On the heels of the anniversary of Scream (1996), slasher, horror and meta enthusiasts will be looking forward to the premiere of the latest installation in the franchise, Scream 5, this January. It’s set a full 10 years after we left our dynamic trio after they thwarted yet another Ghostface killer. Naturally, Sidney Prescott’s luck never changes, and she, Dewey Riley and Gale Weathers will once again have to face another incarnation of Ghostface.
Unfortunately, director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson did not return for Scream 5, with the former unfortunately passing away in 2015. Hopefully, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett will give us a combination of good old-fashioned bloody horror, and maybe a dash of some new tricks to distinguish themselves.
This gives us a perfect opportunity to look back at the long-running franchise, and what makes Scream so entertaining and endearing. There’s definitely a lot to be said for the Ghostface kills, which are numerous but usually enjoyable. So, we’re doing a ranking of all of the murders Ghostface committed throughout the series.
This does not include murders that happen in any of the Stab movies, nor any kills that our main heroes commit. And, of course, spoilers ahead!
32. Sarah Darling (Jenny McCarthy)
Film: Scream 3 (2000)
Cause of Death: stabbed in the torso
Scream 3 is easily the weakest entry in the Scream franchise, notably not written by Williamson, and lacking a lot of the witty dialogue and entertainment value that made the others so fun. And the movie is certainly not helped by Jenny McCarthy, who plays Sarah Darling, a bit actor in Stab 3. Receiving a call from Ghostface, Darling gets scared and hides in the wardrobe department, surrounded by other Ghostface masks and outfits. Hiding among the costumes, the real Ghostface jumps out and stabs Darling to death. This would be higher up on the list if it weren’t for McCarthy’s lackluster performance, who gives an all-around unmemorable death.
31. Christine Hamilton (Kelly Rutherford)
Film: Scream 3 (2000)
Cause of Death: stabbed in the torso
Christine Hamilton barely gets a name in the third Scream and is killed within the first 15 minutes of the movie. Hamilton is Cotton Weary’s girlfriend, who unceremoniously dies simply because of that connection. Her death is forgettable and provides no more purpose than to raise the body count.
30. Officer Richards (Chris Doyle)
Film: Scream 2 (1997)
Cause of Death: stabbed in the neck
In Scream 2, Sidney gets two police officers assigned to protection detail. Naturally, they die relatively soon. While driving Sidney to a safe house, Officer Richards gets stabbed in the neck by Ghostface after encountering some road work. His death isn’t great but does provide a great jump scare that will lead us to the climax of the film.
29. Ross Hoss (Adam Brody)
Film: Scream 4 (2011)
Cause of Death: stabbed in the back
Similar to the previous entry, Officer Ross Hoss is assigned to protect Sidney and the Roberts during Scream 4. In another jump scare, Ghostface stabs Ross Hoss in the back, which makes this death not very interesting or meaningful.
28. Steven Stone (Patrick Warburton)
Film: Scream 3 (2000)
Cause of Death: stabbed in the back
Police officers and security details don’t usually survive very long in Scream movies — they’re basically the red shirts of the franchise. Steven Stone is a celebrity bodyguard hired to protect Jennifer Jolie as more and more members of the Stab 3 cast are killed. Again, unsurprisingly, Stone dies while taking a sweep of Jolie’s house, as Ghostface pops out of Dewey’s trailer and stabs him in the back.
27. John Milton (Lance Henriksen)
Film: Scream 3 (2000)
Cause of Death: throat slit
Yet another Scream 3 entry towards the bottom of the list, John Milton is one of the producers of Stab 3. He was also responsible for pimping out a young and innocent Maureen Reynolds while at one of his parties. Kidnapped by Ghostface, he has his throat slit as the killer blames him for setting off the chain of events that led to all the Scream movies. This character doesn’t inspire much love, nor do we feel much vindication at his death, so John Milton’s murder is quite boring.
26. Angelina Tyler (Emily Mortimer)
Film: Scream 3 (2000)
Cause of Death: stabbed in the torso
Unquestionably, all of the Stab 3 cast had to die in Scream 3. The very point of introducing these characters is for them to be killed for our amusement. However, this could have been the franchise’s opportunity to be more creative and fun with their deaths, instead of the usual knifing to the chest. Angelina Tyler, who was cast to play Sidney in Stab 3, dies in this way, just another knife to the torso.
25. Tyson Fox (Deon Richmond)
Film: Scream 3 (2000)
Cause of Death: stabbed in the torso and thrown off roof
Her castmate Tyson Fox is also stabbed in the torso, but at least his death is a little more enjoyable as he is also thrown off the roof. The blood seeping out of his head makes for a nice welcome mat for Sidney when she comes to rescue her friends at the climax of the film.
24. Jenny Randall (Aimee Teegarden)
Film: Scream 4 (2011)
Cause of Death: stabbed in torso
Jenny Randall and her friend Marnie Cooper open the fourth Scream movie as they are brutally murdered. Attractive blondes who make all the wrong decisions while being stalked by Ghostface, Jenny’s death is enjoyable and satisfying, proof that the Scream movies always know how to craft an opening scene. Although this is the least entertaining of the Scream film openings, Jenny’s death still marks our entry into some of the better deaths in the franchise.
23. Hallie McDaniel (Elise Neal)
Film: Scream 2 (1997)
Cause of Death: stabbed in the torso
As with most of Sidney’s friends, poor Hallie McDaniel makes it almost to the end of the movie. Hallie is Sidney’s best friend and roommate in Scream 2, and despite the increasing danger to her life, never leaves Sidney’s side. Ghostface pops out after they escape a car crash, and stabs her to death as Sidney watches. Hallie deserved a better death scene, but this one is at least good enough.
22. Principal Arthur Himbry (Henry Winkler)
Film: Scream (1996)
Cause of Death: stabbed in the gut
The original Scream’s first entry into the list! Principal Arthur Himbry’s death is seemingly random, one of the few adults who Ghostface kills in the first movie. We do get an amazing shot during Himbry’s death, where Ghostface appears in the reflection of Himbry’s terrified eye. Even more macabre and entertaining though, is the fact that Ghostface strings Himbry up on a football goal post to lure partygoers away later that night. Unfortunately, we do not get to see that image, as it is performed off-screen.
21. Rebecca Walters (Alison Brie)
Film: Scream 4 (2011)
Cause of Death: stabbed in the gut and thrown off roof
Alison Brie notably plays annoying and hateful characters, and her role as Sidney’s book publicist in Scream 4 continues this streak. Therefore, her death scene is all the more enjoyable as viewers relish seeing Rebecca Walters viciously stabbed in the gut. The combination of the sound effects and Brie’s acting really sell this death scene, which is only further exacerbated by Ghostface flinging her body off the roof of a parking garage into an official public statement by the Woodsboro police force.
20. Steve Orth (Kevin Patrick Walls)
Film: Scream (1996)
Cause of Death: disemboweled by knife
Unless you’ve seen Scream many, many times, you’re probably not familiar with the name Steve Orth. With no lines and barely any screen time, the name isn’t that memorable. However, he is Casey Becker’s boyfriend, who is also Ghostface’s first kill of the entire franchise. And it’s a super memorable one. We do not even expect this character to show up, since, at this point, we’ve only seen Ghostface harassing and stalking Casey for the past 10 minutes. So for another character to show up and be brutally disemboweled is quite the shocker. It also lets the audience quickly know that this is indeed a slasher horror film, and while it may have moments of levity and humor, it will certainly be bloody.
19. Kenny Jones (W. Earl Brown)
Film: Scream (1996)
Cause of Death: throat slit
Kenny Jones is Gale Weathers’ cameraman in the first Scream movie and unsurprisingly ends up dead. His death scene is a great one though, as Ghostface pops up out of nowhere once again and slits Kenny’s throat. Ghostface then places Kenny on top of the news van, so when Gale Weathers attempts to escape, she is confronted by his dead body and rivers of his blood down the windshield.
18. Cici Cooper (Sarah Michelle Gellar)
Film: Scream 2 (1997)
Cause of Death: stabbed in the back and thrown off roof
The cast of Scream 2 is littered with Williamson veterans, who broke onto the teen scene in the late ‘90s with the help of the first Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Dawson’s Creek. Sarah Michelle Gellar famously signed on to Scream 2 without reading the script due to the success of the first, and while her character only gets two scenes, her death is pretty fun and entertaining.
Running all around the house in a deluded and desperate attempt to get away from Ghostface, Cici Cooper finally meets her end at the terrace on the top floor of the sorority house. Ghostface stabs her in the back multiple times and then tosses her flailing body off the roof as she screams. Ghostface loves tossing bodies in and out of houses throughout the series, and this is the first notable instance of his penchant.
17. Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber)
Film: Scream 3 (2000)
Cause of Death: stabbed in the chest
Part of what makes the Scream series so enduring is its reliable unpredictability. Audiences assume that no one is safe, but by the third movie, there are some familiar faces that seem likely to stick around. But Scream 3 opens to dispel this idea by killing Cotton Weary, a character who has appeared in the first two movies and had quite a significant role in Scream 2. While he may not die in a very interesting way, as Ghostface just stabs him in the chest, his death itself proves that the franchise keeps audiences on its toes.
16. Jennifer Jolie (Parker Posey)
Film: Scream 3 (2000)
Cause of Death: stabbed in gut
The remarkable Parker Posey plays Jennifer Jolie, an actress cast as Gale Weathers in Stab 3, and she’s easily the best new cast member to the series in a while. Delivering every line with sharp wit, playing off Courteney Cox’s own Gale and hamming it up every possible moment, Posey’s death is memorable simply because she is.
As she’s being chased by Ghostface through hidden passageways in John Milton’s house, Jolie has the audacity to tell Ghostface to go away and that she’s not afraid of him. It’s a moment of levity much needed after a couple of boring kills earlier. With a heavy dash of dramatic irony, Ghostface stabs her in the gut while she tries to get Dewey’s attention through a two-way mirror, and crashes through with a bang.
15. Marnie Cooper (Britt Robertson)
Film: Scream 4 (2011)
Cause of Death: stabbed off-screen and thrown through a window
The first kill of Scream 4 is slightly high on our list even though the character is killed off-screen. Marnie Cooper is a formulaic antithesis to the more attractive Jenny Randall, and the former’s death serves as a way to only terrify the latter more.
However, the fact that Ghostface throws Marnie through a window into the house makes this death more interesting. Ghostface normally throws victims out of the window to accentuate their death and give audiences a gorier scene. In a reversal of events yet again, the Scream franchise continues to surprise, and it’s also just hilarious to imagine one of the killers throwing a body through a window.
14. Kate Roberts (Mary McDonnell)
Film: Scream 4 (2011)
Cause of Death: stabbed through the mailslot
Scream 4 certainly had a large body count, with the cause of death ranging from the classic and standard to the absurd and ridiculous. But the deaths that skewed towards the latter were much more entertaining. And none were as silly as Kate Roberts’ death by stabbing through the mailslot. At first, it seems impossible that Ghostface was able to kill Kate through a solid front door, but after her body slides off the knife, we see the gleeful Ghostface mask instead of your friendly mailman.
13. Tom Prinze (Matt Keeslar)
Film: Scream 3 (2000)
Cause of Death: explosion from a gas leak
The highest death from Scream 3 would be Tom Prinze, yet another cast member from Stab 3. He’s the best Scream 3 kill because he’s openly the most stupid and the most fantastical death scene in the series. Whilst being chased by Ghostface, the cast members, Gale, and Dewey get threatening messages via fax. Naturally, everyone gets out of the house to avoid being hunted down.
Tom stays inside the house to read the last fax. Since Ghostface killed the lights, Tom uses his lighter to read the last fax. And it hints that Ghostface created a gas leak, which kills Tom and creates an explosion so big that it destroys the house and sends the rest of the cast rolling down the hill. It’s ridiculous and over-the-top, but it’s still hilariously fun in the same way.
