leave.
The filmmakers shout-out some of the costumes that appear in the frat party scene, including Ethan’s cardboard knight from Murder Party, Wednesday Addams, Hot Rod, and a Dan Flashes shirt from I Think You Should Leave (whose co-creator/star Tim Robinson makes a voice cameo as Quinn’s hook-up).
Gillett recalls, “It was so fun to show up on set and only know, I’d say, what 50% of the costumes were gonna be, because we had conversations with Avery [Plewes, costume designer] about them. And showing up and being just so surprised and thrilled with all of the fun Easter eggs. It was like being in a funhouse.”
In the subway scene, the film was allowed to use masks of horror icons like Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Pinhead, and Chucky as long as they didn’t do anything the respective characters are famous for.
8. The writers originally wanted Kirby in Scream 5.
Vanderbilt and Busick originally considered bring Hayden Panettiere back as Kirby in Scream 5 before deciding to feature her as an Easter egg. They revisited the idea for Scream VI.
“We wanted to include her in [Scream] 5, and it was just so overstuffed as it was,” Busick notes. “There was no room, but here, it’s like we have the real estate, I think. When we landed on the FBI thing, it was like ‘Ta-da!'”
“We never wrote any other versions for her. We definitely had a couple conversations. Weirdly, we had conversations about who she could be before we came up with what [Scream] VI was,” says Vanderbilt. “The idea that what happened in Scream 4 would change her to the extent that she would go on this path in her life seemed really kind of interesting and cool and unexpected.”
9. The Ghostface shrine was originally in a warehouse.
The original script called for the Ghostface shine to be in a warehouse, but the chance discovery of a movie theater while location scouting changed that.
“It was always sort of a warehouse because we were like, ‘Where can we set a final sequence that’s really cool that hasn’t been done before?’ That was a big thing for us,” says Vanderbilt. “And then I remember you guys were scouting and you were like, ‘So, we found a movie theater.’ And I remember thinking to myself, ‘Oh, no. It’s Scream 2.'”
“We were reticent because of Scream 2,” adds Busick. “But then Jim and I went there to check out the location so we could kind of retrofit the script to it, saw this place and we’re like, ‘This isn’t going to feel anything like it. This is going to feel very different.'”
They landed on a happy medium between the two, Gillett explains, “I think the idea of bringing that warehouse feel to this space, making it feel like a museum and not necessarily like a theater, was such a cool hand-off between those two ideas.”
While the interior is loaded with Scream franchise Easter eggs — many of which are detailed here — the dilapidated theater marquee out front advertises The Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight screenings and a Jennifer Jolie retrospective, a reference to Parker Posey’s Scream 3 character.
10. Richie’s Stab fan film features Jack Quaid’s voice and a Twin Peaks homage.
Richie’s Stab fan film that plays in the shrine was shot by Radio Silence’s assistant, Adam Sand, and executive producer Ron Lynch’s assistant, Adriana King, after hours. Jack Quaid provided the voice of Ghostface, and the font used for the end credits is from Twin Peaks.
11. Chad was originally stabbed 14 times.
One of the most common criticisms about Scream VI is the Core Four’s inability to be killed despite sustaining seemingly fatal injuries, particularly Chad. The creatives address this:
“So we like to stab Chad. I feel like as a group we sort of need to own that,” Vanderbilt jokes. “I just remember through the editing process people going, ‘He can’t live,’ to the point where we digitally removed stabs.”
“We VFX-ed a bunch of stabs,” interjects Gillett. “I think it was 14 stabs in the original, and now it’s down to like seven.”
“Guy and I had discussions early whether or not he would survive that; not practically, but just narratively,” notes Vanderbilt. Gillett adds, “I remember us talking about that at the end, like who comes back, who’s there. I love that we all agreed that this one should make you feel happy.”
12. Liana’s return was inspired by Agatha Christie.
Liana fake death was inspired by Agatha Christie’s influential 1939 murder-mystery novel, And Then There Were None. Vanderbilt divulges:
“Liana surviving, being dead and coming back, was one of my favorite things. My favorite murder-mystery of all time is Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, and that’s the trick of that story; there’s a character you think is dead who’s sort of orchestrating it.
“That’s why we’re able to have the characters group together much more during the movie. Usually in a Scream movie everyone’s off doing some other thing. Four people have to be missing for it to work. So we loved this idea of underneath it all, they’re all together all the time, so how is this occurring?”
Scream VI is available now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital.
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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