Billy vs. Stu: Which Ghostface Killed Which Victim In Scream

Billy Loomis and Stu Macher are iconic as the first Ghostface killers in the Scream franchise, but fans still question who killed Tatum and which killer was responsible for which victim. With its self-aware humor and intriguing plot twists, Scream’s success led to a multimedia franchise that continues with legacy sequels like 2022’s Scream and 2023’s Scream VI. While many actors donned the Ghostface mask over the years, Skeet Ulrich and Matthew Lillard set the tone for the series as Billy, Sidney’s evil boyfriend, and Stu, his dim-witted and ruthless accomplice.

Even if other horror slasher villains have a higher kill count, Billy and Stu’s Ghostface remains as important to the genre as Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger. However, considering that both don the same attire and wield the same knife in their barbaric acts, it can be confusing as to who kills who. Instead of reckless murders, each of these victims is chosen specifically for a larger agenda rooted in Billy’s over-the-top revenge.

3 Billy Loomis

Casey Becker

High-schooler Casey Becker is the first character introduced in the Scream franchise, and she endures as the first movie’s scream queen. After indulging in a concerning tête-à-tête over the phone, she gets stabbed multiple times by a man wearing the Ghostface mask. If this isn’t brutal enough, her disemboweled corpse is found hanging from a tree for her parents to discover when they return home.

It seems likely that it was Billy who killed her given that he is also the most likely culprit for who was talking to her on the phone. Stu does not seem like the kind of guy who can pull off the subtle, slow-burn psychological mind games the caller was playing with Casey. Also, Casey’s kill in Scream remains the most iconic of the series, so it makes sense that the main villain would be responsible.

Even though it’s Billy who kills her, the reasons behind this murder are linked to his friend Stu. Stu was Casey’s ex-boyfriend and she dumped him from another high-schooler named Steve Orth instead. This was actually mentioned early in the movie following Casey’s death with Stu’s friends questioning if he had anything to do with it. However, it seemed like a red herring at the time given how early in the movie this motive is introduced.

Principal Arthur Himbry

Even high school principals face the wrath of Ghostface’s knife in 1996’s Scream. Woodsboro High School’s strict Arthur Himbry is sympathetic toward Sidney’s personal tragedy and even expresses anger toward pranksters wearing Ghostface costumes. Sadly, Billy in his Ghostface avatar catches up to him halfway through the movie. When the school is closed for a city-wide curfew, Billy takes Principal Himbry by surprise and stabs him two times in the chest and then two times in the stomach.

Billy then guts him and hangs the slain Principal up on the football field’s goalpost. Himbry’s corpse serves as a warning to the residents of Woodsboro that nobody is safe. For Billy, Himbry’s murder is mainly to cause a distraction. Despite the curfew that night, most of Billy’s classmates are busy drinking and partying. As Billy’s endgame is to kill Sidney, he wants to ensure that he gets some alone time with her as Ghostface.

With Himbry’s corpse hanging on the goalpost, many of the teens ditch the party and rush to the murder scene. With Sidney alone, Billy plans to return to seek his vengeance. The fact that Billy decides to take out this random murder on his principal highlights that these killers are ruthless and reckless teens whose motives are as immature as they are.

Tatum Riley

Sidney’s best friend, Tatum Riley, tries her best to unmask Ghostface. However, after much struggle, she dies by getting trapped in a garage door. This makes her the first Scream character to not be murdered by a knife. Tatum’s constant presence in Sidney’s life and her protective nature of her best friend threaten Billy’s plans. Hence, she has to be eliminated for his plan to succeed. The perfect ruse is Stu throwing a party at his place.

Even though he’s dating Tatum at the time, he has no remorse about sending her to get some beers from the garage where he knows Billy will be waiting for her. Decades after Scream‘s release, the question of who actually kills Tatum continues to polarize fans, but there’s a large consensus favoring Billy as the killer. This is mainly because Billy isn’t at the party before Tatum’s murder, implying that he’s patiently waiting in the garage.

Stu, who is busy with hosting duties, couldn’t afford to be away from the party for that long. The final giveaway is that after Tatum’s murder, Billy shows up at the party and gives Stu a menacing double eyebrow raise. This gesture can be interpreted as Billy communicating to Stu that the job is finished.

2 Stu Macher

Steve Orth

While Billy is busy murdering Casey inside her house, Stu involves himself in the killing of her boyfriend, Steve Orth. Unlike his other victims in Scream, Stu clearly has personal reasons to kill Steve, as he’s jealous of him. Unable to process Casey’s attraction to Steve, he proceeds to brutally torture him by tying him to a chair on Casey’s patio. When Casey offers an incorrect answer to some Friday the 13th trivia on the phone with Billy, Stu gladly kills her boyfriend.

While Casey’s body is disemboweled, Steve is gutted multiple times with Stu’s hunting knife. Despite actually being the first Ghostface victim seen killed in the entire Scream franchise, Steve is the victim in the movie that the audience knows the least about. His kill is more about raising the stakes for Casey and realizing that her life is truly in danger.

Kenny Brown

While Billy kills more victims in Scream than Stu, his deranged accomplice has the last laugh for killing news cameraman Kenny Brown. Dutifully aiding ambitious reporter Gale Weathers, Kenny is in his news van during Stu’s party. While Gale is out for a walk, Kenny stumbles across footage that shows Ghostface about to kill Woodsboro High student Randy Meeks. But with Sidney screaming outside, Stu (as Ghostface) gets distracted and steps out himself.

Before Kenny can rush to alert Randy, Stu catches up with him and slits his throat. Kenny only has a brief supporting role in Scream, but his heroic sacrifice is remembered by fans. It is hard not to feel sorry for him as he is continuously insulted by Gale throughout the movie, and though he died trying to save a teen, Gale also yells at his corpse when she finds him later on top of the news van.

1 Billy Loomis And Stu Macher

Maureen Prescott

Sidney Prescott thinks of her mother, Maureen, as “the perfect mom,” but little does she know that Maureen’s unfaithfulness is what triggers the string of murders plaguing Woodsboro. When Maureen begins an extramarital affair with Billy’s father, Billy blames her for his mother leaving. Personally affected by this act of cheating, he conspires with Stu to stab her to death. While her death is never depicted on-screen, Billy confesses in the third act and confirms the two killed her together. Maureen’s demise is influential in the three sequels to Scream, with every killer tracing their homicidal intentions to her.

As to why Stu helps Billy kill people in Scream, this remains a hotly debated topic among fans. While future victims, like Casey, are still chosen for Stu’s personal motivations, he mostly tags along with Billy for the thrills. Some dedicated Scream aficionados have pointed out that Stu’s overzealous personality throughout the movie is a giveaway of how big a red flag he turns out to be. He has no personal reason to assist Billy in killing Maureen, but as his fascination with horror movies implies, maybe brutally killing others offers Stu a sense of excitement.

Why Billy & Stu Are The Best Ghostface Killers

There have been a lot of Ghostface killers in the Scream franchise after Billy and Stu, and while some of them are very memorable, none of them have matched the excellence of the original two killers. A big part of the reason why they work so well is because there are two of them. Scream relies on the audience having seen many horror movies and being familiar with how they work. The audience has become trained to expect one killer to be revealed at the end.

Even when it seems impossible for Ghostface to be in so many different places at once, the reveal that it was two killers all along is a brilliant one that catches the audience by surprise. It makes the audience want to immediately go back and reexamine the entire movie with this new information. Most of the other Scream movies have followed the trend of multiple killers, but they obviously couldn’t recreate the surprise of the original reveal.

The Scream franchise is always the most fun when it is playing with the tropes and expectations of the horror genre, and Billy and Stu are among the best examples of this. As Sidney’s brooding boyfriend, Billy is immediately the prime suspect of the movie. Scream does a great job of continuously giving the audience reason to believe Billy is the killer, then offers some new evidence that suggests he is innocent. Likewise, Stu seems like an obvious candidate for Ghostface in the beginning — so obvious in fact that the audience is looking for other possibilities.

Has Any Ghostface Killed More People Than Billy & Stu?

Despite being the most iconic and effective Ghostface team in the Scream franchise, Stu and Billy are not the deadliest. In terms of body counts given to the Ghostface killers in each Scream movie, Stu and Billy’s combined six kills are actually tied for the lowest of the series, alongside Richie and Amber in 2022’s Scream. Interestingly, that pair is often seen as the best Ghostface pair since the original two.

However, when it comes to the rest of the movies Billy’s own mother, Mrs. Loomis, and her accomplice Mickey outdid Billy and Stu with a combined 8 kills. Scream 3‘s Roman is the only Ghostface to date who worked alone and he scored an impressive nine kills. That is tied with another groundbreaking Ghostface team with Scream VI‘s first-ever three-person team of Detective Bailey and his son and daughter, Ethan and Quinn.

However, the deadliest duo in the Scream franchise turns out to be Charlie and Jill from Scream 4. While the franchise might have gotten deadlier at times, Billy and Stu offer clear evidence that a high kill count doesn’t necessarily make for a great Ghostface.

Scream

Created by Kevin Williamson and originally helmed by Wes Craven, the Scream franchise takes a meta approach to the slasher horror franchise, centering on teenagers well-versed in the genre who find themselves hunted and killed by figures donning the Ghostface mask. The first four movies revolved around Neve Campbell’s Sydney Prescott as she frequently found herself the target of different Ghostface killers, while the fifth and sixth installments introduced new protagonists, sisters Tara and Sam, with their own dark past connected to the original Ghostface killer.

Cast

Neve Campbell , David Arquette , Courteney Cox , Skeet Ulrich , Jamie Kennedy , Liev Schreiber , Heather Matarazzo , Hayden Panettiere , Marley Shelton , Melissa Barrera , Jenna Ortega , Jack Quaid , Mason Gooding , Jasmin Savoy Brown , Roger Jackson

TV Show(s)

Scream (2015)

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