How old were you when Scream came out on December 20, 1996? I had just turned 9, that same day. According to my dad, Scream (1996) wasn’t even the first horror film I had seen at that age, but it is one of my favorites. I am here for the new films, the new characters, and the new ways to die in Woodsboro and beyond, including Scream VI which premieres March 10, 2023.
With Scream VI on the horizon, set in the Big Apple, away from that small-town charm, I can only imagine the fresh ways in which Ghostface can cause havoc. Until March 10 arrives, let’s chat about the ten most creative kills in the Scream franchise in the order in which they occurred. Spoiler alert, you will find out who dies and who Ghostface is in past films.
- Tatum, played by Rose McGowan in Scream (1996), tries to wriggle her way through the doggy door of the garage to get away from the killer. Ghostface pushes the garage door clicker and watches patiently as the garage door snaps Tatum in half. It’s easily the most memorable kill in the franchise. It went beyond just your quintessential stabbing.
- The epic opening of Scream 2 continues at the premiere of Stab with the death of Maureen, played by Jada Pinkett Smith. “Phil,” wearing a Ghostface mask, comes back to his seat just before the opening kill sequence of Stab. Maureen is scared and holding on tightly to Phil’s jacket, looking away, as the roar of the theater crowd gets louder. She looks down at her hands and finds blood. Then in unison with the screen, the killer stabs her in her seat. She gets up, stunned, trying to get away, and Ghostface stabs her again in unison with the film. The crowd doesn’t notice. He keeps stabbing her parallel to the scene on the screen. Maureen climbs onto the stage and bleeds out in front of hundreds of people who didn’t know her screams were real and that she was dying.
- The Hollywood vibes in Scream 3 continue as we find ourselves in a mansion in the hills at night. The killer is stalking the group. Ghostface has cut off the lights and lured them outside. The killer then sends a fax with a script for the night. “The killer will give mercy to…whoever smells gas.” Tom, played by Matt Keesler, wants to know how it ends and runs back into the house. He can’t see, so grabs a lighter. Kaboom! The entire house blows up with him inside.
- Scream 4 brought us away from the backlots and back down to earth with love for the classic horror film. There was a small discussion about the fate of cops in horror movies. What happens? They die. In a brutal stabbing, Deputy Perkins, played by Anthony Anderson, gets a knife straight in the forehead while sitting in his police car on guard duty. The blood that comes rushing from a head wound is accurate. He may not have died instantly, but he did die quickly.
- Scream (2022) had intense kill scenes. The majority of them were brutal, gore-heavy stabbings. It’s Amber Freeman, played by Mikey Madison, that makes the last of the list. Amber is one of the killers behind the Ghostface mask. In the killer reveal scene, she has a glass bottle of hand sanitizer thrown at her face by Sidney Prescott, she is shot by Gale Weathers and thrown back onto a stove where she is burned alive, and then she is finally shot in the eye by her best friend, Tara Carpenter, for the kill shot.
One thing Scream is going to deliver on, is the kills. See what directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett have in store for us when Scream VI arrives in theaters on March 10, 2023. I am sure there will be something to remember and pay homage to the Craven-born franchise.
