Characters / Scream: Recurring Characters

Main Character Index
Movies: Recurring Characters (Sidney Prescott | Gale Weathers | Dewey Riley | Sam Carpenter) | Ghostface (Scream 4 Mastermind) | Scream (1996) | Scream 2 | Scream 3 | Scream 4 | Scream (2022) | Scream VI
TV Series: MTV Series | Resurrection

Characters appearing in multiple films

Legacy Trio

General

L-R: Dewey Riley, Sidney Prescott, Gale Weathers

"You know how they say it always goes back to the original? Here's the original."

— Gale Weathers, Scream (2022)

The original trio of survivors from the first through the fifth movies.

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• Dwindling Party: They survive four movies with nary a casualty until Dewey bites it partway through the fifth. By extension, this also leaves Sidney and Gale as the only survivors of the original Woodsboro massacre.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Dewey is the nice, who is kind to everyone at almost all times, including the townspeople and his subordinates almost to a fault. Gale is the mean, who even after taking a level in kindness is still the roughest in calmest of situations and Sidney is the kind but guarded in between, who's not afraid to throw a punch or snark at someone who's disrespecting her.
• Power Trio:
  • Kindhearted and protective Dewey is the Id.
  • Intelligent and ruthless Gale is the Superego.
  • Level-headed and brave Sidney is the Ego.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: In Scream 2, Dewey and Sidney get along fine due to their previous friendship, but both of them have personal issues with Gale, who dumped the former and exploited the latter's hardships. All three become Fire-Forged Friends by the third movie.
• Two Girls and a Guy: The Woodsboro survivor group starts out as a Gender-Equal Ensemble quartet, but Randy's death leaves Dewey as the only guy.

Sidney Prescott

See her page.

Gale Weathers

See her page.

Dewey Riley

See his page.

Core Four

General

L-R: Sam, Tara, Mindy, Chad

Chad: This will be so fun. A little slumber party with the Core Four.

Sam: Core Four?

Tara: Did you just give us a nickname?

Chad: I sure did. I mean, we've been through a lot together, and it's a pretty cool nickname.

— Scream VI

The core group of survivors from the fifth and sixth movies, made up of Samantha and Tara Carpenter and Chad and Mindy Meeks-Martin.

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• Affirmative-Action Legacy: Compared to the Legacy Trio, who were all white, the Core Four are more diverse. Sam and Tara are Latina and the Meeks-Martin twins are African-American. Mindy is also a lesbian.
• Ambiguously Brown:
  • Sam and Tara are both played by actresses of Mexican heritage (Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega) but have the Anglo-Saxon last name "Carpenter". Their mother's name is spelled Cristina, which is the Spanish form of the name, rather than Christina, which is more common in Anglo-America. But we never see what their parents look like, although Sam's biological father is revealed to be Billy Loomis, meaning she is most likely mixed-race. The most likely explanation for the siblings’ last name is that Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter were also in an interracial relationship, making Tara mixed-race as well.
  • Chad and Mindy, the twin children of the white Martha Meeks, are both visibly at least part-Black (both Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown are biracial), though we never see what their other parent looks like or even if they are Martha's biological children.
• Ascended Extra: Mindy and Chad are side characters in the fifth movie but receive more screen time and character focus in the sixth. Downplayed with Tara — while she got a decent amount of focus in 5, she was also confined to a hospital bed for over half the movie and her role in the story boiled down to being Sam's motivation to return to Woodsboro and dispatching one of the killers at the end. VI gives her an arc outside of her relationship with Sam and she gets to take a more active part in the movie's events.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character:
  • Compared to the Legacy Trio, the Core Four are much closer in age. In the first movie, Sidney was 17, Dewey was 25, and Gale was in her early thirties. By contrast, Tara, Mindy, and Chad are 18 and only Sam, at 24, is older.
  • Sidney was Like Brother and Sister with Dewey and became Fire-Forged Friends with Gale, who later married Dewey. The Core Four, on the other hand, are much closer from the get-go, with three of them being high school friends and Sam being Tara's sister who babysat the twins when they were little. The Four are also a tighter-knit group than the Trio, who are only implied to get together when Ghostface attacks start up again.
  • Dewey and Gale's relationship is mirrored by Chad and Tara's relationship. Both Chad and Dewey fall for their female partners Gale and Tara during their investigation and battle against the Ghostfaces and both the couples even sum up the Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy dynamic (both Gale and Tara being headstrong, independent and driven Deadpan Snarkers who are willing to put up a fight with their enemies while Chad and Dewey, despite their occupations are shown to be very kind and gentle while also being willing to fight back against their enemies and protect and aid their girlfriends). But while Gale and Dewey interacted the most in the first film, Chad and Tara don't interact until the sixth film which reveals they have gotten really close. Especially in the climax, both Chad and Dewey are stabbed and left for dead by the Ghostfaces in front of their girlfriends and later, both Gale and Tara brutally maim them for insulting and trying to kill their boyfriends (Gale attacked Amber for insulting and murdering Dewey and Tara attacked Ethan for stabbing and insulting Chad.)
• Everybody Lives: All of them survive the events of both 5 and VI.
• Fire-Forged Friends: While they were already on good terms in 5, their shared trauma strengthens their bond to make them genuine True Companions by the time of Scream VI.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble:
  • Melancholic: Sam who is dealing with a lot of psychological and emotional problems that have to do with the Ghostface attacks, issues that ruined her relationship with her mother, feeling Hated by All after being accused of being behind the 2021 Woodsboro killings and knowing who her real father is.
  • Phlegmatic: Chad, an extroverted Lovable Jock and the most friendly, easy-going of the group who arguably acts as The Heart.
  • Sanguine: Tara who is much more open, cheerful and social compared to Sam and doesn't let the traumas of the Ghostface attacks affect her life the same way her sister has.
  • Chloeric: Mindy, the blunt Meta Girl and passionate horror movie fan.
• Good Is Not Soft: They're all good people, but don't have any problem killing a Ghostface who crosses their path. As of the end of VI, Sam has killed three, Tara has killed one and brutally wounded another, and Chad nearly beat one to death before being ambushed by a second.
• Made of Iron: They all receive pretty gruesome injuries but are still kicking as of the end of Scream VI.
• Mythology Gag: Their group name parallels the one used in the MTV series in which the survivor group was dubbed the "Lakewood Six".
• The Notable Numeral: The Core Four.
• Sibling Team: The group consists of two pairs of siblings, the Carpenter sisters and the Meeks-Martin twins.
• Spin-Offspring: All of them but Tara are related to someone from the original trilogy. Sam is the daughter of Billy Loomis while Mindy and Chad are the niece and nephew of Randy Meeks.
• Town Girls: Tomboyish and Former Teen Rebel Sam (butch), her petite and more girly sister Tara who dresses in bright colors (femme) and Meta Girl horror-film buff Mindy (neither).
• True Companions: Summed up nicely by Chad in VI.
  Chad: Okay, we have all been through some fucked up stuff. And we are coping with it differently. But, I mean, we moved here together for one very specific reason. We're a team.

Sam Carpenter

See her page.

Tara Carpenter

Tara Carpenter

"I still prefer The Babadook."

Played By: Jenna Ortega

Appearances: Scream (2022) | Scream VI

"I don't want to let what happened to us for three days define the rest of my life."

Sam's younger sister, Tara is Ghostface's first target, meant to lure Sam back to Woodsboro.

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• Action Girl: She upgrades to this at the end of 5 and keeps going in VI. She's the one to kill Amber, clocks Quinn across the face with a brick so hard that she loses her teeth, and then viciously stabs Ethan in the mouth and twists the blade for good measure.
• Action Survivor: Even with a broken ankle and one good hand, she manages to slow down Ghostface in the hospital, though not enough to seriously stop them. She later gets a few good whacks in with one of her crutches at Amber's house and takes down the second killer. She is also the only person in the whole franchise to survive the opening attack and Ghostface introduction.
• Alcoholic Parent: Her mother Cristina is described as being one and is completely absent from the events of the film due to being away in London. In her first interaction with “Charlie”, who claims to be a member of her mother's (either Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous) group, Tara seems surprised that her mother would be in one.
• Ambiguously Bi: Scream VI confirms Tara's interest in men, but in an earlier draft of the script for Scream 5, Tara and Amber were ex-girlfriends, which goes unmentioned in the final film, although the girls do have a very close friendship and Amber is implied to possibly be attracted to her.
• Ankle Drag: The victim of this, thanks to Ghostface. She survives though.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Tara is a kind person, but is ultimately the one to take out the second killer in the fifth film by calmly gunning them down. Said murderer was Amber, who Tara had once believed to be her best friend. In the sixth film, Tara brutally stabs Ethan through the mouth after she taunts and attacks her, and almost succeeds in killing him (Kirby ultimately finishes him off).
• Bond One-Liner: After killing Amber with a headshot, Tara quips "I still prefer The Babadook" (a reference to Amber's first attack, where she, as Ghostface, mocked Tara's preference for "elevated horror").
• Bound and Gagged: Amber and Richie bind her up with duct tape with the intention of killing her later. Sam finds her in a closet and cuts her free.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: She ends up surviving both times Ghostface attacks her because they need Tara alive to bring Sam back to Woodsboro.
• Combat Pragmatist: Even in her wounded state, Tara makes good use of several mundane items, such as a phone and her own crutches, to evade the killer. She also uses a gun to simply shoot Amber dead at the end.
• Date Rape Averted: Implied in the sixth film, where Chad gets into a physical altercation with a guy (and Sam tasers him in the testicles) when he tries to take an intoxicated Tara upstairs at a Halloween frat party. Although initially annoyed by their interference, once she sobers up, Tara recognizes that they helped her and thanks Chad.
• Deadpan Snarker: She Took a Level in Smartass in the sixth film. It comes with being played by Wednesday Addams. The best example is her response to finding out Bailey raised two of his kids to become serial killers to avenge the death of his firstborn son, also a serial killer.
  Tara: Real great parenting job, by the way.
• Dead Star Walking: Subverted. Jenna Ortega is a very well-known actress and many assumed the film would repeat the first film's famous killing of Drew Barrymore but Tara not only survives the attack but the whole of both 5 and VI.
• Disowned Parent: Tara disowns her mother, Cristina, offscreen between Scream (2022) and Scream VI, for cutting out her sister Sam.
• Determinator: Tara proves herself to be one as Ghostface tries to kill her, using anything in her path as a weapon, and making it clear that she will not go down easily even in spite of her injuries. She survives to the end of both 5 and VI as a result.
• Deuteragonist: Alongside Sam, she is also the main focus of the new series.
• Drugs Are Good: Played for Laughs. In Tara's own words, the hospital was giving her good painkillers, and she doesn't make it seem like a bad thing.
• Dude Magnet: Attracts Wes in 5 and Frankie, Chad, and Ethan in Scream VI. In addition to these guys, the fifth movie implies that Amber may be attracted to her, and they were exes in the original drafts.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Her hair is longer in the sixth film, where she strives for more independence from her sister.
• Fangirl: Describes herself as a fan of "elevated horror," such as The Babadook.
• Final Girl: Tara starts off as a more conventional version of this trope than her sister, being a kindhearted, intelligent, and friendly teenaged girl who, despite her injured state throughout the film, proves herself to be a resourceful Determinator and even manages to take down one of the killers in the end. Deconstructed in VI, where Tara wants to ignore her trauma as a result of having survived two serial killers, a desire which manifests itself in unhealthy coping mechanisms. Nevertheless, Tara - along the rest of the Core Four - resolves to face off against Ghostface once again.
• Handicapped Badass: For nearly all of the fifth film, she has a broken ankle and an impaled hand, which hampers her even using a wheelchair. She also has multiple stab wounds, and on top of that she’s asthmatic. But, not only does she survive to the end of the film, she also puts up quite a fight against Amber in the climax.
• Hollywood Healing: Tara is brutally attacked by Ghostface in 5 and remains wheelchair-bound and in severe pain throughout the whole movie. A year later in VI, she is able to attend college, run around, and fight Ghostface with no visible physical issues at all.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: In VI, Tara strives for some independence away from her sister Sam, who followed her to New York after getting into college there. She also wants to not be the girl who survived the requel Woodsboro killings, even pretending to be from Michigan to avoid the notoriety. But also deconstructed: Tara wants normalcy, though this means avoiding her internal trauma from the killings as she dodges therapy and talking about the murders altogether. Eventually, at the end of the film, Tara promises Sam she will go to therapy with Sam agreeing to get Tara some space while promising to always be there for her.
• Impaled Palm: As a result of trying to block Ghostface's first assault. This makes things significantly harder for her when she has to get around in a wheelchair or crutches, as this hand has near zero grip strength. She still has the scar from the injury a year later.
• Improvised Weapon: She defends herself from Ghostface in the hospital by shoving an IV stand at them. Later on, after Sam unties her, Tara gets the jump on Amber by using her crutches as a club to beat her to the ground with.
• In the Back: While she and Chad are in the middle of The Big Damn Kiss in the theater, Ghostface appears and stabs her nonfatally in the back, in a successful second attempt after failing to before the Bodega attack earlier in the film.
• Ironic Name: Like Sam, she shares her surname with John Carpenter, whose film Halloween greatly influenced the slasher template that Scream follows and parodies. Ironically, Tara is not much of a slasher fan, instead preferring arthouse horror like The Babadook.
• Kill the Cutie: Subverted. She's the first "opening victim" of the series to survive her assault, though she's badly injured and spends most of the movie hospitalized afterwards.
• The Load: Subverted. Given her serious wounds and being hospitalized for much of the film, Tara seemingly acts as one through no fault of her own. However, Tara proves time and time again that she isn't completely down. During the hospital scene where Ghostface tries to kill her again, she manages to (temporarily) slow them down and tries her damndest to escape to the elevator. Then during the finale, she completely subverts the trope by beating Amber with her crutches, which gives Sam time to get away from Richie, and then later by shooting Amber dead when she's trying to kill Sam, Sidney, and Gale again — thus ending the killing spree altogether.
• Made of Iron: Tara has taken a lot of damage. In the fifth film, she is beaten, concussed, stabbed several times in the back and stomach, has her ankle broken, and has her palm impaled with a knife. And this is all in her introduction scene. In the following film, Tara survives stab wounds to the back and stomach as well as a gunshot wound to the arm. And yet she lives to fight another day.
• Male Gaze: The camera lingers on her butt at some points in Scream VI.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: She's the headstrong Masculine Girl to Chad's Gentle Giant Feminine Boy.
• Morality Pet: To Sam. It's clear that a large part of Sam's mental well-being is tethered to keeping her sister safe. Sam nearly refrains from delivering the final stab to Bailey so as not to kill him in front of Tara. Tara silently gives her the OK to finish the job.
• Nice Girl: The main reason she interacted with Ghostface after she hung up on them at first was because they had threatened the life of her best friend Amber. Tara is also shown to have close relationships with her friends and still care very much about Sam despite their strained relationship. She is also friendly to Ghostface during the introductory phone call and engages in polite conversation until it turns sinister.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Decides to leave the safety of her house because she thinks Amber is in danger. Too bad it's a ploy by Amber herself to get to Tara, break her ankle, and stab her several times.
• Parental Abandonment: Her father abandoned her when he found out her older sister wasn’t his biological daughter.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: She is just over five feet tall and very petite as well as asthmatic but surprisingly strong, able to fight back against and even briefly overcome both Ghostfaces she encounters in the fifth film. In the sixth film, she manages to brutally wound Ethan by impaling him through the mouth and jaw, even after he stabbed her in the stomach.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Defied; not only does she survive the opening of 5, but the whole movie as well, ultimately dispatching one of the killers.
• Self-Harm: In the sixth film, her desire to be normal gets so desperate that it crosses over into this. She throws herself into unsafe situations just to feel normal. She even gets mad at Sam for protecting her from Frankie, even asking her big sister what if she wanted to get taken advantage of by some sexually predatory asshole? However, in later scenes, she admits that this is all deeply unhealthy, expresses gratitude to the people protecting her (like Sam and Chad), and vows to seek therapy.
• Ship Tease: Develops one with Chad in VI. Upgraded to Official Couple status in the final scene.
• Sibling Team: With Sam. Downplayed in 5: while they're the ones who dispatch the killers, it's not together as Tara is injured for much of the final fight and only re-enters the fray with a well-timed headshot on Amber. In the following movie, Tara is more of an active participant in combat alongside Sam and the two work together more often.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She eventually falls for Lovable Jock Chad, who returns her feelings.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: She’s the girly girl to her tomboyish sister Sam.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: She's noticeably more abrupt and irritable in VI than her more sweet and understanding personality in 5, though this is justified by having to cut her mother out of her life. Downplayed, as she has no ill will towards Sam and remains loyal to her.
• Tuckerization: Named after Tara Farney, the producer of Radio Silence's previous film Ready or Not (2019).
• Undying Loyalty: To her older sister, Sam. Even when their mother cuts all ties with Sam by the time of the sixth movie, Tara willingly cuts her mother out of her life rather than tolerate her treatment of Sam.
• Villain Killer: She puts Amber down for good with a surprise headshot in Scream 5, and nearly kills Ethan in Scream VI by driving a knife deep into his mouth, though it's Kirby who finishes him off.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: She brutally stabs Ethan in the mouth for daring to almost kill her boyfriend Chad and later having the galls to insult him to her face.
• The Watson: Serves as this to Sam.

Chad Meeks-Martin

Chad Meeks-Martin

Played By: Mason Gooding

Appearances: Scream (2022) | Scream VI

A resident of Woodsboro, the son of Martha Meeks, the twin brother of Mindy Meeks-Martin, the nephew of Randy Meeks, and the boyfriend of Liv McKenzie.

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• Action Survivor: Despite being attacked and seriously injured, he survives the events of both 5 and VI.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Goes "Stop, wait, wait!" before being attacked by Ghostface in 5.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: The audience only meets his mother Martha, with no explanation for where Mr. (maybe Mrs.) Martin is (though considering the scene at the Meeks-Martin house only really includes the group, it's possible they’re just off-screen).
• Beware the Nice Ones: Chad is a sweet, lovable guy but he's not afraid to get physical when he has to, stepping in to stop a frat boy from potentially raping Tara and having no issue brutally defending himself against Ghostface with whatever he can use.
• Big Brother Instinct: It's not clear if he's older than Mindy (as they are twins), but he is shown to be very protective of their peers and Mindy.
• The Big Guy: Of the "Core Four" in Scream VI, being the most well-built of the protagonists capable of tossing Ghostface a good beating, especially in the climax. It takes two of the killers to bring him down, and he still survives.
• Big Guy Fatality Syndrome: Subverted. Despite being turned into a pincushion by two Ghostfaces in VI, he's left in critical condition but still alive to be rescued by paramedics after the climax.
• Black Dude Dies First: Subverted and downplayed. While he is far from the first person to get attacked during the killing spree in 5, Chad is the first person at the party to get attacked by Ghostface. Luckily, Chad survives his injuries.
• Combat Pragmatist: In the sixth film, he fights off Ghostface using a camera and a popcorn maker, among other things.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: By the sixth film, it's clear Chad is the new generation's Dewey Riley. Both are the sweet, protective nice guys of their respective groups as well as the only male members who end the first two films of their series being reeled out on a stretcher after narrowly surviving gruesome injuries. In addition, both were originally supposed to die in their debut movies, but the directors enjoyed working with the actors and thus they were spared. He's also seen taking notes when Mindy talks about her franchise rules, much like Dewey did when he watched the tape of Randy listing the rules for trilogies. However, there are a few differences:
  • Dewey was a brave man who was nonetheless a bit absent-minded and clumsy. Chad is much more physically capable and sharper on the uptake.
  • Dewey was socially awkward whereas Chad is more outgoing.
  • Dewey's relationship with Gale, while genuinely loving for the most part, was occasionally undercut with Belligerent Sexual Tension due to their wildly contrasting personalities. Chad and Tara are more amicable and get along without ever any hint of animosity.
  • Dewey lost his sister Tatum in the first Ghostface murder spree. Chad's sister Mindy survives the Ghostface killings of both 5 and VI.
• Date Rape Averted: In the sixth film. He saves an intoxicated Tara from a potential sexual assault by pulling the guy away from her, at which point Sam tasers the guy in the crotch.
• Dumb Muscle: Subverted. He’s athletic but also erudite, empathetic, and Genre Savvy. Any time he threatens someone with physical violence is to protect the people he loves.
• Genre Savvy: While not a Meta Guy like his sister, Chad is shown to be savvy about the Jerk Jock stereotype and refers to Vince as “Uglier Michael Myers” because of the latter’s stalker tendencies.
• The Heart: He's the friendliest member of the "Core Four", along with being the one who unites them by giving them the nickname. When Sam is in tears from a news report calling her a murderer, it's Chad who leads the group in cheering her up and assuring Sam that none of them hate her.
• Hollywood Healing: He apparently has no issues from being stabbed multiple times by the killer in 5 even one year later, and has apparently been able to go back to athletics with no problems.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: At first, Chad wants to have sex with Liv, though as the body count rises and it becomes apparent that the killer is likely someone close to him, he declines Liv’s offer to have sex towards the end of the movie.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: He's One Head Taller than Tara and at least twice as broad. The two become a couple at the end of Scream VI.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Downplayed. Chad downs a shot at the party commemorating Wes’ life as a way to cope with his grief.
• In the Back: Ghostface stabs him this way in 5.
• Iron Butt Monkey: Rivals Dewey in terms of injuries, having survived two instances where he is stabbed over half a dozen times and left to bleed out.
• Ironic Name: As Ethan points out in VI, Chad's name is also known to be a byword for a dickhead jock. Chad might be a jock, but he's shown to be very kind and moral.
• Lovable Jock: Chad is generally a nice guy who happens to be a football player. He does have an aggressive side, but it only comes out when others are threatening him or his girlfriend.
• Made of Iron: In the fifth film, he gets stabbed seven times and is left to bleed out, but ultimately pulls through. This trait is reinforced in the sixth film, where he gets stabbed even more times by both masked Ghostfaces at the same time, yet once again, survives to see another day.
• A Man Is Always Eager: Inverted. His girlfriend Liv wants to have sex with him, though Chad turns her down because he is not completely sure that she isn’t the killer.
• Meaningful Name: He is an attractive, athletic man, fitting the Internet Chad stereotype. This is lampshaded in the sixth film, though despite said lampshading, Chad doesn't fit the Jerk Jock part of the stereotype, being genuinely kind and friendly.
• Mr. Fanservice: His introduction in VI has him shirtless for his costume, showing off his muscular physique, while rushing a frat's Halloween party.
• Nice Guy: Chad is a friendly, good-natured person who is protective of his sister, friends, and love interests.
• The Nicknamer: Gives Sam, Tara, Mindy, and himself the name "Core Four" in the sixth film. The rest of the group isn't keen on the name at first, but it grows on them by the end.
• No One Could Survive That!: In the fifth film, Chad is stabbed seven times and left to bleed out. In the sixth film, he becomes the first character in the series to get attacked by multiple Ghostfaces at the same time, resulting in him getting stabbed eleven times. In both instances, he survives.
• Odd Friendship: With the nerdy, awkward Ethan in the sixth movie.
• The One Guy: The only male member of the Core Four.
• Only Mostly Dead: Despite being stabbed over half a dozen times and left to bleed out by Ghostface twice, Chad ultimately pulls through both times.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Chad is a general Lovable Jock, while his sister Mindy is a blunt Meta Guy. However, both are Genre Savvy (Mindy more so than Chad).
• Red Herring: Amber points out that Chad’s injuries he claims he sustained during football could actually be the result of him being Ghostface. He isn’t.
• Second-Act Breakup: Chad's lack of confidence about Liv's innocence leads to a public argument and breakup. Sadly, they never get the chance to make up, as Chad is seriously injured and Liv is dead by the end of the night.
• Ship Tease: With Tara in the sixth film. By the end, it’s implied they will become an Official Couple.
• Took a Level in Badass: After being mostly helpless in Scream 5, Scream VI has Chad put up an excellent fight against Ghostface, and if he hadn't been ambushed by a second killer, he likely would have won.
• Tuckerization: Named after Chad Villella from the Radio Silence team.
• Understanding Boyfriend: Chad knows about Liv’s brief summer fling with Vince and seems to accept it. Furthermore, he is shown to be concerned with Liv’s welfare when Vince shows up at the bar and starts harassing the group, going up against Vince even when he pulls out a switchblade. Additionally, Chad tries to find Liv when she wanders off by herself, which unfortunately puts him in the path of Ghostface.
• The Worf Effect: As the muscle of the team, Chad gets taken out just before the final showdown in both the fifth and sixth films, since fighting the killers would be a much easier task if he were still around. Notably, both times the killer has to get the drop on him in order to stab him, rather than risk trying to charge him head-on.

Mindy Meeks-Martin

Mindy Meeks-Martin

Played By: Jasmin Savoy Brown

Appearances: Scream (2022) | Scream VI

"No one cares about the shitty inferior sequels, Wes. You're safe. With Randy as our uncle, you and I are probably screwed."

A resident of Woodsboro, the daughter of Martha Meeks, the twin sister of Chad Meeks-Martin, and the niece of Randy Meeks.

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• Action Survivor: Downplayed. Mindy manages to hold her own as the killer tries to murder her, though ultimately Sam is the one to dispatch the killer (at least, temporarily).
• Alliterative Name: Mindy Meeks-Martin.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: The audience only meets her mother Martha, with no explanation for where Mr. (maybe Mrs.) Martin is (though considering the scene at the Meeks-Martin house only really includes the group, it’s possible they’re just off-screen).
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: For all their fighting, Mindy and Chad love each other. The most prominent example is when they acknowledge each other with quick thumbs-up when they are being loaded into separate ambulances at the end of the fifth movie.
• Boyish Short Hair: She has short hair in VI.
• Break the Haughty: Spends the entire fifth film and much of the sixth being a cocky smartass who, like most of the series' Meta Guy characters, treats the situation they're like a real-life movie with movie logic and seldom actually takes anything seriously. However, the death of her girlfriend Anika and Gale's near-murder really rattles Mindy to her core. She admits for the first time that she's scared, and afraid of the same thing happening to her brother and the Carpenter sisters.
• Brutal Honesty: In the original script, Mindy is aptly described as “having no filter”, and the film does indeed portray her as being very blunt when speaking her mind. She says Liv is too boring because of her apparently bland personality and film tastes to be the killer, and tells Sam that she is a likely candidate for the killer if the killer were going down a subversive route for the ongoing killing spree. Additionally, the day after Tara’s attack, she opines that the killer might try to finish her off later, disturbing her friends. She turns out to be right on the money, as Ghostface does indeed try to kill Tara again (though she survives).
• Clueless Detective:
  • Mindy claims that Sam is the killer because of her familial tie to Billy Loomis and because a requel will try to replicate the original's formula. She's correct about the requel formula, but Mindy overlooked Richie, the suspicious boyfriend who fits the "Billy" role too.
  • In a roundabout way, Mindy was also right about the new Ghostface’s plan to frame Sam as the killer — though she assumed this meant Sam herself was the new Ghostface.
  • Mindy is also correct about who in the pattern of a requel would become the next victim (after the attacks on Tara, Vince, and Sam): “someone who came before”. However, she (and almost everyone else) thinks this means Dewey will die next when instead it’s actually Judy, who appeared in the previous film. However, Dewey doesn't survive much longer.
  • Mindy’s not-too-successful track record at figuring out the killers is eventually lampshaded in the sixth film - by Mindy herself, no less. However, she ends up more successful this time around by accurately predicting two of the three killers (Ethan and Bailey); the only reason she didn’t get the third killer was because she didn’t even think it was possible in real life and Quinn was already declared dead at that point.
• Commonality Connection: Mindy bonds with Kirby over their love of horror films, even sharing some of the same favorite movies.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Fittingly, Mindy acts as this to her late uncle Randy. While the two are very similar, they have plenty of differences.
  • Beyond the gender, race and sexuality differences, there's also the fact that Randy was a self-proclaimed virgin (until he lost his virginity sometime between the first and second films) with an unrequited crush on Sidney. Mindy not only doesn't have those clearly labelled qualities, but clearly is able to hook up with another girl easily and casually.
  • Randy's geekdom was always something to cast suspicion on, and he often came across as an outsider in both high school and university, while Mindy is very much seen as normal and isn't cast with as much suspicion as Randy (a sign of how much the geek has been normalized and popularized today compared to the 90s).
  • Both Randy and Mindy have no filters when it comes to their love of, and opinions on, horror films, and both surmise who the killer could be based on their knowledge of the genre. However, Randy is more accurate with his predictions since he correctly suspects Billy and Stu are the killers in the first Woodsboro massacre; as for the Windsor College murders, he's not quite as precise, but he still manages to predict that Mickey is Ghostface, only dropping said guess because he and Mickey are not so different. Not to mention one of the Ghostfaces being a woman and citing Mrs. Voorhees as an example, with Mrs. Loomis being very similar to Jason's mother. On the other hand, Mindy is incorrect about Sam and Liv, never guessing Amber or Richie.
  • Both end up in the same situation in their debut films, though while Randy manages to escape harm when Ghostface is led away by Sidney’s screams for help, Mindy manages to realize that Ghostface is there and defend herself long enough for Sam to save her. They both end up injured, Randy less so than Mindy, as regardless of Mindy noticing and surviving, Ghostface still injured her when given the opportunity.
  • Unlike Randy, Mindy survives her second Ghostface massacre that takes place while she is in college.
• Deadpan Snarker: One of several traits she has in common with her uncle Randy.
  Mindy: (after getting stabbed in the stomach) Fuck this franchise.
• Death by Genre Savviness:
  • Subverted in the fifth film. Mindy’s realization that she is in the exact same situation as her late uncle was in the first film means she manages to dodge much of the killer’s attack mere seconds before they strike. While she does get injured in the process, Mindy ultimately survives.
  • Also subverted in the sixth film. Mindy’s decision to stay far away from Ethan on the subway car because she suspects him of being Ghostface ultimately leads to her getting stabbed by Ghostface out of Ethan's view and earshot. However, not only does she survive, but she ends up being right about Ethan being one of the Ghostfaces.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Mindy is right about the requel formula in the fifth film, but misses out when it comes to the finer details (partly because the killers want to throw off the group).
• Generation Xerox: Being Randy’s niece, Mindy has inherited his Meta Guy tendencies and his love of horror films. It is fitting that Mindy ends up in the same position as Randy was in the first film (and survives like him).
• Get a Room!: She sharply tells Chad and Tara to "just make out already" when they're having a moment in VI.
• Jerkass to One: While she's pretty snarky towards everyone, both movies have a character she directs only vitriol at without any kind of playfulness to the ribbing: Liv in 5 and Ethan in VI.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She can be quite blunt and insensitive, especially in 5 when she casually makes jokes about Liv and Richie dying and the likelihood of the killer returning to finish off Tara. But she does care about the other members of the Core Four and is genuinely heartbroken when her girlfriend Anika dies in VI.
• Lost in a Crowd: In the sixth film. Getting trapped in a crowded subway car, away from most of her group, leads to Mindy getting silenced and stabbed multiple times in the stomach by Ghostface. She survives, though.
• Meta Guy: The token horror fan among the new-gen cast, rather opinionated about the Stab sequels, and the one who takes up the mantle of explaining to the protagonist group the rules of the movie they're in. This character trait helps to save her life when she realizes she is in the same situation as Randy was in the first film and manages to hold Ghostface off long enough for Sam to help her.
• The Movie Buff: Like her uncle, she's extremely well-versed on films, especially horror films. It’s fitting that she is a film studies major at Blackmore in the sixth film.
• Non-Action Guy: She's the only one of the Core Four who has yet to go up against Ghostface in combat, which makes sense when you consider that her original series counterpart Randy never did, either.
• Official Couple: With Anika in the sixth film. When Anika is killed, Mindy is devastated and places herself even more on guard.
• Only Mostly Dead: Downplayed. In the fifth movie, Mindy is stabbed by Ghostface and passes out from blood loss from the wound, which is relatively minor compared to her twin's injuries. The finale reveals she survived the ordeal, as did Chad.
• Preserve Your Gays: Mindy survives the fifth and sixth movies, although is injured both times. Her girlfriend Anika, however, isn’t so lucky in the latter.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Mindy is a Brutally Honest Meta Girl compared to her twin Chad's Lovable Jock personality. However, both are Genre Savvy (Mindy more so than Chad).
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: In a Call-Back to a scene in the first film where Randy explains horror movie rules with Stu jokingly saying “I’ll be right back” before slinking into the kitchen, Richie says “I’ll be right back” before going down to the basement to get beer, with Mindy writing him off as dead as a result. Richie does indeed die at the end of the film, but rather than being a victim of Ghostface as Mindy assumed, he was one of the Ghostface killers himself who was taken out by Sam in self-defense.
• The Stoner: Mindy casually mentions smoking weed in the fifth film.
• Tuckerization: Named after Guy Busick's cousin Mindy.
• Twofer Token Minority: She is lesbian and African-American.

Prescott Family

Neil Prescott

Neil Prescott

Played By: Lawrence Hecht

Appearances: Scream (1996) | Scream 3

Sidney's father, and a widower since the death of his wife. He travels a lot and thus is rarely seen at the family home.

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• Bound and Gagged: During the climax of the first film.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Unmentioned after the third film. When Sidney is in Woodsboro in Scream 4, she stays with her maternal aunt and cousin instead, indicating her father has relocated or died. It is left unexplained in the film.
• Distressed Dude: Billy and Stu kidnapped him at some point during the first film and stuck him in a closet at Stu's house.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Played with. Sidney mentions he died in between the third and fourth films in a deleted scene from Scream 4, though whether this is canon is unclear. However, since Sidney is staying with her aunt and cousin instead of her father in the film, this could imply that Neil died in the interim (or moved away from Woodsboro since the events of Scream 3).
• Frame-Up: Billy and Stu attempted to frame him for the murders in the first film.
• Killed Offscreen: Played with and zig-zagged. Kevin Williamson's original drafts had Jill and Kate as Gilmore Girls-esque Prescotts, Neil's sister and niece; he was alive and Trevor was a hired handyman for his house renovation. Re-drafts by various writers, including Ehren Kruger streamlined the story so that Neil died between Scream 3 and 4, and Sidney was returning for the first time since the funeral. A deleted scene where Dewey mentions his death to Gale was also deleted from the official release, making Neil's status in limbo, possibly/likely alive until stated on-screen otherwise.
• Nice Guy: For one thing, he always forgave his wife for her numerous infidelities and still remembers her fondly years after her death.
• Only Sane Man: Out of all the people related to Sidney, he is the only one to be somewhat normal. Might be because he isn't a Roberts (Maureen's family) by blood.
• Put on a Bus: He's on "business abroad" in Scream 2.
• Red Herring: He's suspected to be the killer in the first and second films.

Maureen Prescott

Maureen Prescott, née Roberts

Played By: Lynn McRee

Appearances: Scream (1996) ^note Photos | Scream 2 ^note Photos | Scream 3 ^note Videos and in a dream

Sidney's mother, murdered a year prior to the first film.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Ghostface mentions she begged for her life.
  Ghostface: Do you want to die, Sidney? Your mother sure didn't.
• Alliterative Name: Her Stage Name Rina Reynolds.
• Asshole Victim: Subverted and Deconstructed. While it becomes clear Maureen was a deeply flawed person, Sidney still loves her, and she clearly didn't deserve the sheer brutality she got in life.
• Casting Couch: When she was an actress, she categorically refused to sexually submit to Hollywood executives. John Milton would have none of it, and subjected her to a gang rape, leading to the birth of Roman.
• Dark and Troubled Past: She was an aspiring actress who got pregnant after a gang rape by Hollywood honchos in the 1970s, set the baby up for adoption and gave him away out of fear of breaking her current family apart. After settling down in Woodsboro, she cheats on her husband with Cotton Weary and Hank Loomis, and gets murdered by her daughter's boyfriend.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Zig-zagged. She cheated on her husband with several men, but he and Sidney forgave her and remember her very well.
• Defiled Forever: Her reaction to her rape by John Milton implies that she felt this way.
• Ethereal White Dress: Sidney's visions of her mother's ghost in Scream 3 depicts her wearing a long white nightgown.
• Hated by All: Distressingly, the only people in the series to ever think fondly of her are Sidney and her father. Whenever anyone else mentions Maureen, she's referred to as a homewrecking slut and the motives of the killers in the first three movies are all directly tied to her actions. It's not until the fourth film that she stops being blamed as the cause for Ghostface's rampage.
• I Have No Son!: It is implied that Maureen effectively disowned Roman when he tried to reconnect with her, judging by how bitter he is.
• Kick the Dog: While one could understand why she wouldn't want a reminder of her awful past, the way her rejection of Roman was described was pretty callous considering it wasn't his fault she was raped. Though, what Roman did next was certainly unwarranted regardless as he could have simply reached out to Neil and Sidney and told them about her past, or even outed her affairs with Hank and Cotton.
• Missing Mom: To Sidney, who still has trouble coming to terms with her brutal death a year later.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Exactly how she died has possibly been purposely left vague. Her body bag in 3 indicates that she sustained stab wounds to the crotch, chest, and head, but it was just a prop for Stab 3, a Film Within a Film, and so is possibly not true to life. She is said to have been tortured, but this is only ever brought up exactly once in the entire series, by self-admitted sensationalist Gale Weathers, who unsurprisingly could have just been embellishing like she did with Kenny's death (he had his throat slit, but Gale said that he was disemboweled). All we know is that Billy and Stu attacked her after she had sex with Cotton (which gave the impression that it was a rape-murder; after the actual circumstances of her death come to light, characters—including the actual killers—no longer mention her being raped, only murdered) and that the killing left a coat that Cotton had forgotten at the Prescott house after the romp with Maureen drenched in blood.
• Parents as People: Her character in the original trilogy is gradually shown to have been a very flawed person who cheated on her husband in life, but was nonetheless a good mother to Sidney. Maureen's rejection of her son Roman, while not necessarily the right thing to do given that Roman obviously can't choose the manner in which he was conceived, is still understandable when taking into consideration that she wouldn't want to be reminded of her past as a rape victim. Overall, Maureen made many mistakes when she was alive, but she never deserved to be murdered by Billy and Stu, and still brought happiness to Sidney's life as her mother.
• Plot-Triggering Death: It's Maureen's murder, one year prior to the first film, that gets the ball rolling on the entire series; her killers decide to frame her husband for a killing spree on the one-year anniversary of Maureen's murder, and the aftermath of this rampage leads to the events of every other film in the series in one way or another.
• Posthumous Character: Murdered a year before the first film, but she is arguably the most active character in the franchise.
• Promiscuity After Rape: The third movie reveals she was gang-raped at a party, leading to her cheating on her husband with, among other men, Cotton Weary and Hank Loomis.
• Really Gets Around: Rumors of Maureen's promiscuity apparently followed her for years before her murder, though apart from her confirmed affairs with Cotton Weary and Hank Loomis, how true the rumors are is never established; the only people to claim that she slept around aside from that are Billy and Stu, her very biased murderers, who bring it up to torment Sidney.
• The Scapegoat: It becomes clear by the third movie that even if Maureen made a lot of mistakes in her life, the killers who blame her for justification in the deaths they've caused are only using her as an excuse to hurt others. Billy blames her for driving his mom away and Mrs. Loomis blames her for destroying their family, when neither of them do anything to blame Billy's dad for sleeping with her. Nor does Billy show any animosity towards his mom for leaving him behind, while Mrs. Loomis still claims that she was a good mother despite abandoning her son. Roman, meanwhile, was implied to have ensured Maureen had a very agonizing death as revenge for rejecting him, whereas his murder of John Milton (his father and the man who raped Maureen, and thus the reason why she rejected him) receives a much more quicker death.
• Sins of the Father: It may take Sidney her entire life until she manages to free herself from her mother's sins, as nearly all of the Ghostfaces she's faced are in some way or another motivated to murder because of Maureen's actions.
• Slut-Shaming: Even after her death, she is more remembered for sleeping around "like she's Sharon Stone" while the men she slept with (when you leave Cotton Weary being wrongfully jailed) suffer very little damage to their reputations. Of course, Cotton wasn't married and Hank probably had to move away from Woodsboro due to being the father of a serial killer.
• Stage Names: During her time in Hollywood, she went by the name Rina Reynolds.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: Her adultery traces back to trauma from being gang-raped, and it's also made clear that even if Maureen was a significantly flawed person, she didn't deserve to be brutally murdered for it.
• Tempting Fate: With her That Woman Is Dead remark upon rejecting Roman.
  Roman Bridger: She slammed the door in my face, Sid. She said I was "Rina's" child and Rina was dead... and then it struck me. What a good idea.
• That Woman Is Dead: Stated by Roman when she disowned him, saying that he's Rina Reynolds's child, and that Rina is dead. Roman decided that that sounded like a pretty good idea.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • A lot of trouble could have been averted if she had accepted Roman Bridger as her son...
  • Her sleeping with Hank Loomis broke his family apart, and gave reasons for Billy and Nancy to hate her and her daughter.

Meeks Family

Randy Meeks

Randy Meeks

"See, you push the laws and you end up dead. Okay, I'll see you in the kitchen with a knife."

Played By: Jamie Kennedy

Appearances: Scream (1996) | Scream 2 | Scream 3 | Scream (2022) ^note Photograph

A horror movie fan who, in the first three films, gave the characters (and the audience) a list of rules for surviving a horror movie. He is one of the key reasons for the series' reputation for self-referential, post-modern humor.

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• Allegedly Dateless: Randy is treated as being unlucky in love and says that in his ideal movie would “let the geek get the girl.” However, aside from his unrequited crush on Sidney, lots of girls seem interested in him. He’s shown dancing with one girl at Stu’s party and has his arm around another while they watch horror movies. He seems to flirt a bit with a girl in his film class at Windsor College. And he loses his virginity to a girl who works at the video rental place in the year between the first two films.
• Breakout Character: Randy is probably the most popular character in the franchise after the main trio, to the point that fans were furious when he was killed off in 2. This is the reason why he got a posthumous role in 3.
• Brief Accent Imitation: In Scream 2, Randy puts on a British accent, for whatever humorous reason. While speaking about the previous night's Stab sneak preview murders, Sidney says it looked like a publicity stunt, and Randy replies with a British accent:
  Randy: And it would have been a good one too. (...) It's not. A lot of shit happens at the movies. People get robbed, shot, maimed, murdered. Movie theaters are very dangerous places to be these days.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: After he survived being shot by Billy in the first film, Randy's luck runs out in Scream 2, where Mrs. Loomis succeeds where her son failed by savagely stabbing Randy to death.
• Cool Uncle: To Chad and Mindy, though he sadly never got to meet them, having died long before they were born. There's a portait of him on their mantle, which Mindy greets as she enters. Mindy in particular seems to look up to him and take his horror movie rules to heart. Said rules save her life in the fifth film.
• Crazy-Prepared: As revealed in 3, he made a Video Will explaining the rules of a trilogy to Sidney and co. in the event that he didn't survive the second Ghostface incident, commenting that he might have broken one of the rules to end up as a victim.
• Deadpan Snarker: The snarkiest in the series. And that isn't an easy feat when you live in a World of Snark.
• Death by Genre Savviness: His recording in 3 had him suspect he would be killed in the previous film due to the rules he established for the first two, and how he probably broke one of them along with the fact that he was in a sequel.
• Dogged Nice Guy: To Sidney, but he unfortunately isn't allowed much of a shot with Billy or Derek around, and when he HAD a window between the first two movies, he never worked up the nerve to tell her how he felt. In the original script of the first movie, he asks her out at the end, and she happily accepts. His love sadly might not have been so unrequited after all.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: He gets unexpectedly yanked into Gale's news van about halfway through the second film during a telephone call with the killer (who had been hiding in the van), and is then stabbed to death.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Keeping the killer on the phone so Gale and Dewey could track him down, and bravely insulting the killer to his face, er, voice.
• Entertainingly Wrong: When listing suspects behind the Windsor College massacre, Randy speculates that the copycat killer is trying to break new ground and eventually concludes that Hallie is Ghostface because most slasher villains, like the first Ghostface, tend to be white men, so Hallie, a black woman, would be an unexpected subversion. Furthermore, he believes that Gale is a good suspect because she is a news reporter that relies on violent news to make money. Gale and Hallie are not the killers, but Debbie Salt, a female news reporter, is the new Ghostface.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Averted. He is the only killed-off character to get a posthumous role^note unless you're counting the legacy of the original Ghostface .
  • In Scream 3, he leaves behind a Video Will as a clue for Sidney, Gale, and Dewey to solve the new Ghostface mystery.
  • In the fifth film, his sister, Martha, put a memorial dedicated to Randy in her house, where her children Chad and Mindy regularly pay respects to him.
• Genre Savvy: A horror movie fan who lists three rules for surviving a horror movie — don't have sex, don't drink or use drugs, and never say "I'll be right back." Naturally, the characters break all three in record time. Randy expands his rules to sequels and trilogies warnings in the later films.
  • In the first movie, he accurately pegs Billy as the killer and Sidney's father as the Red Herring. He's also right to cast suspicion on Stu, who turns out to be Billy's accomplice.
  • In the second movie, he lists Mickey as a suspect and raises the argument that the killer could be female this time around, both of which turn out to be correct. He mentions Pamela Voorhees as an example of the latter theory, and indeed the killer turns out to be the vengeful mother of Billy Loomis.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: He has bright blue eyes, and is one of the series's friendliest, most selfless, and lovable characters.
• Ironic Echo: In the first movie, Randy nearly dies when the killer sneaks up behind him and is about to stab him, before Sidney's screams prompt the killer to abort this plan. In the second movie, Randy is standing in front of Gale's news van talking on the phone with the killer, but this time isn't so lucky.
• Kill the Cutie: The lovable and excitable movie geek who gets mutilated beyond belief in the sequel, and before that plays the general role of the underdog, enduring many Break the Cutie moments.
• Large Ham: Can get a little too passionate when talking about horror movie rules, even when it's not the time or place.
  Randy: (in the video store) The police are always off track with this shit! If they'd watch Prom Night, they'd save time! There's a formula to it. A very! Simple! Formula! EVERYBODY'S A SUSPECT!
• Meta Guy: The Trope Codifier for horror movies, mostly in the slasher subgenre. Randy is the original trilogy's knowledgeable cinephile who spells out the rules of slasher movies, but this is downplayed as his friends in the first Scream are well-informed in slasher conventions as well and occasionally compare the Ghostface murders to the movies they've watched. Because Scream popularized postmodernism for the horror genre, later meta-horror movies, like Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon and You Might Be the Killer, usually have at least one character that specializes in horror movies and educates the others to help them survive. This even extends to horror movies like Get Out (2017) that play their premises straight and don't focus on postmodernism as noted by Jordan Peele in an interview.
  Jordan Peele: [Scream] had this postmodern reference and so in that way it’s more realistic than a normal horror movie where there’s no knowledge of any horror tropes. I took a cue from that with the character Rod, so that we could have a character that expresses what the audience wishes somebody would say. And that wouldn’t be breaking the reality, it would actually be grounding it.
• The Movie Buff: He even works in a video store in the first movie. Randy is the series' first major movie nut, making countless references and even being able to instantly identify what movie a video store patron is looking for from a vague description. Unsurprisingly, he becomes a film student in college. Randy's role as the resident horror movie expert would subsequently be filled by Kirby, Charlie, and Randy's own niece Mindy after his death.
• No Accounting for Taste: In the Video Will, he mentions sleeping with a video store employee, which prompts groaning from the gang, and he even anticipates this reaction by talking about the woman's good points.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Randy was apparently fired (and subsequently re-hired) from the video store twice before the first film started; exactly why he was fired and how he managed to get his job back is never made clear.
  • You're left wondering exactly what rule he broke when he becomes Ghostface's next victim in 2. We find out exactly which rule he fell afoul of in 3.
• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: After dying in 2, Randy's character in Stab saves his niece Mindy's life. His advice on the necessity of looking behind you allows her to catch Ghostface before getting stabbed, giving her an advantage.
• Oh, Crap!: In the first movie, after Billy pulls a gun on him.
• One Thing Led to Another: His fling with "Creepy Karen" Kolchak: "We were working late, we were putting away some videos in the porno section and, you know, shit happens."
• Plucky Comic Relief: An adorable comic relief character whose only crime is making constant tongue-in-cheek remarks and not having all his social graces down perfectly.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: He calls the deceased Billy Loomis "homo-repressed" in his phone call with the killer in 2. Mrs. Loomis, who's the killer on the other end of the line, takes offense at Randy insulting her son, prompting her to kill him at once.
• Posthumous Character: He dies in 2, but makes a cameo via video tape in 3, and via photograph and in conversation in 5.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Randy assumes that Billy is the killer and went on a spree because Sidney wouldn't have sex with him. He turns out to be right, but not for the reason he thinks; Billy became a killer after Roman Bridger revealed Sidney's mother had been sleeping with his father, which caused his parents' marriage to dissolve.
• Sacrificial Lion: When he's killed in 2.
• Sex Signals Death: A Noodle Incident involving sex in a video store turns out to be the culprit behind his grisly end at the hands of Mrs. Loomis. Or at least that's what he suspected.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Survives the first film, but bites it in the middle of the second. Though he did make a video for the third, in case this would happen.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His mocking of Billy angers his mother enough into luring him to his death.
• Video Will: Made one shortly before his death at Windsor College to provide the "rules of a trilogy." Also counts as The Tape Knew You Would Say That, during a humorous exchange with Dewey.

Martha Meeks

Martha Meeks

Played By: Heather Matarazzo

Appearances: Scream 3 | Scream (2022)

Randy Meeks' younger sister, and a friend of Sidney and Dewey. Later becomes the mother of Chad and Mindy Meeks-Martin.

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• Alliterative Name: Martha Meeks.
• The Bus Came Back: Makes an appearance in 5 after skipping 4 with two teenage children.
• Cool Shades: She has a nice pair of coke-bottle sunglasses.
• Innocently Insensitive: In the fifth film, Martha asks Dewey about Gale when they meet again, unaware that they had divorced some time ago. It's clear from this that she and Dewey had fallen out of touch with each other prior to him and Gale divorcing.
• Intergenerational Friendship: She's good friends with Dewey, who's almost twice her age.
• MacGuffin Guardian: Downplayed, but Randy entrusted her with a video about the rules and logic behind surviving film trilogies.
• Remember the New Guy?: The fact that Randy has a sister was never hinted at before Scream 3. Lampshaded by Gale, who is just as unaware as the audience. Granted, we never see Randy's home life in Scream and he is going to college in another state by Scream 2.
  Sidney: That's Martha Meeks; Randy's sister.
  Gale: Randy's sister?
  Dewey: Yeah. Can't you tell?
• She's All Grown Up: Reappears in her late 30s in Scream 5, after having been 17 in the third film.

Sam's Family

Cristina Carpenter

Cristina Carpenter

Played By: N/A/

Appearances: N/A/

Sam and Tara's mother.

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• Abusive Parents: Cristina cheated on her boyfriend with Billy Loomis and got pregnant with Sam. She then lied to her boyfriend saying Sam was his baby for 13 years. When Sam discovered the truth and accidentally revealed it to said boyfriend, he abandoned both her and his actual biological daughter Tara. Cristina blamed all of this on Sam and became a neglectful drunk. And when Sam revealed the truth to Tara during the 2021 killings, Cristina cut all ties with Sam.
• Alcoholic Parent: She is Tara and Sam's mother, and a drunk. She's also completely absent from the events of the film due to being away in London. It is implied that her alcoholism might've been spurred from a combination of the realization that the biological father of her eldest daughter was a murderous sociopath and the departure of her husband after he learned this secret. According to Amber, Cristina also drunkenly blabbed about her affair with Billy and about Sam being the result of said affair, which is how she and Richie found out about it.
• Alliterative Name: Cristina Carpenter.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Possibly. While Maureen Prescott was flawed (she abandoned Roman, after all, and cheated on Neil with Hank Loomis and Cotton Weary), she is remembered as a good parent to Sidney, and was motivated by a Freudian Excuse. Cristina, on the other hand, is a willfully absent parent to both Sam and Tara who puts all the blame for her mistakes on Sam.
• Disowned Parent: What she becomes to Tara by Scream VI.
• Dramatically Missing the Point /No Sympathy: Strongly implied given how she was more concerned about Sam telling Tara about Billy than the fact that both of her daughters were nearly brutally killed.
• Expy: Of Maureen Prescott. She is the protagonist's mother (in this case, both Sam and Tara's), and her having sex with a Loomis (Hank and Billy) triggered the plots that led to the events of 1 and 5. Both Maureen and Cristina also abandoned their eldest kids, which were born from "relationships" (though, in Maureen's case, rape) by sociopaths (John Milton and Billy Loomis). The only difference is that Cristina is still alive, while Maureen is dead before the first film begins.
• The Ghost: She has not yet been shown in any of the Scream movies, though she was a classmate of Billy and Sidney's in 1, and is Sam and Tara's mother, and she has also been completely unseen in photographs or videos.
• Hypocrite: Despite the fact that it's apparently her fault that Richie and Amber ever found out about Sam's parentage, she apparently refuses to talk to Sam for revealing to Tara that Billy is her father, ignoring the fact that Sam finding out the killers were targeting her and Tara because of her parentage meant she had a responsibility to share that vital information with Tara.
• In Vino Veritas: Her drinking problem is the reason Sam's parentage isn't quite as much of a secret as she thinks it is.
• It's All About Me: Her desire for Tara to not know Sam is Billy's daughter may have been less out of concern for her mental health and more about not letting Tara's view of her be tainted by her actions.
• Jerkass: Nothing we know about Cristina so far is positive. She apparently held Sam's parentage against her, didn't help her when she went off the rails, and still refuses to talk to Sam during VI.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Her unjustified disownment of Sam leads to Tara disowning her in turn, meaning she no longer has a relationship with either of her daughters.
• Long Bus Trip: She was already on a bus during the events of 5 (at a work conference in London), though she is apparently unable to get back to Woodsboro even as her two daughters are both attacked and almost murdered multiple times.
• Never My Fault: When Sam and Tara's father left the family, Cristina blamed Sam for letting him find out about her real parentage, rather than accept any personal responsibility for cheating on him in the first place and lying to him 13 years that it was him who got her pregnant to Sam. Likewise, in Scream VI, Cristina severed all ties with Sam for telling Tara about Billy being Sam's father, again refusing to accept any blame for keeping the secret or for cheating with Billy.
• Parental Favoritism: Cristina treats Sam like garbage (for reasons that are mostly Cristina's own fault, no less), but maintains a relationship with Tara. When, in Scream VI, Cristina is mentioned to have completely severed her ties with Sam, it's explicitly said that it was Tara who chose to cut Cristina off, not the other way around.
• Remember the New Guy?: Cristina is apparently well-known around Woodsboro, though she wasn't mentioned in any Scream film before 5.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Cristina's drunken ramblings revealing Sam's parentage are what led to Amber and Richie targeting both of Cristina's daughters for their plans in Scream 5, the aftermath of which led to the events of Scream VI as well.

Hank Loomis

Hank Loomis

Played By: C.W. Morgan

Appearances: Scream (1996) | Scream 3 ^note In a video recording

Billy's father and Nancy's ex-husband. He is a lawyer.

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• Generation Xerox: Sidney and Billy date behind the former's father's back, while Hank and Maureen had an affair behind their families' backs.
• Outliving One's Offspring: His son is killed in self defense by Sidney at the end of the first film.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He has a big impact for such a minor character, as his cheating was what drove both Billy and his ex-wife to become serial killers.
• Sole Survivor: By Scream 2, he is thought to be the sole surviving Loomis, until it's revealed in Scream 5 that he has a long-lost granddaughter in Sam Carpenter.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His affair with Maureen Prescott led to his wife’s departure, which in turn led to Billy’s killing spree (and, indirectly, the other killing sprees in the series).
• What Happened to the Mouse?: He only personally appears once in the original film, while trying to lobby the police to release Billy, then appears once again in the third film through the footage Roman captures of his affair with Maureen. His reaction to his ex-wife and son being serial killers is completely unknown. It can realistically be assumed he left Woodsboro after the first film due to the stigma of being the father of one of the Ghostface killers, especially once it got out Billy killed Maureen because of his affair with her. Assuming he is still alive in 2022 during Scream VI, it's unclear how he's reacted to learning he has a granddaughter, as Sam's parentage is confirmed to have been made public.

Others

Cotton Weary

Cotton Weary

"I don't know about homicide, but you've definitely got me for raising my voice in a public library."

Played By: Liev Schreiber

Appearances: Scream (1996) | Scream 2 | Scream 3

The man who was sentenced to death for the murder of Maureen Prescott, Sidney's mother, whom he was having an affair with. In the first film, Gale Weathers is trying to get his name cleared for the murder, feeling that he is innocent. She's right. In the second film, he travels to Windsor College to convince Sidney to do an interview with him. By the third film, his exploits have made him a celebrity, getting him his own talk show.

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• Ascended Extra: Zig-zagged. He has a bigger role in the second film, but in the third film, he is the second character to die.
• Attention Whore: In the second movie, he is very eager in getting on the big news channels, which is justified since he spent an year on death row for a crime he didn't commit and wants some compensation for it.
• Big Damn Heroes: He arrives barely in time to save Sidney from being killed by Mrs. Loomis in the second film's climax.
• Clear Their Name: What Gale does for him prior to the first film, and also what he does in the second film.
• Deadpan Snarker: Cotton has a rather dry sense of humor.
• Dead Star Walking: He makes a cameo at the beginning of the third film, only to be killed off moments later.
• Death by Irony: A meta example. He'd just finished shooting a cameo on the set of Stab 3, only to be killed off in little more than a cameo at the beginning of Scream 3.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: After everything he went through before the events of the first film and during the events of 2, he is killed off with little fanfare in the opening scene of Scream 3.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Played with: after being found innocent of Maureen's murder and the initial Ghostface killings, he feels pretty entitled to his newfound fame, and asks Sidney to help him land a big TV interview, believing she "owes" it to him.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Appears briefly on a news report in the first film.
• Everyone Has Standards: The second film has him unapologetic about wanting his own 15 Minutes of Fame, but he refuses a TV interview right on the heels of the murder spree's end.
  • Also in Scream 2, when he figures out that Gale did not arrange with Sidney for the two of them to have a televised meeting and reconciliation when they first meet, he sounds genuinely appalled with the reporter for just springing him on Sidney out of nowhere.
  • As Ghostface finishes him off, he angrily remarks that Cotton "should've told [him] where Sidney was," showing that, like Dewey, he's respectful of Sidney's desire to live off the grid.
• Fall Guy: He spends a year in jail for the murder of Maureen Prescott.
• Frame-Up: The first film reveals that Billy and Stu framed him for Maureen's murder.
• Friendly Enemy: With Sidney in the second film.
• Good All Along: Sidney was uneasy around him, Gale believed for a second he was the killer, and Mrs. Loomis believed he was a psychopath like her. However, it turns out he never intended to hurt Sidney, or anybody beside Mrs. Loomis for that matter.
• Hidden Depths: He turns out to have decent medical skills since he is able to assist Dewey with his wounds. This, along with Dewey's scar tissue, helps save Dewey's life.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Though his approach is pretty aggressive and inappropriate, Sidney does have a responsibility to rectify her mistake in wrongfully sending him to prison for a year.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As seen in Big Damn Heroes, he's eventually revealed to be this at the end of the second film.
• Miscarriage of Justice: Was wrongly convicted of raping and murdering Maureen and was nearly executed.
• Non-Protagonist Resolver: In the second film, he's the one who kills Nancy Loomis, instead of Sidney.
• Punny Name: His talk-show is named 100% Cotton.
• Red Herring: In the second film.
• Sacrificial Lion: In the third film, he's offed in ten minutes to set up the "all bets are off" arc.
• Show Within a Show: In the beginning of Scream 3, he's been hosting the talk show 100% Cotton for some time; furthermore, he has also finished shooting a cameo for the latest Stab movie.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Cotton is barely in the first film, only appearing in news footage, but his supposed murder of Maureen hangs over the film, and Gale's motivation is to prove Cotton's innocence (albeit for her own benefit, not his).
• Spanner in the Works: In Scream 2, Cotton basically ruins the lead Ghostface's plans since she never accounted for his presence. After Nancy stabs Dewey multiple times, Cotton shows up and helps Dewey with his injuries, preventing him from bleeding out. Later, when Nancy Loomis gets the upper hand on Sidney, Cotton enters the fight out of nowhere, forcing Nancy to a standstill before Cotton eventually kills her. In short, Nancy had a very good chance of murdering all of the Woodsboro survivors, but Cotton's interference limits her revenge to only Randy.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: After surviving the first two movies, he becomes the "prologue victim" of the third film.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: He's 6'3, has dark brown hair, and is fairly snarky.
• The Voiceless: In the first film, due to only appearing in news footage.
• White Shirt of Death: He dies in the opening of Scream 3 and is wearing a white shirt and blazer.
• Would Hit a Girl: A more noble example. Cotton shoots Nancy Loomis (the mastermind behind the killings in Scream 2) in order to save Sidney.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: The third film shows that Cotton got the fame, fortune, and public exoneration he desired in the aftermath of the Windsor College Murders, but he only got to enjoy it for 2 years before he was murdered.

Judy Hicks

Deputy Sheriff Judy Hicks

"Wear the vest, save your chest!"

Played By: Marley Shelton

Appearances: Scream 4 | Scream (2022)

A dedicated police officer and loyal right-hand woman to Dewey, whom she idolizes and seems to have a crush on (and likes to bake lemon squares to). There is some sort of rivalry between herself and Gale, and the latter doesn't even bother hiding her antipathy towards the deputy (and her lemon squares). Judy knew Sidney from high school, but didn't make a big enough impression for Sidney to remember her.

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• Action Girl: When she saves Gale from being shot by Jill in 4.
• Back for the Dead: She only has a few scenes before she's killed by Ghostface in 5.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Judy survives being shot in the chest in 4 because she's wearing a bulletproof vest; she dies in 5 by being stabbed to death by the new killer.
• Death by Irony: In the fourth movie, Judy quotes "Wear the vest, save your chest!", and it works in practice, since her bulletproof vest saves her life at the end of the movie. Sadly, she ends up dying in the fifth movie via stabbing because she was in her civilian clothes, meaning she didn't have a vest, so she couldn't save her chest.
• Distaff Counterpart: To Dewey, complete with having his rank in the original trilogy and having a similar-sounding name. She even gets incapacitated by the killer like Dewey in every movie and eventually replaces him as the sheriff of Woodsboro.
• Everyone Went to School Together: Judy and Sidney shared the same homeroom in high school, which means she was in the first movie, albeit offscreen.
• Fangirl:
  • She is a fan of the Woodsboro survivors, specifically Dewey and Sidney, and wants to join their little group. However, her crush on Dewey brings her into conflict with Gale, Dewey's wife.
  • Judy admits to liking animated films and musicals more than horror films during her encounter with Ghostface in the fifth film. Additionally, she was in Drama Club in high school alongside Sid.
• Forgotten First Meeting: She and Sidney went to high school together and used to act together in plays. Sidney doesn't remember her, though.
• Glamorous Single Mother: Subverted in 5. She manages to be a good mom to Wes while also being the sheriff of Woodsboro, who apparently makes enough without a partner to have a nice, expansive suburban home... until a new Ghostface shows up and throws everything into chaos.
• Innocently Insensitive: She was unaware Sam's teenage delinquency was due to the emotional turmoil of finding out Billy was her biological father. Had she known this, she may have been more sympathetic to Sam.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She has a distrustful and sometimes intrusive personality, but still cares about those around her, and is always dedicated to stopping Ghostface no matter whether the stakes are personal or not.
• Mama Bear: In Scream (2022), Judy acts this way towards her son, Wes, much to his embarrassment and teasing from his friends. Ultimately, Ghostface uses this against Judy by threatening Wes' life, leading to her panicking and rushing home to save him…only to run straight into Ghostface's trap.
• Meaningful Name: 'Deputy Judy' sounds very close to 'Deputy Dewey'. In Scream (2022), the Ghostface on the phone even calls her "Jud-ee", taking it closer to sounding like "Dewey."
• My Beloved Smother: Although it's not unreasonable given the circumstances, all the characters treat her as this due to her overprotectiveness of her only son Wes.
• Number Two: To Dewey in 4.
• Police Are Useless: Subverted in 4 when she ends up saving Gale's life, but played straight in 5 when she becomes one of Ghostface's first victims, and allows for them to shut down the hospital, which leads to Dewey's death.
• Red Herring: More subtle than the obvious Trevor in 4, but she still has some potential motive to be Ghostface until it's revealed she isn't.
• Remember the New Guy?: She and Sidney went to high school together, but she was not seen or mentioned in the very first film. Sidney even points out that she doesn't even remember her from high school, but it's stated that they've met before.
• The Sheriff: Replaces Dewey as sheriff by 5.
• Sole Survivor: She is the only new character in 4 to unambiguously survive, with her bulletproof vest saving her at the end, though this is later subverted when it's revealed in 5 that Kirby also survived.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Despite making it out of the fourth movie more or less intact, Judy is killed by Ghostface about a third of the way into the fifth film in order to show off that the new killer isn't afraid to bend the rules of who they are killing in their "requel" spree.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: She's essentially the female version of Dewey, which is explicitly lampshaded by Gale.

Kirby Reed (Unmarked Spoilers for Scream 4)

Kirby Reed

"Saw that in a scary movie once."

Played By: Hayden Panettiere

Appearances: Scream 4 | Scream (2022) ^note YouTube thumbnail only | Scream VI

"I almost died after I was stabbed. Technically, I did die, for four minutes. When I recovered, I got mad. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life being afraid of monsters. I wanted the monsters to be afraid of me."

A notorious horror film fan, Kirby is a quirky and spirited best friend to Jill and Olivia. She's somewhat of a tomboy and "alternative" girl, who likes to watch movies, drink (a lot, apparently) and party. She seems to be aware of Charlie's crush on her, but instead prefers to "tease and torment" him. Upon realizing she's the only one of the trio not to receive a phone call from the killer, she becomes really uneasy (ultimately insisting it means she'll be the next one to die).

While she was ultimately stabbed by Charlie and left for dead, Kirby later survived her encounter with Ghostface rather miraculously thanks to the timely arrival of medical help and moved on from Woodsboro, gaining a degree of fame from being one of the only survivors of the massacre. Circumstances later suck her back into the twisted circus of the Ghostface murders more than a decade after she was nearly killed.

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• Action Girl: By the sixth movie she's an FBI agent who is more than capable with a gun. She even gets to kill one of the killers of the movie.
• Back from the Dead: VI reveals that the events of 4 left her clinically dead for four minutes before she was resuscitated.
• Big Damn Heroes: She appears just in time to kill a still-alive Ethan when he is charging at Sam and Tara.
• Birds of a Feather: Kirby ends up bonding a bit with Mindy, a fellow Deadpan Snarker horror fan, in Scream VI, the two of them even sharing some of the same opinions about their favorite franchises.
• Bond One-Liner: After dropping a TV on Ethan's head: "Saw that in a scary movie once."
• Boyish Short Hair: As per her tomboy nature, she has a short haircut.
• Breakout Character: Kirby is easily the most popular new character from the fourth movie due to her spunky movie buff personality and an excellent performance courtesy of Hayden Panettiere. Strong fan response led to her being revealed via a Freeze-Frame Bonus in 5 as having survived her apparent death in 4. It was later announced that Panettiere would be reprising her role as Kirby come VI.
• Break the Cutie: When we first meet Kirby, she is a spirited, carefree teenager whose life revolves around partying and scary movies. Then, she found out the guy she had a crush on was a Serial Killer who stabs her in the gut and leaves her to die (at least, that's what he thought to himself). When she awakened, she discovered that her best friend was the other Ghostface in the 2011 murder spree. This caused Kirby to get angry for a period of her life and realize she didn't want to be a victim, causing her to enlist in the FBI and harden herself to a point where she wouldn't be afraid of killers anymore.
• The Bus Came Back: She sat out the fifth movie, but returns for the sixth.
• Celeb Crush: She mentions having a crush on Corey Feldman as a kid when she saw him in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.
• Characterization Marches On: She's less feisty and more serious when she returns in Scream VI. Justified as it's been a decade since we last saw her and she's now an FBI agent who's required to do her job like a professional. She's still got her trademark snarkiness and love of horror films, though.
• Commonality Connection: Kirby and Mindy geek out over horror films, even sharing love of the same specific films.
• Deadpan Snarker: The wittiest of the new cast in 4. Top example is when Trevor loses track of Jill at her party.
  Kirby: Yes, Trevor, she's upstairs. Thank God you're here to protect her when you can't even find her.
• Didn't See That Coming: Is quite surprised when Charlie suddenly stabs her.
• The Dog Bites Back: After Ethan sadistically gloats about stabbing her in the stomach with the same knife that Charlie used, Kirby uses the same TV that killed Stu to crush Ethan's head minutes later.
• Drives Like Crazy: Unbelievable speed, real loud music, doesn't always see the stop signs... Jill and Olivia must be very courageous to go to school with her every day. And from Dewey commenting on her driving in her introductory scene, she does this a lot.^note This may be a bizarre kind of Actor Appeal, as Hayden Panettiere's been similarly dangerous behind the wheel in Heroes and I Love You, Beth Cooper.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The fifth film reveals that she came out as the real Final Girl of the Woodsboro murders of 2011 committed by both her boyfriend and best friend. Not only that, but it's implied that she seems to be doing well, having left her Woodsboro life completely behind for good. Until VI, that is.
• Et Tu, Brute?:
  • She looks betrayed when Charlie turns out to be the killer and stabs her in the stomach in 4.
  • She gives a sad look at Jill's outfit in the shrine, clearly reeling from her best friend being the other killer.
• Everyone Went to School Together: VI reveals that Kirby and Sam attended Woodsboro High together. Kirby was a senior when Sam was a freshman.
• Fair Cop: An attractive young woman who has joined the FBI by the time of Scream VI.
• Final Girl: The genuine one from the 2011 Woodsboro murders, unlike her best friend Jill.
• Foreshadowing: A more indirect example. During the climax of Scream 4, she was shown being attacked by Charlie through stabbing her twice at her stomach. Later after that, the same thing happened to Sidney, although it's instead done by the latter's cousin Jill. However, it was later confirmed that Sidney herself had managed to survive from her wounds, so the same thing could be explained as to why Kirby was able to withstand from her own injuries in the later movies, as well.
• Former Teen Rebel: A Hard-Drinking Party Girl who Drives Like Crazy in her youth, a seasoned FBI agent by the time we see her again in Scream VI.
• Geeky Turn-On: Has a moment with Charlie where they bond over horror movie trivia.
• Genre Blind: Despite being plenty Genre Savvy, Kirby has a moment of weakness in VI when she fails to realize that the circumstances of their plan to catch the killer are eerily similar to those that claimed Randy's life in Scream 2. Mindy calls her out on this.
• Genre Savvy: She commends Sam for choosing to leave Danny out of the plan to capture Ghostface, knowing firsthand that one should never trust their love interest when a killer is on the loose.
• Getaway Driver: She inadvertently acts as one for Ghostface by picking up Jill after she murders her mom and two cops.
• Girliness Upgrade: Downplayed. Her hair is shoulder-length and longer in the sixth film, though her dress style is about the same if more mature.
• Give Geeks a Chance: While Kirby is also a horror movie geek, she's much cooler and confident than her crush, the shy and awkward Charlie. Too bad he's actually the killer.
• Good All Along: In the climax of the sixth movie, Bailey tells Sam that she isn’t an FBI agent anymore and that’s she has been off the deep end for months, leading to Sam suspecting that Kirby is the main Ghostface. However, it’s revealed that Bailey is the lead Ghostface, implying that he lied about Kirby — which is confirmed when she helps Sam and Tara take him and his kids down.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Even with her personality change from being a carefree student to becoming a strict officer, she's still this at heart.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: "You continue your good girl thing and I'll drink for the both of us." The young lady isn't afraid of alcohol at all.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: When she returns in VI, Kirby wears a leather jacket to mirror her newly badass nature as an armed member of the FBI.
• Hollywood Healing: Though she was stabbed a decade ago, she mentions being dead for several minutes. This apparently left her with no brain damage and physically fit enough to join the FBI.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Charlie stabs her in the stomach. She's then stabbed in the very same place by Ethan in Scream VI.
• Improbable Age: In-universe, Gale is surprised that she's old enough to be an FBI agent in the sixth film, describing her as a child and a zygote, even though if she was old enough to be in high school in 2011 she'd be in her mid-twenties at youngest. An unimpressed Kirby points out that she's actually 30.
• Improvised Weapon: She uses the TV that killed Stu to take down Ethan, who is charging at Sam and Tara.
• The Lad-ette: A brash, snarky, tomboyish horror buff who makes the first move on a timid boy she's into.
• The Lancer: Jill's feisty best friend.
• Made of Iron: Kirby survives getting stabbed twice in the stomach and being left to bleed out. Then in the sixth film, she is knocked unconscious, shot, and stabbed multiple times and yet still has enough energy to kill Ethan, one of the Ghostfaces.
• The Movie Buff: As is tradition for the franchise, Kirby is a big horror movie fanatic.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: She tells Gale "no press allowed" when the group sets a trap to catch the killer in VI. This ensures that Gale is separate from everyone and allows Ghostface to attack and nearly kill her in her apartment.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Her attempt to save Charlie, who posed as one of Ghostface's victims, enables the latter to stab her.
• Not Quite Dead: She is stabbed and presumed dead in 4, but the fifth and sixth films decisively establish that while she was clinically dead for four minutes, she was, in fact, revived and did in fact survive. In 2022 she appears in an Easter Egg, with a YouTube video thumbnail linking to an interview with "Woodsboro survivor Kirby Reed", and she returns as a main character for the sixth film.
• Older and Wiser: In Scream VI, while her old cinema tastes remain intact, the now-adult Kirby is much more mature than she was in Scream 4, having moved on from her Hard-Drinking Party Girl youth and become an FBI agent.
• Red Herring: In 4 and VI. While in 4 she gets some attention being the "Randy" of the group, like everyone else, she too is a suspect. In VI, however the real Ghostface frames her, claiming to Sam that Kirby has gone mad from all her cases with the FBI and that she adopted the Ghostface persona. When Sam is confronted by both Ghostface and a wounded Kirby, she legitimately doesn't know which one she can trust.
• Scars Are Forever: Shows Sam, Tara, and Bailey the scar from where Charlie stabbed her in 4.
• Sole Survivor: With Scream (2022) revealing her survival and Judy meeting her demise in that same film, Kirby remains as the only character introduced in the fourth film to be alive. Meaning she got the sort of fame that Jill was after all along.
• Spanner in the Works: In VI, it's obvious that Detective Bailey didn't anticipate Kirby's presence in his family's revenge plot against Sam. Knowing that a trained, armed agent is a threat if the group completely trusts her, Bailey has to resort to lying to Sam about Kirby no longer be in the bureau to keep them on their toes until he arrives to gun her down for the big finale. After Bailey knocks Kirby unconscious by shooting her, she awakens just in time to fire back at him and give Sam and Tara (who were surrounded by the killers) an opening to escape.
• Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: In VI, the possibility is raised that she snapped over the course of the last ten years and has become Ghostface herself. It's a load of crap. She's as heroic as she's ever been.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: An interesting case:
  • She is set up to be a counterpart of Tatum, as she is Jill's Lancer and feisty best friend, like Tatum was to Sidney in the first movie. However, she also doubles as a substitute for Casey when Ghostface quizzes her horror movie knowledge while her love interest, Charlie, is being held hostage. And finally, since Jill is Ghostface and Kirby ends up getting betrayed by Charlie, it can be said that she is actually a parallel of Sidney herself, who was betrayed by her boyfriend Billy. Since she is confirmed to have survived in Scream (2022), she was the Final Girl of this film just like Sidney, and both Sidney and Kirby were also stabbed in the abdomen twice moments apart, with Jill both mistaking them to be dead later in her death name-check. She and Sidney are also seen wearing almost identical brown leather jackets at one point in the Cinema Club, while Jill wears a plaid shirt like Billy (indicating their true roles). This fully comes to pass when Sid is Put on a Bus in VI and Kirby fills in as the savvy legacy character helping the new cast. Finally, she fits the movie fan mould that Randy started and is morally far closer to him than actual Randy counterpart Charlie, not to mention being injured yet surviving to return for another film like Randy.
  • In Scream VI, she is one to Detective Judy Hicks of 4 and 5. Both are blonde women who work for law enforcement (though Kirby is FBI). Both briefly become suspects in the murders (in 4 and VI) before managing to survive their attacks with the killers and ultimately deal blows to them. Though unlike Judy, who only lives through one murder spree, Kirby manages to survive two.
• The Tease: She admits to Jill she returns Charlie's feelings but doesn't act on them because she enjoys making him squirm. Unfortunately for her, this unknowingly fed his Entitled to Have You complex and gets her stabbed for "not noticing" him.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The tomboy to Jill's girly girl.
• Tomboyish Name: Kirby is a unisex name that can be masculine and feminine.
• Tomboyish Voice: She has a fairly deep voice that goes with her Lad-ette personality.
• Took a Level in Badass: Kirby has become an FBI agent by the sixth film. This time not only does she actively help the Woodsboro survivors investigate the new batch of killings, she helps to take down Ethan by dropping a TV set on his head.
• True Companions: With the other survivors of VI. She makes it clear to Sam, that she views her and Tara, the twins and Gale, like family, and if they need her, Kirby will come running to their aid the moment she gets their call.
• Uncertain Doom: It's not clear at the end of the fourth film whether she died or not. The DVD commentary reveals that her fate was left ambiguous intentionally, to allow her to return for a sequel. The fifth movie established her survival with an Easter Egg, a YouTube video saying "Woodsboro survivor Kirby Reed", and she re-appears in the sixth film — which reveals that she was medically considered dead for about four minutes before being resuscitated.
• Will Not Be a Victim: Mentions that she became an FBI agent because she didn't want to be afraid of monsters anymore — she wanted them to be afraid of her.

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