Warning: This article contains spoilers for Scream 6.

Scream 6’s screenwriters have broken down the motivations of the film’s new Ghostface killers. The film, which takes place in New York City, follows the survivors of Scream 2022 as they make their way to college at Blackmore University. They band together with fellow survivors Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) to fight back against a new Ghostface, eventually learning that the killers behind this new spree are Detective Bailey (Dermot Mulroney) and his children Ethan (Jack Champion) and Quinn (Liana Liberato), seeking revenge for the death of third sibling Richie (Jack Quaid) in the previous film.

Entertainment Weekly sat down with writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick to break down the Scream 2 Easter eggs – both intentional and unintentional – in the newly released Scream 6. One thing they discussed was the way that the family revenge motive mirrored Mrs. Loomis’ killing spree in 1997’s Scream 2. Rather than just mimicking that film just because, they found it more “primal and emotion–based” to “[pit] two families against each other” in the third act of the film. Read Busick’s full quote below:

Because the motive of the killers in [2022’s] Scream was about an idea — toxic fans killing people to provide new source material for their favorite franchise which they felt had gone off the rails — we wanted the motive in VI to be primal and emotion–based. When we landed on Richie’s family coming after Sam for revenge for killing Richie, it felt right. Although we’d seen an unhinged parent coming after our hero for revenge in 2, we had never seen a full family of psychos. The movie is ultimately about pitting two families against each other: the Baileys vs. the Carpenters and their found family, the Meeks–Martin twins.

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