Unmasking The ‘Scream 6’ Killer
Scream 6 is one of the goriest and most brutal entries in the film franchise. As was teased in advertisements, the Scream 6 killer is “something different.” Of course, there isn’t just one killer in the latest Scream film. In fact, it was a whole family of three.
Detective Wayne Bailey (Dermot Mulroney) was the criminal mastermind behind the entire plan, but he had help in the form of his children, Quinn (Liana Liberato) and Ethan (Jack Champion). This list acts as a timeline for who killed whom, as well as a breakdown of how they really made all of it happen.
For the first time in the film franchise, there are actually three Ghostface killers, revealed to be Detective Bailey, Quinn Bailey, and Ethan Landry. The film also began with a murder by Jason Carvey (Tony Revolori), but he wasn't the real deal, and is dispatched quite quickly.
The Detective, Quinn, and Ethan are actually the remaining family members of Richie Kirsch (Jack Quaid), the Ghostface who was killed by Samantha Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) in Scream (2022). They wanted to make Sam suffer for taking away their son/brother.
Ethan did juke the roommate lottery, and Quinn was the one who started the rumors that Sam was the mastermind behind the recent Woodsboro killings. Detective Bailey used his position to trick everyone into thinking Quinn was dead, as well as to help stock Richie's Ghostface shrine with evidence.
Jason Carvey kills Laura Crane.
You may have been surprised to see a Ghostface reveal so early on in the movie, but that's because Revolori's Jason is just a fan, one of Richie Kirsch's college friends who wanted to finish his movie.
He and his roommate Greg planned to kill Tara (Jenna Ortega) and Sam for their late friend, but sociopathic Jason just can't seem to wait. He brutally murders their film teacher at Blackmore University, Laura Crane (Samara Weaving), for giving him a C on a paper.
Detective Wayne Bailey kills Jason and his roommate Greg.
Detective Wayne Bailey definitely did the heavy lifting when it came to avenging his son, but it was also his plan, so it makes sense. After framing Jason and Greg for the Ghostface shrine, Wayne murdered and dismembered Greg, and left him in their apartment fridge.
Afterwards, he followed Jason, watched as the college student killed his professor, and then gave him a taste of his own medicine, taunting him with a Ghostface call, stabbing him multiple times, and then dealing one last blow after saying, “Who gives a f*** about the movies?” Wayne then leaves Sam's ID at the crime scene to try and frame her for their murders. He leaves the Richie Kirsch and Amber Freeman (Mikey Madison) Ghostface masks behind.
Wayne kills three at the bodega.
It was a busy night for Wayne, because after that, he used the ID as a way to lure Sam outside, by saying she had to come to the police station. Once they were outside, he attacked Sam and Tara, chasing them into a Bodega, in one of the film's most stressful scenes.
He kills two customers, before stealing the Bodega clerk's shotgun, and getting rid of him as well. Sam and Tara manage to run outside, and the police arrive, so Wayne runs out the back door, leaving the Jill Roberts (Emma Roberts) and Charlie Walker (Rory Culkin) Ghostface masks behind.
His plan to frame Sam for the murders of Jason and Greg is thwarted when he realizes she was with her therapist, Dr. Christopher Stone (Henry Czerny), at the time of the crime.
Detective Bailey kills Dr. Christopher Stone.
After learning of Sam's alibi, Wayne goes to Dr. Stone's house, and stabs him in the nose, right through the window of the his door. He breaks in, finishes the doctor off, and then steals Sam's file. He leaves Roman Bridger's (Scott Foley) Ghostface mask behind.
He later tries to blame that on Sam, too, but FBI agent Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere), who is helping him on the case, is not buying it, asking, “So Sam kills her own alibi and steals her own session notes?”
Ethan Landry kills 'Paul 2.0' and Anika Kayako.
Ethan Landry tells Chad (Mason Gooding) he has econ, while everyone else heads back to Sam and Tara's apartment. That night, Ethan sneaks into the apartment, and is spotted by Danny Brackett (Josh Segarra) across the alley, who tries to warn Sam. Ethan brutally kills Quinn’s date, “Paul 2.0,” leaving him in the bathtub.
He throws Quinn’s “dead body” onto Anika (Devyn Nekoda), surprising the group. At this point, Wayne had already swapped in a decoy for Quinn’s body, so everyone else thought she was dead. He also began acting emotional about his whole family being dead, so no one would catch onto the fact that he is the mastermind.
Things get really sad, really fast, as Ethan slices Mindy’s arm, before stabbing her girlfriend, Anika Kayako, in the stomach. She, Sam, and Mindy run into the bathroom - where they see Paul’s body - before barricading themselves in a bedroom. Danny holds a ladder across their two windows, and Sam and Mindy successfully make it across.
As Anika is trying to climb across, while bleeding out from the wound in her stomach, Ethan finally forces his way into the bedroom, and begins shaking the ladder. As Mindy watches, unable to do anything to help her, Anika falls to her death.
Quinn kills Brooks and stabs Gale Weathers.
Detective Bailey devises a plan to try to lure out Ghostface, along with the help of the Core Four, Kirby, and Ethan. It’s actually a setup, establishing Wayne and Ethan’s alibis while Quinn - who everyone else thinks is dead - goes to Gale’s (Courteney Cox) place to attack her.
Quinn calls Gale, taunting her about the death of her former husband, Dewey Riley (David Arquette). Somehow, while doing that, Quinn also manages to kill Gale’s muscular boyfriend, Brooks (Thomas Cadrot), and throw him through a bookshelf. This sets off the Gale vs. Ghostface tussle that brought home the MTV Movie Award for best fight scene.
Quinn chases Gale throughout her luxe apartment, each of them taking turns with the upper hand. When Gale grabs her gun, it looks like she might be the victor, as Quinn calls claiming she left the apartment. She was in a closet though, getting shot at by Gale.
Unsurprisingly, seeing as her dad is a cop, Quinn had a bulletproof vest on. So she was able to jump out of the closet unharmed, and stab Gale multiple times. Tara and Sam steal Bailey's police car, and arrive just as Quinn is about to finish Gale off. She flees, leaving behind the Mickey Altieri Ghostface mask.
Quinn stabs Mindy Meeks-Martin.
Tara comes up with a plan to trap Ghostface in the shrine. Wayne tells them to travel in public for “safety.” However, Mindy and Ethan get separated from everyone else, which was likely the plan, as Quinn sneaks onto the train in the Ghostface costume, and corners Mindy.
She muffles Mindy’s screams, and everyone is so used to minding their own business on the subway, that no one notices what’s happening. Ethan uses this moment to maintain his cover, by running to Mindy’s aid, helping her until she gets taken to the hospital.
Quinn and Ethan subdue Kirby Reed and Detective Bailey tries to frame her.
After Mindy is taken to the hospital, Ethan meets up with Quinn, and goes to the theater. Quinn wears Stu Macher’s (Matthew Lillard) Ghostface mask, while Ethan wears the one belonging to Sam’s paternal grandmother, Nancy Loomis (Laurie Metcalf).
They attack Kirby, knocking her out so their dad can frame her for the murders. Wayne accomplishes this task by calling Sam to tell her that Kirby had been discharged from the FBI for mental health reasons after the Woodsboro murders from the previous year.
Quinn and Ethan stab Tara Carpenter and Chad Meeks-Martin.
One Ghostface surprises Tara and Chad during a romantic moment, stabbing her, and then chasing the pair, along with Sam, through the theater, and back out into the lobby. Sam and Tara help Chad fight off one Ghostface. Chad gets a good punch in, and Tara kicks the killer while they’re down.
Thinking Chad just needed to finish him off, the girls turn to run back into the theater, but are surprised by Ghostface number two. Ethan and Quinn go on to brutally stab Chad at least 10 times, before leaving him for dead to chase the Carpenter sisters.
Detective Bailey shoots Kirby twice.
Two Ghostfaces have Sam and Tara surrounded, but a bloodied Kirby emerges with her gun, and sends them running. She’s trying to tell Sam and Tara that she was attacked, but then Wayne arrives, insisting Kirby is the killer. While Kirby tries to plead her case, the other Ghostfaces join their father, and Wayne uses the opportunity to shoot Kirby twice. He then admits, “Yeah, of course, me,” before both of his children reveal themselves.
Ethan admits Mindy was right, and he did juke the roommate lottery to live with Chad. Quinn reveals that she did not, in fact, die. After Ethan and Quinn share which Ghostface masks they were wearing, Wayne finally explains what the mask countdown has all been about. They have been building up to this moment, when they would present Sam with her father’s - Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) - Ghostface mask, and murder her and Tara for what they did to his son, Richie Kirsch.
Tara hits Quinn with a brick, and Ethan stabs Kirby in her old wound.
“When Dad here ‘discovers’ your horribly mutilated bodies, posed with Sam wearing her father’s mask, he’ll say some poor dumb bas***d read on the Internet that you’re the real Ghostface, and took matters into their own deluded hands,” Ethan explains. It's the “perfect alibi.” They created the rumors that Sam had orchestrated the Woodsboro murders to kill Richie, and were using it to formulate a new story about her death, to keep their names out of it.
Once Sam realizes who she is dealing with, she begins taunting Wayne, saying his son was a baby and cried while she slit his throat. This leads Quinn to try to attack her, but Tara wasn’t going to let that happen. She smashes Quinn in the face with a brick. Kirby pops back up, shooting her gun at Wayne, which only briefly knocks him out, since he’s wearing a bulletproof vest. Ethan takes the opportunity to go after Kirby, stabbing her, not only with the same knife Charlie used in Scream 4, but in the same exact place. He taunts her saying, “Recognize this?”
Sam stabs Ethan five times.
Sam rushes over, smacks Ethan in the head with a brick, and apologizes to Kirby before taking the knife right out of her gut. She stabs Ethan over and over again, only stopping when Tara calls for her. The sisters begin climbing to the balcony of the theater, but a misstep leads Tara to slip, and Sam struggles to hold onto her. Ethan tries to stab at her from below, while, Quinn makes her way to the balcony with a knife, her eyes set on Sam.
Ethan stabs Tara, and she returns the favor. Sam shoots Quinn in the head.
Sam hands Tara the knife, and lets her go. As she drops to the floor, she gets stabbed by Ethan, but then she more than makes up for it, getting the upper hand on him. She stabs him through the mouth, and twists the knife. Then she pulls the knife out, telling him, “Now die a f***ing virgin!”
As they're fighting below, Quinn approaches Sam on the balcony, taunting her with a knife. However, Sam has Kirby's gun, and uses it to quickly dispatch with her former roommate.
Sam kills Detective Bailey.
Wayne reaches Sam just after she shoots and kills his daughter. It looks like she’s about to shoot him, too, but the gun doesn’t work. Instead, she runs at him, screaming, and the two barrel into each other, and fall over the balcony. Wayne lands on a display case, smashing it and getting knocked out - giving Sam the upper hand.
When Wayne wakes up, he gets his own Ghostface call from Sam, who asks the infamous question, “What’s your favorite scary movie?” After teasing him a bit, Sam, wearing her father’s Ghostface costume, pops out from behind Wayne, and stabs him over 30 times. She almost lets him go after that. However, Tara seems to give her a look of approval, so Sam finishes him off with a stab right to the eye.
Kirby takes down Ethan with the TV that killed Stu Macher ('If you believe he's dead.').
It wouldn’t be a Scream movie if there wasn’t a “moment when the supposedly dead killer comes back to life for one last scare.” In this case, it’s Ethan who comes running at Sam and Tara the minute they think they can finally relax.
Luckily, Kirby also manages to pop back up, and solidifies herself as a franchise fan-favorite by pushing the same TV that killed Stu right onto Ethan’s head.
This article originally appeared on Ranker.com.
