OPINION: Masters of Horror
Using kills, jumpscares in Scream (1996)
By Kaily Olivo
Editor-in-chief
Published Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026
Ghostface is one of those killers you may never be able to predict or escape, well except for Sidney Prescott. Who really is Ghostface? There’s a new one in each Scream franchise film.
The Scream franchise continues to offer a new killer with a connecting detail every single time. But for now, we’ll cover the basics and the origin of the franchise. Now, I must say spoiler warning because the Ghostface killers of Scream (1996) will be revealed.
One of Scream’s main elements of death is Ghostface’s jumpscares. In the beginning, Ghostface jumps across all areas of Casey Becker’s house, ultimately surprising and killing Casey and Steve Orth. These killings introduce us to the ominous tactics Ghostface displays, knowing where his victim is without them being aware or even predicting.
Alas, poor Principal Himbry. After the killings of Casey and Steve, the town rolls in turmoil and Himbry tries to get the school’s and students’ safety in order. Unfortunately, this gets interrupted when Himbry hears someone knocking on his office door. Long story short, no one is there; he suspects someone is in his closet, but no one’s there.
He goes to close his office door, revealing Ghostface who attacks him. I would say this scene is pretty jump-worthy cause we don’t think the principal would or should die and I initially thought Ghostface would hide in the closet with the ominous music playing in the background.
Following this, we have the killing of Tatum Riley, Sidney’s best friend. This one offered a slight jumpscare with the camera panning to him in the garage with her. Still, this death was different in an unexpected way because no main character had yet been killed and because this death was caused by the garage door, not a gruesome stabbing.
Another unexpected kill happened with sweet Kenny Brown, reporter Gale Weathers’s cameraman. Kenny and Gale placed a camera to capture Stu Macher’s living room. When they saw Ghostface behind Randy, they assumed Ghostface was there until they opened the van and saw the front door was open and realized there was a 30-second delay between events and the camera’s recording. Despite the number of times Kenny turned around, the anticipation builds waiting for Ghostface to appear. Eventually, he kills with a quick slice to the throat.
One of the best scenes was the encounter between Ghostface and Sidney in the Woodsboro Police Department patrol car outside Stu’s home. Ghostface surrounds the car with Sidney locked inside and eventually reveals that he has the keys. He then goes down and disappears.
While Sidney looks around trying to see where he went, the silence is loud and the passenger door unlocks. She reaches and, without knowing, the trunk opens. Ghostface pops up from the trunk attacking Sidney. As soon as she escapes, she looks back and realizes Ghostface is nowhere to be seen. All that remains is the car with its door and trunk open. Despite this not necessarily being a kill scene, the camera angles and sounds add to this jumpscare and highlight Ghostface’s agility and unpredictability.
Cut to Sidney surprising us when she dresses up as Ghostface and jumps out from the closet to stab Billy with the umbrella. Although this may have been expected, watching this movie for the very first time, I would have never guessed, but it was a clever idea.
Finally, let’s review some of my favorite notable jumpscares. Stu gets up and runs toward Sidney, jumping at her. Despite their duel, Sidney throws the TV on his head, which ultimately kills Stu. Following this, Billy wakes up and tries to choke and kill Sidney. She manages to poke one of his cuts.
Simultaneously, Gale shoots him, but it still isn’t enough. As he tries to scare Gale, Randy and Sidney with his wake-up moment, Sidney quickly shuts things down by shooting him in the head where he ends up dead at last.
Of course, the Scream movies don’t just end here and have their five and counting movies following this one. With the franchise hopefully releasing Scream 7 in February, there are only more questions that pop into my head. These jumpscares, kills and killers will probably never be predicted. Every time I see the killer revealed, Ghostface was not the first thought in my head when I first saw them appear.
