Hey guys I’m Kya and I wanna know:
Do you like scary movies?
You know I do, and I’m a big fan of Wes Craven’s ‘Scream.’
Mostly thanks to its star, the crank-calling killer known as Ghostface.
There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie!
Every Scream movie features a new killer or killers inside the iconic disguise,
And beneath the dollar-store Halloween mask, they’re pretty much just normal people.
But they can take one hell of a beating and never stay down for long.
Seven different serial killers wore the costume throughout the Scream films,
but we’ll try and find some common ground in our quest to teach you
How to Kill Ghostface
In the brilliant first film of the franchise,
we’re introduced to Ghostface in one of the most legendary openings in horror history.
Do you like scary movies?
Uh huh.
What's your favorite scary movie?
Um... I dunno...
He torments Drew Barrymore with movie trivia over the phone before gutting her like a fish.
I'd also like to say, if Ghostface had called me, I would have been fine.
Tell me, Kya, do you know Leatherface's real name in 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation?'
Nevermind, I'm dead.
And he rips through the rest of Sidney Prescott’s friends without too much trouble.
After plenty of stabbing and some garage door gore,
audiences in 1996 were in for a shocking reveal:
In what would become a series tradition, the lone slasher was secretly two psychos in a tag team:
Sidney's boyfriend Billy Loomis and his shaggy friend Stu.
What's the matter, Sidney? You look like you've seen a ghost.
Why are you doing this?
It's all part of the game, Sidney!
It's called 'Guess how I'm gonna die!'
Forget you!
Ruh roh!
Billy blamed Sidney's mother for breaking up his family, and Stu was just an impressionable teen who watched
Too Much TV.
Billy and Stu reveal their plan to get off scot-free as survivors of the massacre.
In order to look authentic, the two take turns stabbing each other in the gut,
Find her, you dipshit, get up!
I can't, Billy, you cut me too deep! I think I'm dying here, man!
Y'all are just the stupidest...
Y'all were so smart, and then just turned stupid.
The wound might have been enough to finish him off, but Stu never even gets a chance to bleed to death.
During a struggle with Sidney, she drops a giant tube TV
playing John Carpenter’s ‘Halloween’ right on his face.
In the words of Wes Craven’s other creation:
Welcome to primetime, bitch!
As for Billy, Sydney outwits him by donning the Ghostface outfit herself and stabbing him in the chest.
It’s not enough to stop him, but it softens him up for pesky reporter Gale Weathers to
Blow Him Away.
Well, almost.
It wouldn’t be a horror movie without one last scare right?
This is the moment when the supposedly dead killer comes back to life for one last scare...
So Sidney shoots him in the head and gets the credit for the final kill.
Rule #2. Always double tap.
The first ‘Scream’ established a lot of precedents for Ghostface.
Like his signature blade-cleaning gesture,
magic voice-changer,
Suprise, Sidney!
and a level of clumsiness you don’t usually see in a slasher.
Seriously, when he’s not getting his ass kicked Ghostface is constantly tripping and flopping around.
Despite his two left feet, it’s clear that he was just too cool to kill off after one film.
So Wes Craven brought him back for the sequel… Kind of.
‘Scream 2’ introduced us to the first in a long line of copycats.
After a brutal murder at the premiere of ‘Stab,’ a movie based on the events of the first ‘Scream,’
a new Ghostface hunts Sidney across her college, killing anyone who gets in his path,
including poor Randy, who miraculously survived the first film.
R.I.P., Randy.
This killer is a deranged movie fan named Mickey, but of course he’s not acting alone.
The mastermind behind the scenes is Billy’s mom, Mrs. Loomis.
She recruits Mickey from a “psycho website” and pays his tuition.
Had to have financing. Tuition's expensive. Deb there, my backer.
Met on the Internet. Psycho websites, classifieds...
In exchange, he helps her get bloody revenge on Sidney for killing her son.
Y’know, besides the haircuts, this is the most dated thing in the movie.
I mean, considering what college costs today, she could have hired a professional hitman for way less.
Anways, Mickey seems like a smart kid.
I definitely agree with him about ‘Godfather 2’ being superior.
But he really should have watched out for that last minute
Double Cross
Mickey wanted to be caught so he could blame everything on horror movies and bask in the limelight.
Mrs. Loomis was having none of that, so she shoots him in the chest and leaves him for dead.
Mickey... There's not gonna be a trial!
We all know that’s a big no-no in ‘Scream.’
Mickey gets up for the traditional last scare, but Gale and Sidney fill him with so much lead he literally does a backflip.
As for Mrs. Loomis, she dies with some unwitting help from
Diane Sawyer.
Betcha that Diane Sawyer interview is looking real good right about now.
In the first movie, the murder of Sidney’s mother was blamed on a man named Cotton Weary.
Also, who the heck names their kid Cotton?
I'm Cotton Hill, and I killed fifty men!
He was innocent, Billy killed her and framed Cotton for the crime.
But in ‘Scream 2,’ Cotton is desperate to clear his name and cash in on his fame.
He’s on Sidney’s ass about an interview with Diane Sawyer, but she just wants to put the whole thing behind her.
All I'm asking is one little freaking Diane Sawyer interview to get my side of the story straight.
Now I don't think I'm being unreasonable in that request, Sidney.
Like, who can blame her? Mom's dead, dad almost died, she almost died, her friends are dead.
Like, c'mon.
[OFFSCREEN] Also I would have definitely held out for Barbara Walters.
I'd hold out for Oprah, man!
Oh yeah. ALWAYS hold out for Oprah.
Later, when Mrs. Loomis has her at knifepoint, Cotton is torn between which one to shoot.
Heh heh... Torn...
Sid finally caves and agrees to the interview,
Consider it done.
which is all Cotton needs.
With dreams of Diane Sawyer dancing in his head, he shoots Mama Loomis and saves Sidney,
who finishes her off with a shot to the head...
Just in case.
‘Scream 3’ was a historic first for the series:
It’s the only movie with a solo Ghostface.
Roman Bridger, the director of the latest shitty ‘Stab’ sequel, to be precise.
Turns out, he’s Sidney’s long-lost brother and the secret mastermind of the whole franchise.
Roman Bridger, director... and brother.
He was the one who poisoned Billy Loomis’ mind and set him on the path to murder,
But by the third movie, Roman has taken matters into his own hands.
As the ultimate Ghostface, he’s got some upgrades,
like a fancy new voice-changer that can impersonate anybody,
Is this Woody?
and a bulletproof vest.
If you're gonna kill people, protect yourself.
Sidney’s got the same idea, and fakes her brother out long enough to get the drop on him and
Stab Him in the Heart.
That would be enough to kill any mortal man,
but since it’s a ‘Scream’ movie, he comes back from the dead before the credits roll.
David Arquette’s clueless cop Dewey pumps some lead into his chest armor,
before Sidney tells him the obvious and he blows Roman’s head off.
Head! Shoot him in the head!
As usual, when slasher movies change the rules and retcon everything into a big conspiracy,
it was time for Ghostface to take a break.
By the time Scream 4 was released eleven years later, the meta-commentary had switched targets.
Instead of old ‘80s slasher tropes, ‘Scream 4’ was all about the remake mania that’s still sweeping cinema.
Oh my God, I love it. I 've seen it five times and it still gets me every time!
The new ‘Ghostface’ is Jill Roberts, Sidney’s cousin.
She’s jealous of Sidney’s notoriety and basically wants to become her,
so, with the help of her geeky boyfriend Charlie, the two set out to recreate Ghostface’s glory days with a good ol’ stabbing spree.
What the heck?!
At the end, Jill and Charlie play the parts of Billy and Stu.
Just like the killers from the first ‘Scream,’ they agree to stab each other and pretend to be innocent victims.
But Jill doesn’t want to share the spotlight, so she turns on Charlie with
A Cut Too Far.
Her plan actually seems to work for a while.
The town of Woodsboro thinks she’s a hero, but Jill gets a nasty surprise when she arrives at the hospital.
Sidney is alive, and she stops her cousin with
A Defibrillator to the Brain.
Look, I know it’s not the most clever title, but after all these ‘How to Kills’ I’ve run out of electricity puns.
Sometimes a defibrillator to the brain is just a defibrillator to the brain.
And sometimes, it’s still not enough to kill a psychotic slasher.
In the final jump scare of the ‘Scream’ movies, Jill attacks Sidney with a shard of glass until she gets put down by a shot to the chest.
Nice one!
‘Scream 4’ looks like the end of the franchise as far as movies go.
It was the last film Wes Craven directed before he passed away,
and its poor box-office performance means we probably won’t see Ghostface on the silver screen for a while.
But on TV, ‘Scream’ is still going strong.
It’s hard for me to think of this killer as Ghostface because, y’know, he’s wearing a different mask.
The original design was copyrighted and MTV couldn’t work it out, so the killer got a new face, and I’m not really a fan.
Gah, ugh, ooh, eww!
Honestly, the mask from Scary Movie was more unsettling.
And by the way, Doofy lives, so he’s technically a better Ghostface than anyone else on this list.
Season 3 of ‘Scream’ is rebooting with a new cast and a new setting,
but we’re gonna be treated to at least one familiar face:
Ghostface, that is.
The classic mask is back, and so is my interest in the series.
The horror genre is always evolving, and I’m sure ‘Scream’ will too.
Maybe in the future Ghostface will be reinvented as a killer clown,
or a creepy doll that makes crank calls.
Honestly I’m shocked we haven’t gotten a gory Michael Bay remake yet.
No matter what he looks like, though,
killing Ghostface isn’t really a problem.
Most of the time, a simple bullet will do the trick.
The hard part is finding out who he is, and, y’know, how many people he is.
It also doesn’t hurt to watch a shitload of scary movies.
Because if you know the rules, you just might survive.
At least, until the sequel.