In 1996, Wes Craven’s Scream ushered in a whole new breed of horror, one in which the trappings and tropes of slasher films were more than just readily apparent, but key plot points unto themselves. In doing so, Scream gave rise to a generation of meta-horror that reestablished what audiences had come to expect from their favorite genre.
In between breaking down and rewriting the rules of slasher films, the Scream franchise has provided some of the most biting and devastating kills that audiences have ever seen play out on the silver screen. Like so many other titans of the genre, Scream has continued to up its body count with almost every single entry in the series. And, with fans awaiting the seventh film in the franchise, it seems like a perfect time to look back at the evolution of the series and the ever-mounting pile of victims who helped make it famous.
Total Kills: 7
Scream was more than just another horror movie when it first hit theaters. The film stood out against other slasher films of the era for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which was the way in which it subverted audience expectations from the very start by killing off its apparent leading star in Drew Barrymore. When stacked against the rest of the franchise, 1996’s Scream also stands out for having the lowest overall body count.
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Although Scream is an incredibly bloody film, only seven characters actually lose their lives over its 111-minute runtime. This includes both of the film’s Ghostface killers, Billy Loomis and Stu Macher, as famously portrayed by Skeet Ulrich and Matthew Lillard, respectively. Five victims between two killers may not seem like much for a slasher film, but that was all it took for Scream to cement its place as one of the greatest horror movies of all time.
Scream (1996)
A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.
- Release Date
- December 20, 1996
- Cast
- Neve Campbell , Courtney Cox , David Arquette
- Runtime
- 1 hour 51 minutes
4 Scream (2022) Brought the Franchise Back to Its Roots With Fewer Kills
Total Kills: 8
Serving as a requel for the Scream franchise, and directly called out as such by Jasmin Savoy-Brown’s Mindy Meeks-Martin, 2022’s Scream brought the series back to its roots in a variety of ways after decades of increasingly convoluted sequels. Rather than introducing new layers to the original, overarching story that played out across the first three Scream films, the 2022 entry honed in on a pair of genre-obsessed maniacs.
Along with its less sprawling narrative, 2022’s Scream featured a less extensive list of deaths than previous entries, save for the first. Including its pair of Ghostface killers, 2022’s Scream saw eight characters lose their lives across a consistently tense 114-minute runtime. At that rate, the first of this new generation of Ghostface killers only barely managed to out-slash Billy and Stu on the silver screen.
25 years after a streak of brutal murders shocked the quiet town of Woodsboro, Calif., a new killer dons the Ghostface mask and begins targeting a group of teenagers to resurrect secrets from the town’s deadly past.
- Director
- Matt Bettinelli-Olpin , Tyler Gillett
- Release Date
- January 14, 2022
- Cast
- Courtney Cox , Neve Campbell , David Arquette
- Runtime
- 1 hour 54 minutes
3 Scream 2 & Scream 3 Share the Same Number of Kills
Total Kills: 10
1997’s Scream 2 brought back the surviving cast of the first film for another harrowing confrontation with another pair of Ghostfaces, this time moving the series’ central locale from Woodsboro High School to the campus of Windsor College. There, Timothy Olyphant’s Mickey Altieri and Laurie Metcalf’s Nancy Loomis terrorized the likes of Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott, and not long after the dust had settled yet another Ghostface followed the franchise’s final girl and friends all the way to Hollywood for 2000’s Scream 3.
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In the case of both films, a total of ten bodies were piled up across each entry’s roughly 2-hour runtime. Continuing the trend established in the first Scream, each sequel saw its Ghostface, or Ghostface, added to the body count before things came to a close. As such, Scream 3‘s Roman Bridger, played by Scott Foley, managed to eke out one more kill than the Ghostfaces of Scream 2. And, as the only solo Ghostface in the entire franchise, that makes Roman one of if not the most prolific Ghostface of all time.
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Scream 2
Two years after the first series of murders, as Sidney acclimates to college life, someone donning the Ghostface costume begins a new string of killings.
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Scream 3
While Sidney and her friends visit the Hollywood set of Stab 3, the third film based on the Woodsboro murders, another Ghostface killer rises to terrorize them.
Total Kills: 12
2011’s Scream 4 stood as a triumph for the franchise when it released, not just as a long-overdue return to the silver screen for fan-favorite characters such as Courteney Cox’s Gaile Weathers and David Arquette’s Dewey Riley, but for the series as a whole. This was due in large part to the genuinely harrowing mystery at the heart of Scream 4, which ultimately unraveled to reveal a pair of unexpected Ghostface killers in the forms of Emma Roberts’ Jill Roberts and Rory Culkin’s Charlie Walker.
On top of all the shocking reveals, Scream 4 had audiences dropping their jaws thanks to its bevy of vicious kills. Apart from those dished out by the film’s pair of Ghostface killers, Scream 4 includes a couple of infamous opening kills that are quickly revealed to have been part of the franchise’s in-universe feature film series based on the Woodsboro Killings – Stab. Counting those, Scream 4 tops the franchise body count with fourteen unique deaths, though the fact that they never really happened means it will have to settle for second place.
Ten years have passed, and Sidney Prescott, who has put herself back together thanks in part to her writing, is visited by the Ghostface Killer.
- Release Date
- April 15, 2011
- Cast
- Courteney Cox , Neve Campbell , David Arquette , Emma Roberts , Hayden Panettiere , Anthony Anderson , Alison Brie , Adam Brody , Rory Culkin , Marielle Jaffe
- Writers
- Kevin Williamson
- Runtime
- 111 Minutes
- Budget
- $40 Million
- Studio(s)
- Outerbanks Entertainment , The Weinstein Company
- Distributor(s)
- Dimension Films
- prequel(s)
- Scream 2 , Scream 3 , Scream
1 Scream VI Is Also the Latest — And Bloodiest — Entry in the Franchise
Total Kills: 13
In 2023, the core cast of the previous year’s prequel came back for another story centered on the next generation of Woodsboro survivors. This resulted in one of the most hotly-anticipated Scream films of all time, yet it also meant that the stakes would have to be higher than ever if audiences were going to walk away sated by the experience. Luckily, Scream VI brought an entire trio of Ghostfaces along for the ride, resulting in the highest body count of any film in the series.
Over 122 minutes, Scream VI piles up thirteen individual deaths, though only ten of those were victims of its various Ghostfaces. This isn’t even including the pair of budding Ghostface copycats who lose their lives in the film’s opening moments, which would bring the true victim count down even further considering it is an instance of slasher-on-slasher violence. At that rate, the Ghostfaces of Scream VI are among the least capable of any the series has ever seen, with their combined average coming out to little more than a single victim a piece.
- Director
- Matt Bettinelli-Olpin , Tyler Gillett
- Release Date
- March 10, 2023
- Cast
- Melissa Barrera , Courteney Cox , Jasmin Savoy Brown , Mason Gooding , Jenna Ortega , Hayden Panettiere
- Runtime
- 122 Minutes
- Prequel
- Scream 5
- Budget
- 33–35 million
- Studio(s)
- Paramount Pictures
- Distributor(s)
- Paramount Pictures
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