Rick and Morty Team Shares Influences for Season 6's Horror Episode
Rick and Morty gave fans the series' first full foray into Horror with the newest episode of Season 6, and the staff behind the series opened up about all of the John Carpenter and other Horror inspirations that helped craft the episode! While Rick and Morty has played with Horror ideas in the past, the Season 6 episode "Night Family" was the first real time in the series that the packaging around these ideas was changed up in order to tell as creepy of a new story as possible. It turns out, that was absolutely the intention for this one going into it.
Rick and Morty Season 6 Episode 4, "Night Family," saw a sleeping version of the Smith Family take over and presented a full on Horror movie like presentation that included new music, lighting, and more. Opening up about the episode during Adult Swim's Inside the Episode segment released shortly after the episode's premiere, series co-creator Dan Harmon, writer Rob Schrab, and director Jacob Hair unpacked the central Horror ideas that went into making the "Night Family" episode possible. You can check it out below:
As explained by Harmon, it turns out that writer Rob Schrab's pitch for the episode in the first place was to treat it like a John Carpenter movie. Revealed to be an idea that the Rick and Morty team has been bouncing around for many seasons before landing in Season 6, its central conceit was to try and unpack the idea of being a completely different person when you're asleep compared to when you're awake. But the major thread underneath was Summer's surprising development as the villain of the episode.
It's revealed that she holds a deep-seated resentment for her grandfather, and the team behind the series wanted to explore that further in what Summer would be like as a night person. At the same time, there's actually a pretty neat full circle moment highlighted in the writing too as it brings back Rick's early dismissal of Summer that had since become a meme among fans all these years later.
But what did you think of Rick and Morty's first real Horror episode? Do you want to see the series taking on this tone again in the future? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!