With the fifth instalment in the horror series Scream on the horizon, we’ve been revisiting the four films in the franchise that have been released to-date, remembering what made them such standouts at the time of their release and indeed, timeless classics of the genre.
One of the most exciting parts of any Scream movie of course, is trying to figure out exactly who is behind the Ghostface mask. All of the killers have been brutal in their slayings, racking up an impressive 33 victims across the movies and dealing the fatal blows in some inventive ways.
Bearing that in mind, we’re taking a look back at every victim of the Ghostface killer and, exactly how they died…
Steven Orth
Many think that Drew Barrymore’s character was the first to ever die in Scream, but they’re wrong! Her boyfriend Steven Orth who was supposed to ‘kick the ass’ of Ghostface and save his high school sweetheart, was spotted gagged and bound to a chair in Casey’s garden. When she failed to answer Ghostface’s impossible question about which door he was standing at, Steven was gutted, succumbing quickly to his wounds as his insides became ‘outsides’.
Casey Becker
Once Steven had fallen, the writing was on the wall for Casey. Though her parents were on their way home, they failed to make it in time to save their daughter and instead had to listen to her last breaths, as she was stabbed to death. They then found her hanging from a tree with her entrails draping down onto the ground below. A particularly gruesome end.
Principal Arthur Himbry
As officers moved into Woodsboro High School, students were questioned and Principal Arthur Himbry would do everything in his power to help them in their investigations, including shutting down the school. This unfortunately led to the Ghostface killers decided to get rid of the headteacher, lurking in his office before brutally stabbing him to death.
Tatum Riley
One of the most memorable deaths in the entire Scream series is that of Tatum Riley, who is killed in the garage of a house party where she’s simply gone to search for more booze. When she realises the interior door has locked behind her and the lights then turn out, she begins to open the electric garage door to get out. Approaching it however, it stops halfway and as she turns round, she sees Ghostface stood at the switch. The pair engage in a struggle and though she looks to get the upper hand, her plan of escaping via cat flap lands her in mortal peril. Stuck in the small gap, Ghostface seizes the opportunity and restarts the garage door, raising Tatum’s body before eventually seeing her neck snap and head flatten.
Kenny Jonas
The unfortunate final Ghostface victim in the original Scream movie is Gale Weathers’ maligned cameraman Kenny Jonas, who puts his life on the line to save Sidney Prescott. Even after having his throat slit in his news van, in his final moments he signals Sidney to escape via the back of the vehicle, ensuring she can get to safety before he passes away.
Phil Stevens
A trip to the cinema sees Phil Stevens enjoy his final scare before being murdered in the bathroom stall. Hearing what he assumes to be two gentlemen getting up to mischief in the stall right next to him, he puts his ear to the side of his stall, only to have a knife driven through his head. It doesn’t take long for him to die once the wound has been inflicted.
Maureen Evans
Phil’s girlfriend Maureen Evans is left in her cinema seat, wondering exactly why her returning boyfriend - who is actually the man who killed him - turns up wearing a Ghostface mask. When she discovers blood on his person, she comes to the realisation that he may not be who she thinks he is - but a little too late. She is stabbed in the stomach and then the back and side before making her way to the cinema stage, where she dies in front of the sell-out crowd.
Cici Cooper
In a year that was a huge one for Sarah Michelle Gellar (1997), her part in Scream 2 became a fan-favourite, despite being one of the smaller characters playing a part in the narrative. The Omega Beta Zeta sorority house would be Cici's final living location, as she was stabbed twice in the back before being thrown off the building's second story balcony.
Randy Meeks
After pointing out the rules of surviving a serial killer in the horror movies in the original Scream film, we thought Randy would become an unbeatable legacy character. Unfortunately for him, the mother of the first Ghostface killer Billy Loomis, took exception to his berating of the now-deceased psychopath. Donning the Ghostface mask herself, Debbie Loomis slit Randy's throat in the news van, before massacring his body.
Officer Andrews
When it became clear that Sidney was the prime target of the Ghostface killer in Scream 2, she was assigned a bodyguard in the form of Officer Richard Andrews. Unfortunately for Sidney, he wasn't too good at his job, being taken by surprise at a red light and having his throat slashed.
Officer Richards
Shortly after Officer Andrews’ death, his colleague Officer Richards would also be killed. Ghostface reached into the vehicle that was escorting Sidney and her friend Hallie to beat up Officer Richards, before hijacking the car and crashing it into a large pole, which impaled the officer through the back of the head, ending his life.
Hallie McDaniel
In this same confrontation, Sidney’s friend Hallie would fall victim to Ghostface. In an attempt to escape the car wreck, Sidney and Hallie would return to the motor in the hopes of unmasking the killer, who had been knocked unconscious by the collision. Unfortunately for the pair, in the time they had fled the car and gone back to it, Ghostface had escaped. He then stabs Hallie four times in the chest, leaving her to die of her wounds whilst Sidney escapes once more.
Derek Feldman
The final character to fall victim to the Ghostface killing spree in Scream 2 is none other than Sidney's boyfriend, Derek Feldman. Though she is suspicious of history repeating itself and Derek being the killer himself, she’s proven wrong when her moment of hesitation leads to classmate Mickey and one half of the Ghostface killers in this film, shooting Derek in the heart, murdering him.
Christine Hamilton
Collateral damage is perhaps how to best describe Christine Hamilton, who is the girlfriend of Cotton Weary and the first victim of Ghostface in Scream 3. She is killed for no reason other than to draw out Sidney Prescott via Cotton, who she mistakes for the killer, hitting him over the head with a golf club before being stabbed in the back by the real Ghostface.
Cotton Weary
Another character we never thought would actually bite the dust was Cotton Weary. Unfortunately, he wasn’t long for the world when, in Scream 3, he was stabbed in the stomach following his hit to the head and finally, in the head.
Sarah Darling
As an actor in the fictional third Stab film, Sarah was locked in Sunshine Studios when she hid from a security guard, worried he could be a killer. Unfortunately, the real Ghostface lay in wait, attacking Sarah in the costume room with a punch through a window, before a deep stab wound to the back.
Steven Stone
Serving as a bodyguard to the stars on the Stab 3 set, Steven was an arrogant man who tried to strangle Ghostface even after being stabbed, but was kicked backwards, causing the knife to dig even deeper into his spine. Though he’s then knocked unconscious by several blows to the head with a frying pan, Steven struggles on to warn the group of the killer’s presence, but dies in the doorway of Jennifer Jolie’s house
Tom Prinze
Cast as Dewey Riley in Stab 3, Tom was killed in a way unlike any other we've seen in a Scream movie. As the on-set fax machine brought through messages from the Ghostface killer, Tom moved to another room to read the final part of one of the communications, sparking up his lighter to get a better view. Unfortunately for him, Ghostface had opened a gas leak and so, Tom died in the resulting explosion.
Angelina Tyler
Angelina's love for her role as Sidney in the Stab movies is sometimes jarring, but unlike the real thing, she was unable to escape Ghostface's clutches. Whilst running down a flight of stairs, she is stabbed in the chest of Ghostface before her body is dragged away by the killer.
Tyson Fox
Tyson would become the seventh victim in Scream 3, fighting Ghostface in a tense confrontation that led to him attempting to alert the police. Stabbed in the stomach, he tried to escape but was smashed against a glass cupboard, before being thrown off a balcony to his death.
Jennifer Jolie
Being selfish almost meant that Jennifer could keep her life, but when she decided to sneak out of the areas and leave the others to fend for herself, she was chased down by Ghostface. Whilst she can see both Dewey and Gale from the secret compartment she falls into, they cannot see her due to the one-way glass. Her bangs on the mirror aren't enough to save her and neither are her punches to Ghostface; she is stabbed multiple times in the torso, before Dewey shoots the mirror in front of where her body lies, resulting in her corpse falling through onto a pile of glass.
John Milton
Roman's final victim as Ghostface would be his potential own father, John Milton. Roman blamed John for the abuse that Sidney’s mother Maureen Prescott suffered and whilst he was in his son's grips, Henry tried to reason with him, offering him higher positions on the third Stab film, as well as script approval and the 'final cut'. Roman laughs that he already has it, before slashing his throat.
Marnie Cooper
When Scream would return for its fourth outing in 2011, Marnie Cooper would become the first victim of the two Ghostface killers. We don’t see Marnie’s murder in real time but, at the end of the film there is a video clip shown of Marnie being stabbed in the stomach, as the killers admit they were filming all of the deaths to ‘recreate the original’.
Jenny Randall
Marnie’s friend Jenny doesn’t last much longer, being chased down by Ghostface after seeing Marnie’s body thrown through her window. She is caught entering her garage by the killer who stabs her in the back, before she tumbles down the stairs. Though she presses the button for the electric garage door and crawls to escape, Ghostface presses it again, causing the heavy metal to crash down on her spine. Ghostface drags her back into the garage by her fight, then stabs Jenny to death. A truly gruesome death.
Olivia Morris
Olivia's death is another brutal one. Ghostface lunges out of her cupboard whilst she's on the phone to best friends Jill and Kirby, stabbing her in her left shoulder. In a struggle, she is stabbed through her left hand before being kicked against her bedside drawer. Then thrown into her dresser, she is stabbed once more, deep in the back. Olivia is then slammed into her bed where she is stabbed several times in the stomach, before being picked up and having her head smashed through the window. When Sidney finds Olivia, she has been completely gutted.
Rebecca Walters
Sidney’s publicist for her book release may be irritating, but we don’t think she deserved to end up the way she did! Chased through the hospital parking lot, Rebecca is eventually caught and stabbed in the stomach, before being thrown from the roof of the building onto a truck below, right in the middle of Dewey’s press conference. Talk about timing!
Deputy Ross Hoss and Detective Anthony Perkins
Joking around instead of taking their job seriously, this Deputy and Detective are both stabbed to death by Ghostface, with Detective Perkins’ murder in particular being a grisly one. He is stabbed right in the centre of his head, before denouncing Bruce Willis and succumbing to his wounds.
Kate Roberts
Jill would don the Ghostface mask and murder her own mother in a moment of madness, as she attempted to get inside her house to get at both Kate and Sidney. Though the pair manage to block the door to stop her entry, Kate is stabbed right in the back through the letterbox at the bottom of the door. It’s a truly tragic slaughter.
Robbie Mercer
Though he thinks revealing his sexuality might be a way to stay alive, Robbie is slaughtered by Ghostface as Scream 4 lurches towards its dramatic conclusion. Stabbed in the back and the chest, Robbie tries to escape but is stabbed once more in the stomach. We see his final moments, drenched in blood, as he goes to Kirby’s front door in an attempt to warn them of the killer. There, he dies.
Kirby Reed
We’re including Kirby here even though it has never officially been confirmed whether she died. Commentary by late director Wes Craven on the DVD release said that a scene in which she survived was cut from the film, and so we’re unsure as to whether or not that survival is now canon. If she does die, it is due to being stabbed twice in the stomach by Charlie, who is furious she never noticed him as a potential love interest until recent days.
Trevor Sheldon
Jill and Charlie have a plan to set up Trevor as the killer, hoping to come out of the tragedies as the two sole survivors. Jill shoots Trevor in his nether-regions after visibly getting upset about how he had been with another woman, before shooting him in the head.
Charlie Walker
Shockingly, one half of the Ghostface killers in Scream 4 is killed by the other. Jill thinks the public will be fonder of her if she is the sole survivor and so, when she’s supposed to only stab Charlie in the shoulder, she instead plants her knife deep in his stomach and chest.
With Scream (2022) hitting cinemas on Friday, January 14th, we’re sure we’ll have a handful or two of other victims to add to this list!
MORE: Seven things even the biggest Scream fans may not know about the classic horror movie
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