Across the slasher franchise's 26-year run, Scream has earned some devoted fans. Some of us are drawn in by its Bowie-sharp meta commentary on film, media and celebrity. Others love masked killer Ghostface's unconventionally creative murders — or the slapstick nature of his clumsy stumbles when he frequently fails to nail his target. Starring Neve Campbell as five-time final girl Sidney Prescott, Courteney Cox as spiky telejournalist-turned-hit author Gale Weathers, and Jenna Ortega as "elevated horror" savant Tara Carpenter, maybe you come to Scream for its thoughtful character development — which makes each murder cut even deeper. But you'd be hard pressed to find someone who watches Scream for its boyfriends.
In advance of this week's Scream VI release, we've ranked 10 Scream boyfriends by a very normal criteria for assessing significant others — did they deserve to be murdered by Ghostface? And how much did they deserve to be murdered by Ghostface? Though we left out a couple of the series' BFs — like John Milton (Wes Craven's eviscerating critique of Harvey Weinstein) and Cotton Weary (the franchise's fame-obsessed fall guy who briefly dated Sidney's mom) — all of the heavy hitters are here. Read on to find out which ones we wish Ghostface had spared, and which ones we wish we could've gutted ourselves. With the heavy disclaimer that no one here at The Inlander would ever don a Ghostface mask... we swear.
10. Dewey Riley (David Arquette)
ACAB excludes this ice-cream loving, Barney Fife-ish deputy. Across five movies and as many Ghostface killing sprees, gentle Dewey crushed on, proposed to and finally married Gale Weathers (Arquette met Cox on the set of Scream and later wed IRL). Despite a brief Scream 3 interlude in which he dated Parker Posey's Jennifer Jolie — the actress who portrays Gale in the series' super-meta Stab flicks — Dewey stayed firmly Team Gale, even after their 18-year marriage came to a stop. In Scream 5 (officially, 2022's fifth installment is just titled Scream, but c'mon), Dewey met his own tragic end, stabbed by teen Ghostface Amber Freeman while he was distracted by an iPhone notification. A cautionary tale — don't text in the presence of a masked killer!
Murderability: 0/10 — Definitively non-murderable. RIP, Dewdrop.
9. Derek Feldman (Jerry O'Connell)
Brainstorming a suspect list for Scream 2's campus killings, Woodsboro's leading horror buff Randy Meeks dubs pre-med student Derek Feldman "the obvious boyfriend." The college sweetheart of Sidney Prescott, Derek seemed too good to be true. But Derek was good. He serenades Sid Top Gun style in the school cafeteria, and even gifts her a necklace bearing his Greek letters — resulting in an ass-kicking from his fellow frat bros, whose retributive hazing leaves him vulnerable to murder by Ghostface. As she mourned his loss, Sidney continued to wear Derek's necklace through the end of Scream 3.
Murderability: 0/10 — Singing in public is a little bit corny, but a non-murderable offense.
8. Mark Kincaid (Patrick Dempsey)
Scream 3's killings targeted the actors shooting the latest Stab, and Hollywood born-and-raised homicide detective Mark Kincaid got assigned to the case. Though Sidney briefly suspected him as the killer, a flirtatious rapport drew the pair close, and Kincaid ultimately saved her from a Ghostface attack. He got himself stabbed in the process, but thankfully, this boyfriend survived. The final scene of Scream 3 showed the pair watching a movie on a double date with Gale and Dewey. And while he doesn't show up in Scream 4, Kincaid is mentioned in Scream 5 as Sidney's husband, and the father of her three children.
Murderability: 1/10 — It doesn't seem like the best idea to let your spouse and the co-parent of your children take on Ghostface alone, again and again.
7. Steve Orth (Kevin Patrick Walls)
He's big and he plays football, and he's the very first kill of the Scream franchise. The letterman jacket-clad BF of Drew Barrymore's Casey Becker, we only ever see Steve duct taped to a chair in Casey's backyard, as she pleads for both of their lives during her iconic opening scene with Ghostface. We don't learn enough about Steve to rank him high on the murderability scale, but Casey appears to flirt with Ghostface — a creepy, cold-calling stranger — and initially denies having a boyfriend at all. Deserving of a gutting? Probably not. A perfect boyfriend? Probably not that, either.
Murderability: 2/10 — Whatever relationship crimes he committed to get his existence denied at least make him a little bit murderable.
6. Phil Stevens (Omar Epps)
The opening murder of Scream 2 takes place at a free Stab screening, as Phil — eavesdropping in a toilet stall — is knifed in the ear through the divider wall. Ouch! Ghostface chose Phil for his surname, which paralleled Steve Orth's first name — a pretty random M.O., but we'll take it. Like most Scream casualties, Phil was an innocent who didn't deserve to die. But he did drag his girlfriend Maureen (Jada Pinkett Smith) to Stab, despite her clearly stated hatred of horror movies' violence, sexism and anti-Blackness. Unfortunately, Maureen became Scream 2's second victim, never making it to her morning biology exam — thanks a lot, Phil!
Murderability: 3/10 — Date night movies should be agreed upon by both partners so everyone has a fun time! Keep this in mind if you want to be non-murderable in your relationships.
5. Trevor Sheldon (Nico Tortorella)
After cheating on Sidney Prescott's niece Jill Roberts — one of Scream 4's Ghostfaces, played by literal Scream Queen Emma Roberts — Trevor Sheldon found himself iced out by his ex, elaborately framed for mass murder, and ultimately put to death via shots to (oof) the groin and the head. A humorless bully at worst, Trevor was otherwise pretty harmless in the grand scheme of Scream boyfriends — and he never donned the Ghostface costume, unlike all the murderable boyfriends yet to come.
Murderability: 4/10 — Dumped a primary antagonist and didn't even make her famous.
4. Charlie Walker (Rory Kulkin)
Finally, some murderable boyfriends who murder! Scream 4's preeminent cinephile seemed harmless at first, planning Woodsboro High's epic Stab-a-thon with his best friend Robbie, and sweetly falling for fellow genre nut Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) over a shared obsession for slasher flicks. But Wes Craven never let us trust a film buff after Randy Meeks. As the secret beau of Jill Roberts, Charlie perpetrated about half of Ghostface's killings, including heartlessly stabbing his BFFL. In an incel-adjacent move, he also stabbed Kirby for taking too long to reciprocate his affections. Luckily, Scream 5 confirmed Kirby's survival, and Panettiere will be reprising the role in Scream VI — hopefully with a better, non-murdering boyfriend in tow.
Murderability: 8/10 — As the President of the Cinema Club, this guy should probably not have been murdering so many of his fellow club members.
3. Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard)
Clownish Stu acted as accomplice on the original Woodsboro killings, masterminded by his bestie Billy Loomis. And while the narrative gist of those murders had more to do with Billy's mommy issues and misplaced thirst for revenge, Stu did a fair amount of slicing and dicing on his own — including killing his ex-girlfriend Casey Becker, presumably for dumping him, and deading his final sweetheart Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan) with a garage door. Pressed for a motive, Stu pleaded peer pressure, claiming he was "far too sensitive" to dream up a massacre on his own. Though he lacked the brain cells to hatch a slasher spree by his lonesome, Stu still ranks high on our murderability scale — something Sidney took care of by electrocuting him with a TV.
Murderability: 9/10 — Extra point for complaining about wanting to see Jamie Lee Curtis topless while in the middle of doing murders.
2. Richie Kirsch (Jack Quaid)
Even before he started his Scream 5 death spree, Richie represented the absolute worst of obsessive franchise fans. Incensed over the Rian Johnson-directed Stab 8, he took to Reddit to rage post, where he met equally deranged Woodsboro resident Amber Freeman. The two began to date, hatching a plan to create a real-life Stab sequel, which entailed Richie seeking out the secret daughter of Billy Loomis to surreptitiously become her boyfriend. That secret daughter is new series star Samantha Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), and in one of his final scenes Dewey sagely warned her to never trust the love interest. Richie proves Dewey right when he stabs Sam in the stomach — but luckily, she survives and takes down her beau thanks to beyond-the-grave coaching from the hallucinated ghost of Billy Loomis.
Murderability: 9/10 — A Reddit Boyfriend is one thing, but a Reddit Boyfriend who serial kills? Extremely murderable.
1. Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich)
Scream's biggest bad concocted the original Woodsboro Murders after a convoluted chain of personal events; Sidney's mom cheated with Billy's dad, causing Billy's mom to split town, causing Billy to... do murders? Reasonable! This shaky motive drove Billy to intentionally ruin his girlfriend Sidney's life, first killing off her mom, then her friends, then attempting (and failing) to ax both Sid and her dad. Somewhere in all that scheming he found time to sleep with her, an attempt to mess up her virgin status and lessen her chances of surviving under the sex-negative rules of horror's final girl trope. Billy's deranged actions inspired five sequels' worth of copycats — including his mom in Scream 2 — and while his post-mortem appearances retcon him as paternal, we still think Billy takes the cake for Woodsboro's most murderable.
Murderability 10/10 — Billy Loomis is the reason the boyfriend murderability scale was invented. ♦
Scream VI opens in theaters March 10.
