Warning: This article contains spoilers for Scream.
One of the actors who played the Ghostface killer in Scream created a Reddit account to help him get into character. Scream, the fifth film in the meta slasher franchise, came to theaters on January 14, 2022, becoming the first film to knock Spider-Man: No Way Home from its hold on the #1 weekend slot. The film, which was directed by Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin from the filmmaking collective Radio Silence, is a "re-quel" that combines new characters including final girl siblings Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) with legacy characters from the original films, including the main trio of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Dewey Riley (David Arquette), and Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox).
It is eventually revealed that the killers behind the mask are Tara's friend Amber (Mikey Madison) and Sam's boyfriend Richie (Jack Quaid). They have orchestrated their friendships with people related to characters from the previous films in an attempt to create the inspiration for a new Stab movie, because they consider the franchise - which is based on the "real life" events of the Scream films - to have gone off the rails. This reveal emphasizes Scream's overall theme of how toxic fandom has risen to the fore in recent years.
During a Reddit AMA with Radio Silence, a user called StabHead asked them "Did any of the actors go above and beyond to prepare for their roles?" Their response was "We were meeting with Jack to talk about his character and he told us that he had created a Reddit account under the name StabHead to... wait a minute... WE LOVE YOU JACK QUAID!!!," revealing that it was Quaid himself who had asked the question. Evidently, he had created the StabHead account over a year ago to anonymously explore the type of fandom threads his character would have been spending time on.
StabHead's activity reveals a lot about his character in the movie, now that his true identity has been revealed. He had created several threads about what makes a good horror film, from which his character would have presumably drawn inspiration. His activity also underscores Scream's reference to Rian Johnson, saying that he directed the much-maligned Stab movie as a reference to the fervor around his Star Wars film The Last Jedi. His very first thread was titled "The Last Jedi RUINED Star Wars," and while it didn't garner too many comments, the ones he got certainly provided plenty of fodder to fuel his character.
Scream fans who were desperately searching for clues to the movie's plot before its release are probably banging their heads on their keyboards now that they know this information has been sitting on the internet for an entire year. Not only is it a fun easter egg to investigate after the fact, but it also fits in perfectly with the film itself. Quaid's clever character prep adds yet another layer of meta to the franchise, which has always been invested in the way that fans watch and digest films, particularly horror.
Source: Radio Silence