The following contains spoilers for Scream VI, now playing in theaters.
With the release of Scream VI, audiences have once again gotten another round of slasher carnage featuring the mysterious killer Ghostface. But this killer has always had their identity shrouded in mystery with each film, only to be unmasked by the end of their killing sprees. The franchise's newest installment provides some new people to don the mask, but it also provides a rather shocking twist on the franchise's usual conventions.
With Scream VI, multiple people are once again donning the Ghostface identity. The real shocker, however, is that there are not simply two Ghostfaces running around to kill people this time. Instead, the film delivers a breathtaking four Ghostface killers to plague the Carpenter sisters and their friends in the Big Apple. The identity of the killers even provides a callback to a prior film's Ghostface killer.
The New Ghostfaces Are Family to a Prior Killer
As the Ghostface murders drag on, Sam and Tara Carpenter discover the newest Ghostface owns an abandoned theater filled with memorabilia dedicated to the past killers as a sort of shrine. The worship extends to the point masks of prior Ghostfaces are left behind at the scenes of murders as a taunting warning. When the sisters hatch a plot with former survivor Kirby Reed to draw out the suspect, they discover there are not one but three people involved with the new killings. These killers are police ally Detective Wayne Bailey and his two children, Ethan and Quinn.
As the killers unmask themselves, it becomes apparent Wayne Bailey masterminded the scheme with his children as his willing accomplices. The trio had been plotting to avenge the death of Richie Hirsch, one of the killers in the previous film and Wayne's eldest child. Not content with merely killing the sisters, Quinn spreads false rumors online about Sam to ensure her life will get ruined before the trio kills her. She and Ethan then become roommates with Tara and the sisters' close friend Chad, integrating themselves into their social circle to draw off suspicion. Bailey eventually uses his police connections to fake Quinn's death and draw suspicion off the trio before confronting the sisters in a final showdown.
Scream 6 Features the First Fake-Out Ghostface
In a franchise first, the Baileys are not the only Ghostfaces to feature in the film. Scream VI opens with Samara Weaving's Professor Crane being killed by a student, Jason Carvey, as revenge for giving him a poor grade. A horror aficionado and classmate of Tara, Jason and his roommate Greg were fans of Richie's murders and plotted to continue his work as their own "movie." The duo prepared to kill the Carpenter sisters in their own murder spree, but Jason finds Greg murdered before they can make their move. Jason is then killed by Ghostface, who chides him for his obsession with movies as his motive.
Scream VI provides a hefty amount of Ghostface killers throughout its runtime. Rather than be content with a duo or even a single killer as Scream 3 did, the film provides the franchise's first instance of a mastermind killer using twin accomplices to carry out a murder spree. Furthermore, the mastermind is the first police officer to become a killer, providing a legal workaround no other Ghostface killer had to their power. Finally, the film's fake-out killers show the franchise is now aware of how intensely speculative audiences are about the identities of the killers, proving it's not afraid to use even Ghostface as a potential victim. All these elements show that audiences will have to guess not just the identities of Ghostface going forward but their numbers as well.
To see the new Ghostfaces, Scream VI is now in theaters.