Ghostface is not one killer but a costume: a black hooded robe and a white mask pulled into a long scream, worn by a different killer, or a team of them, in every Scream film. Whoever is under it phones the victim first, plays games about horror films, then attacks. The answer to "who is Ghostface" changes with each film, and it is always someone already in the story.
The rules of Scream are the horror-film rules the characters lay out to stay alive, first spelled out at a party in Woodsboro in the 1996 film and rewritten for every sequel. Both Ghostface designs are on the Scream shelf. This names the killer of every film, so spoilers for all seven.
Ghostface explained: the costume and the call
In the films the costume is a mass-produced Halloween outfit anyone can buy, and that is the point: anyone can wear it, so anyone can be the killer. Each killer adds a knife and a voice changer, which turns any voice into the same low, mocking one.
The phone is the weapon before the knife is. Ghostface calls, flirts, then turns the talk to horror films and makes the victim play a quiz with real stakes. The calls let the killer watch from close by and prove it, which is the idea behind Wrong Number and Last Call.
Ghostface is also human in a way most slashers are not. The killer runs, trips and gets knocked down. Most of the films use two killers, so one can have an alibi while the other wears the robe, and the mask comes off in the last act with a speech about motive.
Woodsboro and the first film
Woodsboro is a fictional small town in California. In Scream (1996), it is a year since Sidney Prescott's mother, Maureen, was murdered, and Sidney's testimony put a man named Cotton Weary in prison for it. Then a student, Casey Becker, home alone for the evening, answers the phone, and the killings begin.
The cast who return again and again come from this film: Sidney; Dewey Riley, the gentle deputy; Gale Weathers, the tabloid reporter who covered Maureen's murder; and Randy Meeks, the video-shop clerk who knows every horror film there is. Gale's book about the Woodsboro killings later becomes Stab, a film series inside the films, which lets every sequel comment on itself.
The killers are Sidney's boyfriend, Billy Loomis, and his friend Stu Macher. Billy's mother walked out after his father's affair with Maureen; Billy and Stu killed Maureen a year earlier; Cotton went to prison for it on Sidney's word, and now they kidnap Sidney's father to frame him for the new killings. Sidney and Gale stop them both at Stu's house.
The rules of Scream
At a house party in the 1996 film, with a horror film playing on the television, Randy lectures the room on how to survive one. His rules, in plain terms:
Never have sex. In the old slasher films, the couple who sneak off are the first to go.
Never drink or take drugs. It slows you down, and the films treat it as a mark against you.
Never announce that you will be right back. The character who leaves the room on that promise does not come back.
Around them sits a fourth idea that the whole film runs on: everyone is a suspect. The joke is that the characters know these rules, and knowing them helps less than they think. Sidney breaks the first rule and survives; the rules describe old films, not this one.
The rules for sequels, trilogies and requels
Scream 2 (1997). At Windsor College, Randy gives the rules of a sequel: the body count is always bigger, and the deaths are always more elaborate.
Scream 3 (2000). Randy, killed in the second film, leaves a tape with the rules of the last part of a trilogy: the killer becomes close to unstoppable, anyone can die, even the main character, and the past comes back to bite.
Scream 4 (2011). The rules of a remake: the unexpected is the new cliché, the deaths have to be more extreme, and the old protections no longer hold.
Scream (2022). Mindy Meeks-Martin, Randy's niece, explains the requel: half sequel, half reboot. The survivors of the original return to guide a new cast, the new story is tied back to the first film, and the killer may be in the room right now.
Scream VI (2023). Mindy's rules for a franchise: everything is bigger than last time, whatever happened last time expect the opposite, and nobody is safe, the old favourites least of all.
Who is Ghostface? Every killer, film by film
Scream (1996): Billy Loomis and Stu Macher, in Woodsboro.
Scream 2 (1997): Billy's mother, posing as a reporter called Debbie Salt, out for revenge, and Mickey Altieri, a film student who wants to blame the films at his trial.
Scream 3 (2000): Roman Bridger, the director of Stab 3 and Sidney's secret half-brother, working alone. He claims he set Billy on the path that led to Maureen's murder.
Scream 4 (2011): Sidney's cousin Jill Roberts and her classmate Charlie Walker, back in Woodsboro. Jill wants to become the famous survivor herself.
Scream (2022): Richie Kirsch and Amber Freeman, fans who want to make the real story worth filming again. The film's lead, Sam Carpenter, is Billy Loomis's daughter. Dewey is killed.
Scream VI (2023): Richie's father, Detective Wayne Bailey, and his siblings Quinn and Ethan, taking revenge on Sam and her sister Tara in New York.
Scream 7 (2026): Sidney has a new life in Pine Grove, Indiana, with a husband, Mark, and a teenage daughter, Tatum. The calls seem to come from Stu Macher, alive after all, but the videos of him are faked with computer tools. The first Ghostface to fall is Karl Gibbs, an escaped patient wearing the costume; the killers behind it are Marco Davis, who makes the fakes, and Jessica Bowden, Sidney's neighbour. Sidney and Tatum stop them together.
Scream at 30
The first Scream opened in American cinemas on 20 December 1996, so its thirtieth anniversary falls on 20 December 2026. Over those thirty years the series has done what Randy said sequels do: more films, more killers, more rules, and the same mask.
What has lasted is the idea, not the body count. Ghostface is a slasher who has seen all the other slasher films, and the people being hunted have seen them too. Every film since has been built on that conversation between the killer, the victims and the audience.
On the back of a tee
Both Ghostface designs are on the Scream shelf, drawn from canon reference art. Check the size guide before you pick a size.
Why it works on the back: the mask is a white shape in a black hood, two colours and no detail to lose, so it reads at any distance. That is also why it works as a costume in the films.
Read next: Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees explained (the slashers Randy's rules were written about) and Freddy Krueger and the rules of the dream world explained.
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