"Scream" (1996), directed by Wes Craven, follows teenager Sidney Prescott as a masked killer called Ghostface stalks the town of Woodsboro, murdering her friends and forcing her to confront unresolved questions about her mother's death a year earlier. The film ends with Sidney unmasking two killers working together — her boyfriend Billy Loomis and his friend Stu Macher — and surviving by killing Billy and letting Stu die by his own trap after she and reporter Gale Weathers team up against them. The movie is a slasher that also comments on slasher movies: characters reference horror-film rules while living inside one, and the killers' motive is explicitly tied to that genre-awareness. Understanding the plot means tracking three threads at once — the Woodsboro murders, Sidney's mother's death the year before, and the media circus around both.
Table of Contents
- What happens in the opening murders
- How the murders escalate and who dies
- Who is Ghostface, and how is the killer revealed?
- What does the ending mean?
- Frequently Asked Questions
What happens in the opening murders
The film opens with Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) home alone, receiving phone calls from a man asking "What's your favorite scary movie?" The caller already knows her name and is watching her house; he kills her boyfriend Steve Orth outside and then kills Casey when she fails to answer a horror-trivia question correctly, just before her parents arrive home. This sequence establishes Ghostface's method: a phone call that turns into a game, followed by a kill once the victim is isolated. The Casey Becker murder puts the town on edge and connects to Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a high school student still grieving her mother Maureen's rape and murder one year earlier.
A man named Cotton Weary was convicted of that killing largely on Sidney's eyewitness identification. Sidney's boyfriend is Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), and her close friends include Tatum Riley, Stu Macher, and Randy Meeks. Ghostface soon targets Sidney directly, calling her house and then appearing in her bedroom. Billy arrives and is apparently attacked, giving Sidney and the audience a reason to trust him as a fellow victim rather than a suspect — a misdirection the film relies on until the ending.
How the murders escalate and who dies
As the killings continue, tabloid reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) — who wrote a book arguing Cotton Weary is innocent — arrives in Woodsboro to cover the story, along with Deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette), Tatum's brother. Gale's presence raises doubt about whether the real killer from Maureen Prescott's murder was ever caught, tying the present-day attacks to the past case. Sidney's friend Tatum Riley is killed by Ghostface in her garage, crushed by a garage door after a struggle.
Principal Arthur Himbry is murdered at the school after a lockdown is called over student copies of the Ghostface mask found on campus. The killer's access to a mask identical to a toy sold around town becomes a plot point: because the costume is mass-produced, almost anyone could be wearing it, which keeps suspicion spread across multiple characters, including Billy and Stu. A party at Stu's house, meant to be a safe gathering after the lockdown, becomes the setting for the final act. Randy, the film's horror-savvy character, lays out the "rules" of surviving a scary movie (don't have sex, don't drink or do drugs, never say "I'll be right back") specifically because the group is living inside the type of film those rules describe.
Who is Ghostface, and how is the killer revealed?
Ghostface is revealed to be two people acting together: Billy Loomis and Stu Macher. Sidney discovers this when she finds a hidden phone and caller-ID device in a cabinet at Stu's house, which Billy and Stu have used to disguise their calls and track her location. When Sidney confronts Billy, he is stabbed by Ghostface — but it's staged; Billy and Stu have been attacking each other's accomplices and framing outsiders, including setting up Sidney's own father as a suspect by luring him away from the house. The two reveal their shared motive directly to Sidney: Billy's mother left his family after an affair with Sidney's mother, Maureen Prescott, and Billy blames Maureen for destroying his family.
He recruited Stu as his partner. Their plan combined that personal revenge with a self-aware fascination with horror-movie conventions — they intend to frame Cotton Weary for the new murders too, correcting what they call the "mistake" of the original investigation while completing their own spree as a kind of real-life slasher film. Sidney survives by fighting back: she shoots Billy after he appears to be dead and comes at her again, and she helps trap Stu, who is killed when a television is dropped on him or in the chaos of the final struggle, depending on the exact staging in the scene. Randy also survives after escaping Ghostface in the house, and Gale and Dewey both make it out alive, with Dewey wounded.
What does the ending mean?
The ending resolves both mysteries at once: the present-day Woodsboro killings and the earlier murder of Sidney's mother share the same killer, Billy Loomis, meaning Cotton Weary was wrongly convicted. Sidney's survival comes from applying the horror-movie knowledge the film has been joking about — she recognizes that the "dead" killer isn't finished and acts before he can strike again, which is the film's core twist on slasher conventions rather than a departure from them.
The reveal that two ordinary teenagers, not a supernatural or professional killer, committed the murders reframes the violence as personal and close to home — literally inside Sidney's own relationship. "Scream" uses this to argue that horror conventions exist because real trauma and real killers don't follow a script, even while the characters keep narrating the script out loud. The film closes with Sidney having survived, Gale securing her story, and the town's false narrative about Cotton Weary exposed as wrong, setting up the loose threads — Cotton's innocence, Gale and Dewey's relationship, Randy's survival — that carry into the franchise's sequels.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there one killer or two in "Scream" (1996)?
Two — Billy Loomis and Stu Macher work together as Ghostface, splitting the murders and framing other characters to cover for each other.
Why did Billy kill Sidney's mother?
Billy blamed Maureen Prescott for his parents' divorce, believing her affair with his father drove his mother away from their family.
Does Sidney Prescott survive the movie?
Yes. She kills Billy after he fakes his death and survives the final confrontation at Stu's house along with Gale, Dewey, and Randy.
Was Cotton Weary actually guilty of killing Maureen Prescott?
No. He was wrongly convicted on Sidney's eyewitness identification; the ending establishes Billy Loomis committed that murder.