Craft tip #16: Promises, Payoffs, and Scary Movies

How Rick and Morty and Scary Movie 6 Pull the Same Trick from the Tool Box

Alex Eos

Jun 21, 2026

Before we begin, this article contains spoilers for Scary Movie 6 and the opening episode of Rick and Morty Season 9.

Nothing earth-shattering. No secret government documents. No cursed museum inventories. Just enough discussion of jokes, setups, and payoffs that if you’re planning to watch either completely blind, now is your chance to flee.

The universe respects informed consent.

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When I watched Scary Movie 6, I took notes and would not shut up about it afterward.

Which prompted me to think about how this movie worked despite wannabe critics shitting on a film that opened with a global box office of $105.5 million (202 million as the time of this article), beat out Masters of the Universe, and reminded everyone that audiences still enjoy having fun in public.

The lesson we can take from both Scary Movie 6 and, most recently, Rick and Morty is simple:

Promises. Payoffs.

The beautiful little scam where a story tells the audience, “This is what you’re getting into,” and then spends the next hour or so proving it.

A joke is a promise.

The storyteller points at something and says, “Remember this.”

Then they distract you with explosions, aliens, family drama, existential dread, a serial killer, and at least two people shitting themselves on command.

The audience does not need you to hide the setup.

They need you to remember it.

The difference between a random joke and a great joke is simple:

A great joke keeps its promises.

In the first scene of Scary Movie 6, Teyana Taylor shows up on a bad Tinder date and essentially announces, “This is a Marlon Wayans movie.”

That line is not just a joke.

It is a contract with the audience.

The opening sequence is already telling you what kind of movie you are watching: celebrity self-awareness, fourth-wall jokes, topical references, absurd physical comedy, and a willingness to stop the plot dead if the joke is funny enough.

The movie does not stop there. Even while accurately parodying Scream VI, where a woman is lured outside a restaurant by Ghostface, it plays two jokes at once.

First, there is the meta joke about a parody movie called Horror Movie.

Second, there is the real-world awards joke, where Ghostface mocks Teyana Taylor for not winning the Oscar for One Battle After Another, only for her to knock him out with a Golden Globe.

The first promise Scary Movie 6 makes is not about Ghostface.

It is not about the plot.

It is not even about horror.

The first promise is that this is a Marlon Wayans movie.

Everything that follows is judged against that promise.

Now let’s pivot to Rick and Morty for one second.

Rick assigns everyone a role for the final confrontation with Evil Morty.

Beth and Summer are told to yell offensive slurs because Evil Morty apparently has a weakness for them.

Jerry is given the humiliating task of shitting his pants in fear.

The promise here is that the audience assumes this is a throwaway joke.

I thought it was too.

Jerry’s role seems useless and embarrassing compared to everyone else’s.

Then, after Evil Morty is defeated, we hear Beth and Summer execute their part of the plan off-screen.

And Jerry fulfills his destiny with the dedication of a man who has finally found his calling.

The payoff is chef’s kiss.

Scary Movie 6 sold me on three things.

Not just the funny gag with the Final Destination theme park. Not just the scene where Sara Campbell learns that her sibling Tuesday was attacked by Ghostface which is a direct reference to the latest Scream movies minus the Reference to Wednesday Adams.

What sold me was how the movie brought back Cindy Campbell.

Cindy does not return as a sacred legacy character preserved in amber. She comes back as a MAGA Republican with a shit-ton of guns, a damaged relationship with her daughter, and her daughter’s boyfriend the movie keeps quietly pointing at like, “Hey. Maybe keep an eye on this man.”

That is the promise.

Anna Faris returning is already a payoff for longtime fans, but the movie does not stop there. It uses Cindy’s return to set up an actual mystery. The boyfriend is foreshadowed multiple times as suspicious, which means the final reveal is not just random chaos. It is chaos with documentation.

The universe respects documentation.

Under protest.

Officer Doofy’s return works the same way.

The joke is not simply that Doofy is back. The joke is that the movie gives his absence a completely ridiculous explanation. Ghostface has been dormant since Scary Movie 2 because Doofy thought the pandemic was still happening.

Then, when someone asks why he is not in jail for murder, he explains that he stormed the Capitol and got pardoned.

He even pulls out a picture of himself dressed like Jacob Chansley.

That is not just a topical joke. It is a legacy payoff. The movie takes the question longtime fans would naturally ask — “Where the hell has Doofy been?” — and answers it in the dumbest, most politically cursed way possible.

Which, frankly, is very on-brand.

That is the craft lesson.

A promise does not have to be subtle.

It does not have to wear a little hat and whisper foreshadowing from behind the curtain.

Sometimes the promise is a line of dialogue.

Sometimes it is Jerry being assigned the worst job in the family.

Sometimes it is Anna Faris walking back into a franchise with guns, trauma, and a daughter who would probably like several explanations.

Sometimes it is Officer Doofy returning with the worst possible alibi in American history.

The point is not that every setup needs to be clever.

The point is that the story needs to remember what it set up.

That is where trust comes from.

The audience is willing to follow you through aliens, serial killers, fake movies, bad Tinder dates, cursed politics, and bodily fluids if they believe the story knows what it is doing.

A great joke keeps its promises.

A great story does too.

Your homework assignment this week is simple:

Pick your favorite movie, television show, book, video game, or comic.

Now find three promises.

Not plot twists.

Not surprises.

Promises.

What does the story tell you in the first ten minutes, first chapter, or first act?

Write them down.

Then ask yourself:

• Did the story keep that promise?

• Did it break that promise?

• Did it transform that promise into something bigger?

• If it failed, where did it fail?

Bonus points if you find a promise that looked like a throwaway joke.