scream 1-6 ghostfaces & whether or not they would/could have killed w/o a partner
a mini-thread of sorts entirely bc it just popped into my head and i have Thoughts. i will be doing every ghostface from the films only. i haven't seen the show in years & it's not really applicable to mr. ghostface dbd so yk how it goes. i'm being factual as i can w/ these but i'm also ngl and say my own hcs don't come into play here bc they absolutely do since it's my post. it's gonna be opinion based to some degree. god bless.
scream (1996)
billy loomis -
yes. though he and stu are, as far as i know, the only set of ghostfaces to have really evenly divided the physical work, i do think billy definitely had it in him to do it regardless. i also really dgaf about the bs retcon from 3 that was 'he only killed bc roman talked him into it' so this is like the only time i will acknowledge that just to say it is wrong as hell. if we're going to account for something like the "ultimate scream collection" boxset extras, which tbh might as well, he'd already been drawn towards violence at an early age. waaay before having been abandoned or before horror films could've had any sort of 'influence' on him (which, honestly... they helped him give the murders a lil more flair, but that's about it.) between that, and the fact that it really doesn't take much to make him fly off the handle in a rage, he was just a ticking time bomb waiting for the 'right' trigger.
bare minimum, he still would have killed maureen, considering the anger he harbored towards her for the affair with his father and the consequences that had within his family. he likely would've also still gone after sidney, considering he pretty much seemed to have lost any sort of fondness for her after finding out about maureen & his dad. on that note, genuinely surprised he didn't off his dad for cheating and ergo 'making [his] mom leave' too, but that's another point entirely.
stu macher -
yes. please do not take the comic relief serial killer who has never been serious for a second in his life saying he was 'peer pressured' into killing at face value. he woulda done ts anyways. sure, he's a silly goofy guy or wtv. he also stays that way post reveal. he was having entirely too much fun for a guy who was supposedly 'manipulated' or wtv you'd wanna call it into violence. in a similar vein as billy, i don't think it'd be too much of a stretch to say that he'd probably had some kind of fascination with it all his life, if the hanging dolls in the machers' attic are anything to go off of.
would he still have gone out of his way to start knocking off a bunch of the people closest to him in an elaborate plot? most likely not. but, realistically, how much he seemed to enjoy both killing and inflicting suffering on living victims (see: him taunting sidney) suggests it was really only a matter of time before he did something to someone. this is just not some normal guy w/ any real regard for human life that got male manipulated into killing. them two were on the same freakuency. i'd give this guy until, like, sophomore year of college tops before he wound up killing some mostly randomly selected targets 'just to see what it would feel like.'
scream 2
mrs. nancy loomis -
yes. she already had the revenge motive and the intent to carry out another massacre. she did go looking for a partner, granted, and found one in mickey. she was more the brains of the operation, yes, but if she had needed to do it all herself, i think she would've bit the bullet and done so. we know that, at the very least, she did kill randy all on her own. it was more out of impulse/emotion, granted, but it goes to show a willingness towards violence.
it would've been harder to accomplish without mickey there to have an 'in' on sidney and her friend group and to share the work, but given her mental state, i don't think she would've let a snag like that keep her from killing entirely. given that she ended up turning on mickey and killing him not too long after their reveal—so, she clearly wasn’t thinking she particularly needed the extra muscle atp—i think she could get to the point of "fuck it, who needs a partner? i gotta do everything by my damn self around here.” pretty easily. very typical for a mom.
mickey altieri -
yes. considering he and nancy met on a forum where she was looking for an active serial killer to partner with, he'd already canonically killed before the windsor college murders. like technically i really could just end it there bc that is it. i can't say any different. bro was already established to be very capable of offing ppl left and right all on his lonesome. would he have targeted this specific set of people and chosen to take on the ghostface mantle all on his own? probably not. but he was already a murderer regardless. and considering it looks like he also took on the physical work more often, between him and nancy, he def was not a particularly shabby one either!
though his involvement with the murders in 2 specifically definitely more so hinges on him working with nancy, i also wouldn't put another similarly high-profile (solo) killing spree above him; he clearly enjoyed both the act of doing so and the possibility of gaining notoriety for it. he had a particularly good opportunity handed to him here, but he would've just figured one out regardless if it came to it.
scream 3
roman bridger -
yes. he literally canonically did so, considering the 'angelina as ghostface #2' plotline was cut from scream 3 itself and never brought up in the later films. he's up there on the ghostface board/in the shrine in VI with no partner attached. kirby literally says he was the only solo ghostface. i don't really have a whole lot more to say for this one, considering it's just the facts. he was a ghostface without a partner. this is also really the only impartial thing i can bring myself to say about the man, hence why i even bothered to include him at all bc yall know i usually don’t. case closed.
scream 4
charlie walker -
yes. i know it's sort of commonly said that charlie's motivation for participating in the murders was solely out of love for jill. to that, i say that even if you do want to believe it, that definitely wasn't his only reason for doing so. i don't feel like i have to say that he obviously had some bottled up resentment towards certain people (kirby, sorry queen, and to a lesser extent, arguably trevor; i think that grudge was more jill's, but he obvi was still pissing charlie OFF) that was bound to come out one way or another. also, given that jill is on-screen and accounted for during most of the murders where he isn't, charlie clearly did the majority of, if not the entirety of, the physical work.
but i do also think it's worth noting that, both pre- and post-reveal, charlie makes multiple allusions to another motive, that being creating a bloodier, more 'modern' reboot of the original murders. see: the cinema club scene (0:25-0:39, though he's arguably telling on himself the whole time), him bragging about his footage of the kills in act 3 (0:50-0:55) as well as just straight up referring to the murders as a remake and to jill & himself as the new sidney and randy, respectively (2:10-2:19), even the deleted fountain scene (1:12-1:16). i could go on. point is: he had it in him to kill, and he had a desire to do so as ghostface specifically because he had a movie to make.
jill roberts -
no. see act 4 (?) of scream 4 for proof. jill does do well with the masking/manipulation aspect of being a ghostface, but handling that and the actual killing at the same time is not her strong suit. she's not in it for bloodthirst, she's in it to be a star. she's also prone to screwing up (see: the 'matching wounds' comment immediately getting her caught) and getting impulsive when things go south, so she could try, but she wouldn't get very far. i think even she would know that, on some level, it's too much work for her to do alone. i don't think she would've even bothered partnering with charlie to begin with if she didn't know she would very much need a capable set of hands around to do the actual killing while she went for her oscar nom and whatnot; that, and if she wasn't convinced she'd be in the clear so long as there was someone else to point to. which she did not really consider when trying to finish sidney off at the hospital when both alleged ghostfaces were already dead. like i said, she can plan better than she can execute, but she's just not doing both successfully.
this isn't to say that she wouldn't have tried at a similar plan somewhere along the line, but her carrying anything like that out at all very much would hinge on her having a willing and able partner who could keep up with the killing while she kept up with her act. she was very thorough on keeping her hands clean as possible until the very last second. that was a strategy that worked in her favor. the second she deviated from that... i mean. we know what happened.
scream (2022)
amber freeman -
yes. please let the 'she was just an innocent, manipulated victim' narrative rest w/ her omg. this girl is the devil from the bible (affectionate). aside from sam's mention in scream vi about how amber 'did all the killing' between her and richie, i have and will always continue to cite the radio silence collider interview (30:24-31:30) where they quite literally say that the murders were both her idea and largely her work; she just ‘lead from behind’ and manipulated richie into believing otherwise. i think amber gets discredited in a pretty similar way to charlie where it comes to the whole ‘they only did it for love’ misread. which sucks, because she is a very brutal and capable killer. literally what other 5’3” teenage girl would’ve had it in her to singlehandedly carry a massacre on her back like that.
sure, she said she was just ‘a dumb kid who wanted to be a part of something’—she also immediately quit pouting and going on about that a second later, so she could gloat about killing dewey to gale. it was entirely an act. similarly to stu, i think amber displayed a clear enjoyment of violence, inflicting suffering, and an overall disregard for human life (even that of those she supposedly held dear; she made it clear she hated sam for hurting tara, but didn’t show an ounce of guilt over stabbing her or when she was throwing her over the couch like a ragdoll) with her all her excitement and bragging in act 3. she likes doing it and she’s good at what she does. i think, even if it hadn’t been for stab, amber would have eventually found some excuse to do it.
richie kirsch -
no. again, please see the same segment of the radio silence interview linked in amber's section above and/or act 3 of scream vi. or him actually in action in act 3 of scream 5, tbh. dude is a freaky nerd but he is not particularly solo killer material. richie likes making his fan films, he likes playing the role of director, he even likes carrying around the buck knife and taunting his victims! he is not, however, all that keen on carrying out full-scale murders when he actually has to get into all the blood and guts. he makes for one hell of a ghostface's lil receptionist tho idk! squeamishness be damned, my boy can work a phone!
i do have my… thoughts on the matter of ‘richie had to have done the [xyz] kill because he one-shot stabs and that’s how [so-and-so] died’ so that does kinda bear mentioning bc it does factor into how i perceive his competence as a killer or lack thereof. considering that in most of those cases, the 'kill style' thing is really the only thing that would seem to eliminate the possibility of amber doing it, whereas richie is usually in a really inconvenient spot time/place wise to have done so... yeah. one of the only times where it absolutely had to be him running around in that costume, he tried (and failed) to kill mindy in a situation where he had every advantage. his grown self snuck up on a high, distracted teenage girl and did not even land (1) fatal blow. it is just not fair or realistic to expect him to carry out an entire massacre w/ no help.
scream vi
jason carvey / greg bruckner -
no (nuance/i’m bald) & no. also greg doesn't even get a picture because he was in (1) scene and already chopped up. off the limited screen time/information we have on them, neither of them would've had the nerve or skill to carry out multiple murders alone. greg didn't even get the chance to kill anyone. sure, jason got one kill in…and immediately got caught and killed the same night.
also, might just be me extrapolating off what we got of their dynamic when jason was on the phone with 'greg'—they seem far too reliant on one another, both as people and with the other's approval specifically. i think, as big of richie fanboys as they were, they would’ve pumped the brakes on it if either jason or greg was like “ehhh nahhh” before the plan was fully in motion. this was very much a "if you do it, i'll do it" situation.
wayne bailey -
yes. in a similar fashion to nancy, that revenge motive had wayne in an absolute chokehold. there was just no way that any of that was being resolved non-violently. as far as wayne himself goes, he also has a leg up in that department being that he's law enforcement and not just, like, a killer with a grudge who was a normal suburban parent until a few years back. he's got the mentality for it, the means (as one of the few ghostfaces that isn't like just some teen/20-smth student) to get together and execute a pretty elaborate plan on his own, and the physical capability. and an easy cover, obviously. with the kills we can say for certain were wayne's doing (see: the guys literally right above him here), he's shown to be a pretty efficient and also like... insanely brutal killer. peepaw got this dw. anything for his firstborn favorite son.
his kids were an immense help towards the plot in terms of the manipulation aspect and being able to worm themselves into the core four's lives. but if needs be, i don't think not having that would've been much of a deterrent for him. even if he didn't feel he could execute an all-out ghostface killing spree w/ sm strays and an insane body count all on his own, i don't think wayne would've gone without at least still going after anyone he saw as 'key' in richie's death. which is still a lot of people. the carpenters for sure. jason and greg still, by extension, just for potentially 'getting in the way' of that w/ their own ghostface shenanigans. gale's catching it too. tbh, probably also sidney, given all this in the OG vi draft. he really dgaf everybody was catching it.
quinn bailey -
no. okay listen like. hear me out. for as much as i love her, as well as giving her credit where it's due for killing gale's boyfriend all on her own (and launching that full grown man through an entire shelf), quinn doesn't particularly feel like 'solo killer' material. and not just because she's gone for most of vi and the two other attacks we can 100% pin on her, being mindy and gale, left both surviving victims. god bless her, she really is her big brother's sister. am i of the opinion that wayne manipulated the twins into killing and they only did so at his insistence? no. not even a little bit. but quinn is an... interesting case as far as the family motive goes. she was going to go mad w/ grief regardless and i see no way that she wouldn't still have a very intense hatred for sam, tbh she probably would've still been slandering her anyways killer or not, but that's a point all its own.
quinn is very clearly someone who puts a sense of loyalty and obligation to her family above all else (see: this bit of the collider interview w/ liana about vi). ergo, my hot take here is that unless the rest of the family was down to get stabby w/ it, quinn most likely could not have brought herself to do it. her willingness to kill does stem from a lot of rage and grief wrt richie's death, yes, but i also feel like the feeling of needing to 'step up' and fill that protector role she had following his death wouldn't have allowed her to 'abandon' her remaining family to pursue a murder plot. both practically, in that she wasn't particularly the deadliest of the three in comparison to wayne and ethan, and mentally/emotionally, quinn does not work as a killer w/o her family.
ethan landry -
yes. ethan is def his father's son as far as ability and brutality go. that mousy lil guy was tearing that city UP! he was a menace like it's actually crazy. out of the full sibling set, he had the most success when it came to kills. and like many a ghostface before him, his silly goofy demeanor during act 3 (him laughing and taunting the carpenter sisters, hitting kirby with the 'recognize this?' and a big grin before stabbing her w/ charlie's knife) does not exactly paint him as someone who does not get at least some enjoyment out of violence. the level of sadism there and just how hard he went w/ some of his kills, like the apartment attack (see: 3:59-4:22, 4:57-:59 for specific examples), only further supports that. he's someone who is willing and able to do a lot of damage even to those he really has no personal issue with—anika was just collateral for being at the carpenters' apartment and he strangled that girl, sliced her open, twisted the knife, and tossed her off a ladder to her death. and that was an acquaintance who had nothing to do w/ richie.
with ethan, i also do think it goes beyond just getting a kick out of all of that, though. idrk if i have to say it but, similarly to charlie, honestly arguably a little more so, ethan also feels like he comes from a place of a lot of repressed resentment. hard to imagine why. (a lifetime of that and then the past year? of their lives being dedicated to a revenge plot in his memory) the overkill makes a lot of sense from someone who's got to get it out somewhere. while i don't think he was manipulated, per se, i don't think ethan would've had any desire to carry out the revenge plot w/o his family's involvement. that being said, he definitely feels like it was a matter of time before something would've triggered him to violence eventually, and whoever was unlucky enough to catch it would've gotten just as bad, if not worse, as his ghostface victims did. but if i also said the (2) most likely targets of him lashing out were already mentioned in this thread...
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