Movies: Recurring Characters (Legacy Trio) | Ghostface (Original Generation | New Generation) | Scream (1996) | Scream 2 | Scream 3 | Scream 4 | Scream (2022) | Scream VI
TV Series: MTV Series | Resurrection
Recurring Characters
Characters who appear in multiple films throughout the Scream franchise.
Legacy Trio
Core Four

The core group of survivors from the fifth and sixth movies, made up of Samantha and Tara Carpenter and Chad and Mindy Meeks-Martin.
- 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 32. By contrast, Tara, Mindy, and Chad are all 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 one. Both Chad and Dewey fall for their female partners Gale and Tara during their investigation and battle against the Ghostfaces, and both of the couples even fulfill a similar 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 2022 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.
Samantha "Sam" Carpenter

Played By: Melissa Barrera
Dubbed By: Maaya Uchida (Japanese)
Appearances: Scream (2022) | Scream VI
A bowling alley attendant living in Modesto, California, who's dating her co-worker Richie, Sam left Woodsboro the moment she became an adult and never looked back, spending the rest of her life trying to outrun her past.
- Action Girl: As per series tradition, she dishes out a lot of licks against Ghostface.
- Affair? Blame the Bastard: Both Sam's mother and stepfather appear to have deeply resented her for her parentage, despite her mother choosing to keep her.
- Affirmative-Action Legacy: Sam, a Latina woman with mental health issues, takes over as the protagonist of Scream 5 and VI from the Caucasian and neurotypical Sidney.
- Agonizing Stomach Wound: Technically, Sam gets stabbed in the hip near her stomach by Richie (which is how he reveals himself as a killer), though the injury is still serious enough to cause her major pain as she tries to escape the killers. It is later patched up after the killers are taken out and emergency services arrive.
- Aloof Big Sister: In 5, Sam is shown to be very distant from Tara, but she's actually doing this to protect her (and because of her secret that they are actually half-sisters). In VI, she goes the opposite direction and refuses to let Tara out of her sight, something that greatly annoys Tara, even though she understands where her sister is coming from.
- Anti-Hero: She's very much a good person and a loving big sister, not just to Tara, but the rest of the Core Four. Her kind-hearted nature is indeed genuine, but VI proves that a little bit of her father's evil is in her blood. As she mentions to her therapist, killing Richie felt right to her, and that terrifies her. Once she's finally face to face with the new Ghostfaces, she shows herself to be more than willing to exact thorough, messy revenge.
- The Atoner: It's clear that Sam's protectiveness of Tara is partly to make up for running out on her a few years prior.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Sam may have been angry at Gale for making her sound like an unstable psychopath in her book, but she's still distraught when Gale is nearly killed by Ghostface later in the movie, even to the point of refusing to leave her side when the medics arrive.
- Ax-Crazy: Sam is a genuinely good person, but she struggles with darker aspects of her nature, on top of mental health issues. Her hallucinations of Billy actively encourage her to kill, and when Sam unleashes her rage on Richie and Bailey, she stabs them dozens of times, even sporting a terrifying Slasher Smile as she kills the latter.
- Bastard Bastard: Worries that she may be this, since she's the illegitimate daughter of Billy Loomis. A great deal of her character arc is about her being afraid that his serial killer nature is In the Blood, and she's inherently dangerous to be around. In the end, she proves that she can be quite dangerous, but only if provoked by her life or those she cares about being endangered and is otherwise a good person. But if she is, boy howdy...
- Batman Gambit: When trying to escape from the killers, Sam purposely leaves a blood trail from her stab wound to an upstairs closet. Predictably, when the killer opens that door, Sam jumps out from another closet and tackles them. Notable for the fact that Sam is copying the same tactics that this film’s Ghostface had used only minutes before.
- Berserk Button: Hurting Tara or trying to do so is a good way to bring out Sam's dark side. Do so and you'll be very lucky if you just get away with getting tazed in the genitals rather than getting turned into a human pin cushion.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Despite her Dark and Troubled Past and fears about her nature, Sam is a kind-hearted person and a Cool Big Sis to Tara and her friends and is remembered fondly by them and is overall a kind, caring and affectionate person. But don’t fuck with those she cares about, because she is a force to be reckoned with as one of the killers finds out.
- Big Damn Heroes: Sam saves Mindy’s life in the fifth film when the latter is attacked. In the sixth film, Sam and Tara manage to save Gale’s life after she too is attacked.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Sam has noticeably dark, full eyebrows.
- Big Sister Instinct:
- The moment she learns that Tara has been attacked by a masked killer, Sam returns to Woodsboro after a five-year absence. This was deliberately exploited by the two Ghostfaces to get her back there so they could frame her. In Scream VI, this is taken to almost overprotective levels, which causes Tara to be angry with her. However, their relationship fully heals after the Final Battle with Ghostface.
- This also extends to Tara’s friends as she feels a need to protect them from the killer too. And reinforced in the sixth, especially with the Meeks-Martin twins.
- Blood-Splattered Warrior: Sam ends up covered head to toe in Richie’s blood after brutally taking him down.
- Bond One-Liner: After blowing Quinn's brains out in front of her stunned father.Sam: Always gotta shoot 'em in the head.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: When the killer taunts her during the Motive Rant, Sam tells them “fuck you” — a catchphrase Sidney typically uses against the killers. This is lampshaded by Richie, of course.
- Butt-Monkey: As with Sidney, Sam ends up becoming the new target of the Ghostfaces' collective rage, with the added bonus of being a Hero with Bad Publicity who is distrusted by all except her sister and closest friends.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Sam takes a few puffs after Anika and seemingly Quinn are killed in VI.
- The Coats Are Off: In VI, Sam removes her jacket to signify the start of the final act, when the group is planning to lure the killer to the shrine.
- Combat Pragmatist: While battling one of the killers, Sam resorts to biting them in order to escape. Her stabbing another multiple times while they're wearing a vest allows her to find the weak spots shortly after when taking out another one who's also wearing a vest.
- Composite Character: Appears to be a combination of Sidney and Dewey. Like Dewey, she is a mid-20s person known by her nickname, trying to protect a teenage sister (in Dewey's case, Tatum, in Sam's case, Tara). Like Sidney, she is the stoic protagonist, and the main Ghostface target due to the legacy of her deceased parent (in Sidney's case, her mother, in Sam's, her father).
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character:
- To the franchise's previous lead, Sidney Prescott. Sidney was a white teenager at the start of the series, while Sam is a Latina woman in her mid/late twenties when we meet her. Sidney was raised as an only child, while Sam has a sister. Both had half-siblings through their mother but while Sidney didn't know about Roman until she was an adult and he was the Ghostface killer and tried to murder her and her friends, Sam and Tara grew up together and are very close and care deeply for one another. Sidney was the same age as her friend group and was regarded by them in a protective manner due to mother's murder, while Sam is quite a bit older than the other Core Four and acts like an older sister to all of them as well as Tara. Sidney was a well-behaved teen who never got in trouble, while Sam had a reputation as a rebel and had brushes with the law that she is still judged for years later. Sidney, aside from her mother's murder, came from a fairly stable family and was close to her father and had a fairly good relationship with her mother, while Sam had a very tense relationship with her own abusive mother, was abandoned by the man she believed to be birth father and is descended from not one but two murderers. While Sidney put down her enemies, she never enjoyed it or was at risk of hurting anyone else, while Sam admits to having enjoyed doing so and is greatly troubled by such a feeling and her impulses. And while Sidney's innocence and true nature was never really in doubt during the media attention she received throughout the series, Sam is unfortunately subject to harassment from conspiracy theorists who believed she was the real killer, even ending up as a suspect in the sixth film. Their signature outfits also contrast: Sidney can usually be seen wearing jackets (especially leather jackets), while Sam goes the Ellen Ripley route and wears tank tops.
- To the first Ghostface killer, her own father, Billy Loomis. Both had parents that left their families because of their spouse’s infidelity. Neither Billy nor Sam dealt with this sudden change with a degree of healthiness, though Billy decided to give into his murderous thoughts and kill people, while Sam actively resisted her darker tendencies and even left Woodsboro to avoid harming her family further. Billy had a mysterious, threatening but ultimately harmless persona above his actual personality that made him suspicious, while Sam is a genuinely kind-hearted person with a checkered past that makes her look like a suspect. Billy was a Red Herring who turned out to be the killer who wanted his girlfriend dead and her father framed for the murders, while Sam is the protagonist on the verge of being framed as the killer by her own boyfriend. The fact that Billy is Sam's biological father and pops up in Sam's occasional hallucinations further emphasizes the differences, especially as Sam tries to resist being the Bastard Bastard people and (seemingly) the vision of her dead serial killer father expect her to be.
- To Scream 4's main Ghostface, Jill Roberts. Jill was an unrepentant sociopath who killed several people to gain fame as a Final Girl and Sole Survivor, while Sam is a kind-hearted individual who wants to avoid being a Final Girl, but is ultimately forced to fill in the role. Where Jill willingly gave into her violent tendencies, Sam actively tries to resist them. Jill had the outward appearance of a Nice Girl who was never accused of being the killer up until The Reveal, while Sam is genuinely a good-hearted person with a troublemaking past suspected of being the killer, though she actually isn't. Jill's feelings for her family were superficial at best and downright murderous at worst, but Sam's feelings for her family are loving if sometimes conflicting. While Jill wanted to kill Sidney to replace her, Sam receives help from Sidney to end the killing spree. Whereas Jill killed her boyfriend with the intent of framing him, Sam kills her boyfriend when he turns out to be the Ghostface of the fifth killing spree. Finally, after the events of 5, Sam has become a Hero with Bad Publicity, the inverse of Jill's 15 Minutes of Fame as a Villain with Good Publicity at the end of 4.
- To Cotton Weary. Despite neither being bad people, they had their reputations smeared thanks to their connection to Billy Loomis. However, Cotton always had Gale's support in the media, since she correctly believed him to be innocent of the crimes of which he was accused, whereas Gale knows for a fact that Sam isn't a bad person, yet it doesn't stop her from writing a book in which she characterizes Sam as violent and unstable. Cotton sought fame and became a celebrity for his part in stopping Nancy Loomis; Sam doesn't give a damn about being famous and actively doesn't want to be, but becomes so anyway thanks to her family's bloodthirsty legacy.
- Cool Big Sis: Sam acts as this trope to both her sister Tara and her friends, some of whom she babysat when she was a teenager and they were young children.
- Cop Killer: A heroic version. Sam takes out Detective Wayne Bailey, the lead Ghostface of the NYC murders, by cornering him and stabbing him over two dozen times and finishing off with a stab to the eye.
- Cosmic Plaything: Like Sidney Prescott before her, life seems to make a game out of kicking Sam around: at 13, she learned that her biological father was a serial killer, a revelation that led to her father walking out on the family, for which Sam's mother blamed her. Sam developed mental health issues and descended into drug abuse afterwards, leaving town at 18 with a decidedly mixed reputation. As an adult, Sam deals with her sister being attacked by a Ghostface killer, her seemingly-loving boyfriend being one of the Ghostface killers (who only hooked up with her in the first place to frame her for murder, several friends and acquaintances being brutally murdered, nearly dying herself, and having to kill the aforementioned evil boyfriend. The sixth film just piles on more trauma for Sam, as she's publicly harassed because of rumors that she was the mastermind behind the previous movie's killings, completely disowned by her mother, rejected by therapists during genuine attempts to seek help (one of whom violates her confidentiality and tells the police that she "made threats"), ends up the target of yet another Ghostface (three of them, in fact), nearly losing all of her friends to the killer, experiencing even more betrayal (not only from the killers, but from Gale, who profited off Sam's trauma like she did Sidney's), and, once again, nearly dying and having to put down her would-be killers.
- Coup de Grâce: Both of the Ghostface masterminds who found themselves at Sam's mercy got a brief grace period before Sam finished the job: she paused from stabbing Richie long enough to hear his last, pitiful pleas before cutting his throat, and after stabbing Bailey over 30 times, she briefly considers sparing his life, but, recalling his previous remark about killing those who went after his family, stabs him through the eye to put him down for good.
- Dark Action Girl: Make no mistake, she's a good person at heart, but she's got a troubled past and clearly struggles with her darker impulses seemingly inherited from her father Billy Loomis and her grandmother Nancy Loomis. Case in point, she embraces that bloodthirsty streak within her to kill Richie in extremely violent fashion, stabbing him 22 times, slashing his neck, and finally shooting him three times, splattering his brain all over the floor. In the following film, Sam ups this by stabbing Bailey about 30 times and finishing him off with a stab wound through the eye, all while wearing her father's Ghostface costume, even using the same menacing phone call tactic.
- Dark and Troubled Past: She ran away from home the moment she turned 18 and had multiple run-ins with drugs and the law even before that.
- Dark Secret: Sam's biological father is the original Ghostface mastermind Billy Loomis; her father learning this caused him to abandon his wife and daughters, and the stress of both this and Billy being her birth father weighed heavily on Sam for years to come. As of Scream VI, her parentage is publicly known, and Sam catches no end of grief because of it.
- Did You Actually Believe...?: Sam taunts Richie for being stupid enough to believe she'd trust her boyfriend of six months over her sister.
- Disappeared Dad: Her father left the family when she was a teenager. Her biological father is also one, having died before she was born.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": It's subtle, but her distinct annoyance and Ghostface intentionally doing it to rattle her indicate that she really doesn't like being called by her full name, Samantha.
- Double Tap: After stabbing Richie 22 times and slitting his throat with the same hunting knife he threatened her with, Sam follows Sidney’s advice and grabs the revolver from Gale to shoot Richie’s corpse three times, the final time being a headshot.
- Dramatic Ammo Depletion: In the climax of VI, Sam blows Quinn's brains out in front of her father Bailey and prepares to do the same to him, only to hear an empty click when she pulls the trigger.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Sam ends the sixth movie in a pretty happy place all things considered. She's managed to eliminate the entire Bailey clan, found a genuinely decent and loving boyfriend in Danny, all her closest friends have survived, and she's repaired her fractured relationship with her sister with the two coming to an understanding. Finally, despite continuing hints that she enjoys killing the bad guys a little too much, she manages to put away her darker impulses for the sake of her sister and drops Billy's mask at the scene of the crime, content for the time being and accepting that she doesn't have to end up like Billy.
- Establishing Character Moment: Sam's first scene involves her finding out Tara was attacked and immediately deciding to head to Woodsboro to check up on her. Even with some of the things that come out about Sam later, her introduction solidifies her as a caring big sister first and foremost.
- Et Tu, Brute?:
- Sam feels betrayed when Gale walks back on her promise not to write a book about Richie and Amber and goes the extra mile by describing Sam as "unstable" and a "born killer."
- Sam is devastated when she believes the third killer, by process of elimination, to be Mindy, especially since Chad was brutally stabbed only moments before. It's actually Quinn, who faked her death with the help of her father Bailey.
- To a lesser extent, Sam is disgusted when her therapist declares that he will report her to the police for confessing that killing Richie felt good, telling him, "You're just like all the others."
- Everyone Went to School Together: Sam attended Woodsboro High with Kirby Reed, being a freshman while Kirby was a senior.
- Evil Feels Good: Sam, with deep discomfort, admits to a therapist that killing Richie felt "right". Said therapist, proving himself utterly useless, ends the session and reports what Sam said to the police. She also takes a little too much glee shooting Quinn and stabbing Detective Bailey in the eye.
- Evil Me Scares Me: Sam is very worried about her dark side taking over, to the point that she abandoned her sister out of fear for her safety. Subverted at the end of VI, where she fully embraces the role of a slasher to protect herself and Tara from the Bailey family and clearly relishes doing so. However, she manages to keep it in check due to Tara and her friends surviving.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Sam's hair is longer and darker in the sixth film, symbolizing her growing fears about letting her dark side take over.
- Expy: Sam is one to Jamie Lloyd from the Halloween franchise. Just as Jamie replaces Laurie as the protagonist, Sam takes Sidney's spot as the main character. Likewise, Jamie and Sam are related to their franchises' slasher antagonists, Michael and Ghostface respectively, and have hints of murderous urges due to their lineage.
- Extreme Mêlée Revenge:
- Sam kills Richie in self-defense by stabbing him a total of 22 times, unleashing all her rage upon him for both the attack on her sister Tara and the plan to frame Sam for his and Amber’s killings.
- In Scream VI:
- Sam stabs Detective Bailey over thirty times after he and his children carried out a plan to, like Richie, frame Sam as a Ghostface and utterly destroy her reputation before killing her, her sister, and their friends.
- She also hits Ethan in the head with a brick and stabs him five times in the chest, though he surprisingly doesn't die.
- Fall Guy:
- She was intended to be this for Richie and Amber. Their plan was to frame Sam for their murders, exploiting her status as Billy Loomis’s illegitimate daughter so that she would be cast as the villain in the Stab movie that would be an adaptation of their killing spree.
- The rest of Richie's family attempt this again in VI although they also plan to blame her death on a deluded conspiracy theorist.
- Famed in Story: Similar to the predecessor, Sam becomes famous after the events of the Woodsboro requel murders. However, unlike Sidney, Sam is largely demonized online and offline because of her relation to Billy Loomis, especially by a bunch of “Woodsboro truthers” who believe Sam is the actual killer. Doubly so when she is publicly listed as a prime suspect in the NYC Ghostface killings.
- Family Extermination: A heroic version. Sam kills the entire Bailey family, with the exception of Ethan. All of them were psychopathic killers who tried to hurt Sam, her sister, and their friends, so they definitely had it coming. Also the rare case of this trope being executed in self-defense.
- Family of Choice: Sam's family, with the exception of Tara, has been a dramatic disappointment; her father abandoned his wife and daughters when Sam was a teenager because he learned that her biological father was psychopathic serial killer Billy Loomis, for which Sam's mother blamed her. Over the course of the fifth and sixth films, Sam, along with Tara, forms a strong familial bond with Chad and Mindy, ultimately identifying the three of them as her family, with fellow survivors Gale and Kirby, as well as Sam's boyfriend Danny, also being treated as part of the group.
- Final Girl: Like Sidney, Sam is a subversion of this trope. She is a kind-hearted and intelligent young woman with a dark past, including trouble with the law, psychiatric issues, and a broken family. Sam also doesn't fit the virginal aspect of this trope, as it is mentioned that she and Richie have had sex. Additionally, Gale, Sidney, Tara, and the Meeks-Martin twins survive alongside her.
- Fire-Forged Friends: A Freeze-Frame Bonus of Sam's phone contacts shows that she kept in touch with Sidney after the events of 5.
- Former Teen Rebel: Sam used to do drugs and get in trouble with the law when she was in her teens, though has reformed by the start of the film. Sheriff Hicks remembers her and thinks she and Richie should leave town because she believes Sam will cause more trouble for Tara if she is around.
- Genre Blind: In the fifth film, she tells Richie, "You know that part in horror movies where you want to yell at the characters to be smart and get the fuck out? This is that part, Richie. You should get the fuck out." She's right in that this is a horror movie and one of them should get out of Woodsboro — but it's not Richie, who is one of the Ghostfaces. It should probably have been Sam, given that Ghostface explicitly tells Sam that Tara got attacked in the first place just to get Sam in Woodsboro.
- Genre Savvy:
- After Dewey's death in 5, Sam prepares to leave Woodsboro with Tara and shoots down Sidney and Gale's attempts to get her to stay.
- She also learns from her experiences with Richie and Amber that the only surefire way to bring down a Ghostface is to shoot them in the head, which she puts to good use with Quinn and nearly Bailey in VI.
- She knows right away that Jason and Greg being acquaintances of Tara who were killed while living in the same city isn't a coincidence. Sam quickly tells Tara to pack a bag and be prepared to evacuate the city in ten minutes.
- Gone Horribly Right: The victim of this. The killers in 5 want to make her the villain of their new murder spree while the ones in VI who are Richie's family label her a monster. Both times, Sam fully adopts the Ax-Crazy killer role... against them.
- Good Counterpart:
- To Ghostface. While Sam proves to be just as capable of extreme violence as any of the Ghostfaces (including her own father and grandmother), she has a conscience, which is more than can be said for just about anyone who has donned Ghostface's mantle, and only kills evil people and only in self-defense. Even when she puts on Billy's old Ghostface mask and costume and uses his knife in the sixth film, the only person she kills while wearing it is Detective Bailey.
- To Roman Bridger. Both are The Un-Favorite to their respective mothers, and both of their motivations revolve around their more mentally stable half-sisters. The difference is that Roman was Driven by Envy and wanted to kill Sidney whereas Sam only wants to protect Tara.
- Good Is Not Soft: Her method of killing Ghostface, who turns out to be Richie, is to stab him repeatedly with a knife and then slash open his neck, instead of the quick kills that Sidney and others usually gave to the previous villains. She's no less brutal when it comes to dispatching Richie's father, Detective Bailey, stabbing him dozens of times before putting him down with a knife through the eye.
- Hallucinations: Sam suffers from hallucinations of Billy that encourage her violent impulses.
- Has a Type: Based on her two on-screen love interests, Richie and Danny, Sam is partial to tall, scruffy Nice Guys, which Richie pretended to be and Danny legitimately is.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Downplayed. Sam is a heroic figure, though is not liked by Sheriff Hicks for her past as a Former Teen Rebel, while Tara's friends have mixed feelings about her, as Sam returned after being estranged from Tara and the rest of their family for five years. In Scream VI, this is a much more prominent part of the plot. Ghostface spreads a rumor online that Sam was the true mastermind behind the "requel" killings, after her true parentage became public knowledge. That Gale wrote a book about the killings where she described Sam as "unstable" doesn't help matters.
- Heroic Bastard: Her father was Billy Loomis, with her having been conceived as a result of an affair Billy had with Sam’s mom before dying at the end of his murder spree. Thankfully, by the end of 5, it’s clear that she isn’t the other kind of bastard, as she takes down Ghostface herself.
- Heroic Build: Sam has a muscular build, as shown when she sheds her jacket just before the climactic fight in VI. She helps rescue her sister by taking down two Ghostfaces and stabbing the shit out of the third during said fight.
- Heroic Sacrifice: After Gale is nearly killed in VI, Sam tearfully offers to give herself up to Ghostface to protect Tara and anyone else from dying. Tara thankfully talks her out of it.
- I Am a Monster: Because her father and grandmother were both serial killers, she assumes she has this darkness in her as well, and skipped town when she was 18 because she was afraid of hurting Tara.
- I Am Not My Father: Sam actively tries to not be like her biological father Billy Loomis. In the end, however, she plays around with this trope: while she does kill someone in brutal fashion like Billy, it is to stop their killing spree and to save her sister.
- Iconic Sequel Character: Sam is the main protagonist of the fifth and sixth films in the series, but doesn't appear in the franchise until Scream 5.
- Improvised Weapon: She throws a lamp at Ghostface in defense of Mindy when she’s attacked by the killer. In VI, she hits the killer with a knife block to save Mindy and Anika, and later hits Ethan in the head with a brick when he stabs Kirby.
- Insane Equals Violent: Played with. Sam is mentally ill with a condition, likely schizophrenia or primary obsessional OCD with psychotic tendencies, that causes her to have intense violent impulses and sadistic tendencies, but she only commits acts of violence against those who threaten her or those close to her and does so when she is fully conscious of what she's doing and is otherwise fully able to resist her impulses.
- In the Blood: Sam is terrified that she will end up like Billy and her grandmother, from whom she inherited her violent impulses, and is doing everything she can to avoid it, even if it means cutting herself off from those she cares about.
- I Shall Taunt You: Sam is really good at trash talking the killers so they'll let their guard down long enough to give her the advantage. Especially when the killers are Richie's grieving family.Sam: [Richie] was a limpdick little fuck who cried before I slit his throat.
- It's All My Fault:
- She fully blames herself for her family falling apart, since her (step)father abandoned them after she accidentally made him aware of her true paternity. Tara points out that leaving was his decision; she only blames Sam for when she left.
- She blames herself for the death of Anika and Ghostface targeting her friends because they want to make her pay, as well as for re-entering Tara's life and forcing Tara to choose sides which caused their mom to sever ties with both of them. Danny, Tara, and Gale are quick to assure her that none of these things are on her.
- It's Personal: Richie spent six months in a relationship with Sam to psychologically break her, and he and Amber tried to kill Tara multiple times in addition to roughing her up so bad she is confined to a hospital bed. The Baileys spread a rumor about Sam calling her a killer which led to her being harassed in public for the better part of a year, all so they could get revenge on Sam for rightfully dispatching their equally psychotic family member, Richie. Needless to say, Sam does not hold back when facing any of them, shooting Quinn an angry Death Glare upon learning the truth and granting two of the three male members of the family extremely painful deaths while they scream in agony.
- The Killer in Me: Spends most of her scenes with Billy actively fighting the darkness she thinks is in her thanks to him and Mrs. Loomis. She embraces it in the final confrontation with Richie. While she and Tara do end up saving the day, the experience unnerves her. When she asks Sidney if she'll recover from this, all Sidney can say is, "Eventually".
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Her connection to Billy is a twist revealed in the first half of Scream 5. As such, it's openly discussed in the second half of the movie and throughout Scream VI.
- Legacy Character:
- In-universe, the killers intended to exploit the fact that she is the daughter of an infamous serial killer to revive the Stab franchise by framing her for the murders. In a meta sense, Sam seems to be poised to follow in Sidney’s footsteps as the new Final Girl. In Scream VI, she follows further in Sidney's footsteps, donning a Ghostface costume to attack the lead Ghostface just like Sidney did in the first film.
- In Scream VI, the killers are out to invoke this as their master plan, having posted rumors online about Sam being the real mastermind of the Woodsboro killings and intending to frame her as the new Ghostface attacking people in New York. Detective Bailey even demands that she don her father's Ghostface costume so that he can kill her while she wears it to complete the frame up. Sam does put the costume on eventually, but it's to kill Bailey for his attacks on her and her Family of Choice.
- Like Brother and Sister: She becomes a surrogate big sister to Chad and Mindy, who she babysat when he was a kid and cares about as if he were her own family.
- Like Parent, Like Child:
- Like her mother Cristina, Sam has a history of addiction, as well as unknowingly sleeping with one of the Ghostface killers, though Sam managed to avoid becoming pregnant by Richie.
- The killers of 5 and VI plan on framing her for the murders with this as her motive. And when she fights back, she displays a brutality that would make Billy proud.
- Like Parent, Unlike Child:
- Unlike her mother (who blamed Sam for Cristina's husband leaving due to Cristina's affair with Billy Loomis), Sam, despite her issues, never foists blame on anyone else, and she eventually kicked her drug habit; by contrast, in the fifth film, Tara expresses surprise that her mother would ever attend an NA or AA meeting and Cristina's response to Sam and Tara finding out the truth about her being Billy's daughter was to blame Sam for everything and she is kind, loving and cares for others while Christina is spiteful and selfish.
- Unlike her biological father or her paternal grandmother, Sam, while capable of violence that matches or even exceeds that of any Ghostface, has a solid moral compass and has only ever tried to kill people who were actively trying to kill her, Tara, and their friends and she is genuinely kind and caring while Billy only pretended to be.
- Long-Lost Relative: She's Billy Loomis' biological daughter. When she found out and confronted her mother about it, it destroyed her parents' marriage and marked her Start of Darkness.
- Made of Iron: She doesn't come off too bad from receiving an Agonizing Stomach Wound courtesy of Richie in 5. She's still able to put up a solid fight that she wins and, a little later, is walking around with barely a hint of pain.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Sam's father believed that she was his until Sam was 13, when she discovered her mother's brief affair with Billy Loomis and realized that Billy was her biological father. Sam's father overheard her confront her mother about it, took the revelation poorly, and abandoned the family. Sam's mother, naturally, blamed Sam for the whole thing.
- Meaningful Name: Her surname is the same as John Carpenter's. This is a significant parallel, considering that her birth father has the same surname (and she has the same first name) as Sam Loomis, one of the protagonists of John Carpenter's Halloween. In Scream VI, one of the conspiracy theorist posts that Sam shows her therapist actually refers to her as Sam Loomis.
- The Mentally Disturbed: Sam seems to suffer from a form of mental illness, possibly schizophrenia and/or primary obsessional OCD with psychotic tendencies, that causes her to have vivid hallucinations of Billy, encouraging her violent impulses.
- Missing Mom: Her mother Cristina is at a conference in London during the events of the film. In the sixth film, it's mentioned that Cristina had cut ties with Sam entirely for telling Tara about Billy Loomis being Sam's father.
- Mocking the Mourner: Sam spitefully (and accurately) tells Richie's family that he died whimpering in terror while she killed him. Given that Richie's family are actively trying to kill her and Tara and have tried to frame Sam for several murders, this is much less mean-spirited than most examples of this trope.
- Ms. Fanservice: Aside from being played by the beautiful Melissa Barrera, Sam strips down to tank tops in the finale of both films to show off her impressive muscles.
- Never Accepted in His Hometown: Sam is described as being a former troublemaker with the law, thus garnering the sheriff's contempt, and many of the teens don't seem to trust her when she returns. The fact that she is Billy Loomis' illegitimate daughter is implied to be a factor in this, since several people (including the killers) are apparently aware of this.
- Nice Girl: She's a Former Teen Rebel with a Dark and Troubled Past, but aside from that she's very much a caring and kind-hearted Cool Big Sis to Tara and the rest of her friends, who's just doing her part to be a good person, and attempts to curve and suppress the darker tendencies she openly fears she inherited from her father. That said, if you're a killer, particularly a Ghostface, coming after anyone she cares for, especially if that someone is Tara, you'll learn quite quickly to never fuck with the illegitimate daughter of a serial killer.
- Not Quite the Right Thing: Sam really thought she was doing the best thing for Tara by protecting her from her own increasingly dark impulses by leaving and cutting off contact with her, however much it hurt Sam to do so. But doing so seriously hurt Tara and left her alone with their abusive mother and made her easier to be preyed on by Amber. While Sam's intentions were honestly noble, she still feels tremendous guilt about leaving.
- Official Couple: With Danny at the end of VI.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Sam's troublemaking past doesn't endear her to anyone in Woodsboro, especially Judy Hicks. In VI, her brutal killing of Richie in self-defense (exacerbated by an Internet rumor accusing her of having masterminded the 2022 murders) has turned her into a pariah, even forcing her to move to New York on the other side of the country.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: She's exclusively called Sam by her friends. The only one to ever call her Samantha is Ghostface trying to antagonize her and Sam making clear she doesn't like it.
- Open Secret:
- Played with; although Sam believes it to be a closely guarded secret, her parentage has apparently gotten quite a ways around Woodsboro thanks to her mother's drunken ramblings. That said, it's still a surprise to the rest of the main cast.
- In Scream VI, Sam believes her romance with Danny to be a total secret. Her friends can barely even pretend to be surprised when she tells them about it.
- Pay Evil unto Evil:
- Her brutal killings of two Ghostfaces, Richie and his father, have her stab each one multiple times—which she non-lethally does to Ethan too. In addition, she taunts the Baileys about Richie being pathetic and shoots Quinn in the head.
- She also tases a guy in the crotch for trying to date rape Tara.
- Sam's treatment of Detective Bailey warrants special mention; after Bailey is knocked out while fighting her, Sam could have killed or restrained him while he was unconscious, but she opts to don a Ghostface costume and inflict on him the same torment he and his children subjected her and her friends to, taking special satisfaction in Bailey's fear and frustration before attacking and killing him.
- Phrase Catcher: "Hello, Samantha..." Fitting her status as a Good Counterpart to the Ghostface killers, Sam gets to turn it back on the Big Bad of Scream VI, with her own voice-changer accented "Hello, Detective Bailey...".
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Dishes one out to every Ghostface she kills.Richie: What about my ending?Sam: Here it comes. (slashes his throat)Sam: (to Quinn, before shooting her in the head) Looks like you're down another brother.Sam: (to Detective Bailey, before stabbing him in the eye) But you did fuck with our family, so...
- Promoted to Parent: Becomes this in the sixth film after Tara cuts off ties with their mother. This drives their interpersonal conflict during much of the film: Tara wants independence, while Sam wants Tara to be safe and to deal with her trauma.
- Properly Paranoid: In the sixth film, she has multiple locks on her apartment door and makes Tara carry around a taser. After everything they went through, it's completely justified.
- Reformed, but Rejected: Despite being a Former Teen Rebel, Sam is treated poorly by both Amber and Judy Hicks, who remember her troublemaking days all too well. Subverted with Amber, who is intentionally trying to make Sam look bad to set her up as her and Richie's slasher movie villain.
- Refusal of the Call: See the page quote. Sam wants nothing to do with Ghostface and denies Sidney and Gale's offer to remain in Woodsboro to help stop the killer (albeit because her top priority is making sure Tara gets safely out of dodge).
- Reluctant Psycho: Sam knows there's something mentally wrong with her, and takes anti-psychotics to try to suppress it. The reason she left Tara is because she was worried about possibly harming her sister.
- Remember the New Guy?: Though not mentioned in Scream 4, she is revealed to know both Judy Hicks in 5 and Kirby Reed in VI. Justified as she and Judy presumably knew each other after the events of 4, and she and Kirby went to school together (though, as Sam herself says, she was a freshman when Kirby was a senior).
- Revenge Is Sweet: She has no problem killing Richie or his equally crazy family members. In fact, she does so with glee. By the time she faces Quinn, Ethan, and Bailey, she outright revels in their agony, taunting them about Richie's pathetic final moments, happily gunning down Quinn after taunting her, and finally giving Bailey the most prolonged painful death in the film.
- Right Behind Me: When she told her mother that she knew who her real father was, she didn't realize that her father was listening until it was too late. He hadn't known until then, and he did not take it well.
- Screaming Warrior: After discovering her gun is empty, Sam simply says, "Fuck it" and charges at Bailey, screaming all the way.
- Secret-Keeper: For the first third of the film, Sam hides the fact that she is Billy Loomis' daughter. Tara initially does not take it well (though mostly because Sam ties this reveal in with the reason why she eventually left Woodsboro, and thus Tara and their mother), but soon reconciles with her sister once the shock subsides.
- Secret Relationship: She starts dating her neighbor Danny in Scream VI. Sam is the only person who thinks it's a secret.
- Serial-Killer Killer: Will work outside the law if she has to when it comes to taking out Ghostfaces. One she kills by shooting her in the head after taunting her and viciously stabs the other two to death—while non-lethally stabbing a third multiple times in an effort to kill him too.
- Shadow Archetype: To Sidney herself. Both are the protagonists of their stories with troubled pasts, act as a Final Girl and a subversion of the trope at the same time, whilst also being genuinely good people despite what they go through and are manipulated and betrayed by a boyfriend. But there are also differences: Sidney's past relates to the actions of her mother, whilst Sam's relates to the actions of her father. Sidney was mentally stable for the most part, whilst Sam's mind is more fractured. Sam is unloved and often distrusted, whilst Sidney is famous and always seen in a good light by everyone aside from Ghostfaces. Familywise, both are fractured, but Sam's sisterly relationship with Tara survives, whilst Sidney's brother and cousin turn out to be the Ghostfaces of their films. Both have mothers with traumatic pasts, though Sidney eventually accepted that her mother was a flawed person whereas Sam is currently estranged from hers. Finally, whilst Sidney had a good father that was momentarily suspected to be the killer, Sam's father is Billy Loomis, the actual killer of the first film. Also, unlike Sidney (who typically dispatches the killer using guns, giving them quick deaths), Sam tends to go for long, drawn-out knife stabbings, ensuring her victims' deaths are slow and painful.
- She Who Fights Monsters: This is heavily teased throughout the films for Sam. She's no less than Billy Loomis' daughter and Nancy Loomis' granddaughter, after all. In the sixth film, this is eventually deconstructed and subverted. Sam uses her late father's Ghostface mask, costume, and knife, as well as his the iconic voice changer to taunt Detective Bailey, whom she goes on to kill in a manner that rivals, if not exceeds the brutality of any Ghostface killing. And when all is said and done, she frightens even the Baileys, but this is shown to be a heroic thing, and Sam not letting everyone's perception of her stop her from doing what she needs to do to protect her loved ones. She seems briefly tempted to keep Billy's mask, but instead drops it and walks on alongside Tara, showing that she is choosing not to follow in her family's footsteps.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Both her love interests are kind-hearted and supportive types who don't judge Sam for her flaws. Richie, it turns out, is anything but that, but it ultimately holds true of Danny.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Sam's biological father was Billy Loomis, the original Ghostface mastermind, and for simply being his illegitimate daughter, Sam catches no end of grief, whether it's from her parents, strangers, or even new Ghostface killers; Richie and Amber considered her the perfect "villain" for their movie because she's Billy's daughter, and the sixth film's killers taunt Sam endlessly that she's a killer, just like her father.
- Slasher Smile: She gives a truly horrific one against Ghostface during the final confrontation of VI, that even they are taken aback in terror of her.
- Statuesque Stunner: She's pretty tall at 5'7 and very attractive, her height being even more noticeable when she stands next to her sister Tara who is only five feet tall.
- Swipe Your Blade Off: She wipes her blade with her bare hand after slashing Richie's throat.
- Tank-Top Tomboy: She's a rough, blue-collar Action Girl, and when she gets into it in the third act, she sheds her jacket for a gray tank top.
- Teen Pregnancy: Sam is the result of one, with her parents marrying after high school.
- Terror Hero: She stops bothering to hide her dark side when facing Richie's murderous family in VI, instead fully adopting the role of a slasher herself.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: A surprisingly heroic example. In Scream (2022) and VI, Sam is extensively treated like she's a monster because she's Billy Loomis's daughter, which is part of Richie and Amber's plot to make her the scapegoat villain of their murders. Especially in the latter, where Malicious Slander has labeled her near-murderer Richie as a victim of Sam's murderous rampage that she then pinned on him. It takes a toll on her throughout each movie. She embraces that dark side of herself to kill Richie, and then becomes a full-on slasher herself against his family that's trying to kill her, giving out a terrifying Slasher Smile, even donning her father's old costume to kill Bailey personally in the most violent manner seen in any kill up to that point.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
- She stabs Richie 22 times, cuts his throat and then fires three rounds into his corpse (the last one in the head) just to make sure. The overkill comes back to bite Sam in the sixth film; Detective Bailey, Richie's vengeful father, explicitly says that seeing the state of Richie's corpse is what convinced him that Sam needed to die.
- She kills Richie's father, Detective Bailey, by stabbing him dozens of times in the gaps of his bulletproof vest and finishing him off by stabbing him in the brain through his eye socket.
- Token Good Teammate: Of the Loomis family. Her father was a serial killer, her grandmother also a murderer who refused to accept responsibility for how Billy turned out, and her paternal grandfather, while not a killer, cheated on his wife and tore his family apart with little apparent remorse. Sam, while she has her dark side, is also genuinely trying her best to be good and take responsibility for her actions and those around her and is a sincerely kind-hearted and caring person through it all.
- Token Minority: Due to her mother being Latina, Sam is the only non-white member of the Loomis family seen so far.
- Tomboyish Name: Befitting for a Final Girl, Samantha Carpenter is usually called "Sam".
- Took a Level in Badass: Sam's first encounter with Ghostface has her fleeing in terror and calling for the police to help. By the end of 5, she's holding her own against the killer and proceeds to turn him into a human pincushion.
- Undiscriminating Addict: In Sam's words to her own sister explaining that she's Billy Loomis's biological daughter, she would do every drug she could get her hands on.
- The Un-Favorite: Sam's mother blames her for her father leaving the family, and their relationship is strained at best because of it. It's also strongly implied that Sam's mother holds Sam being Billy's daughter against her, despite being the one who slept with Billy in the first place, with the affair turning out to be the reason her husband left her. By Scream VI, she's cut all ties with Sam, blaming her for Tara finding out that Billy was Sam's father.
- Villain Killer: By the end of Scream VI, Sam has slain no fewer than three of the five Ghostfaces she's gone up against, including the masterminds of the killing sprees in the fifth and sixth films.
- Villainous Lineage: The first two Ghostface sprees were masterminded by her father and paternal grandmother.
- Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about Sam without mentioning that she's the illegitimate daughter of Billy Loomis, to the point where the subsequent film treats it as a Late-Arrival Spoiler.
- Weapon-Based Characterization: It turns out she has a real penchant for knives, particularly hunting knives like the kind used by her father and his successors. While not above using guns or the odd improvised weapon, she's most effective with a knife in hand and will go for one whenever sensing danger. Quite fitting really for someone who is functionally the Ghostface of Ghostfaces. Notably, when Ghostface attacks her apartment in VI, and she finds that someone had already taken and hidden all the kitchen knives to render them defenseless, she actually stumbles over what to do without one before resorting to the less effective blunt force weapon of the knife holder.
- We Used to Be Friends: Her relationship with Gale falls apart after Gale describes Sam in unflattering terms in her book after promising she wouldn't write about the latest Ghostface murder spree. Sam refuses to even take her call when the murders start up again in New York and immediately tries to punch Gale in the face the next time they meet up. Fortunately, their friendship starts to mend when Gale assures Sam she's not to blame for Tara falling out with their mother and when Sam saves Gale's life after she is attacked.
- When She Smiles: Sam is usually pretty reserved or angry due to being pushed to her breaking point by Ghostfaces or being publicly harassed for her Villainous Lineage, but when she's happy and smiles, such as with Tara or their friends, she's absolutely radiant.
- White Sheep: Of the Loomis family. Of the members who are prominently featured within the narrative, Sam is the only one who actively resists the darker tendencies of her psyche until she has to channel them into stopping the killing spree and saving her sister.
Tara Carpenter

Played By: Jenna Ortega
Dubbed By: Rikako Aida (Japanese)
Appearances: Scream (2022) | Scream VI
Sam's younger sister, Tara is Ghostface's first target, meant to lure Sam back to Woodsboro.
- 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 some of 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 he 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: She is the secondary protagonist of the fifth and sixth films, after Sam.
- 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 kind-hearted, intelligent, and friendly teenage 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 while she's using a wheelchair. She also has multiple stab wounds, and on top of that she’s asthmatic. However, 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 conceal the fact that she survived the requel Woodsboro killings, even pretending to be from Michigan to avoid the notoriety. This is 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.
- Like Father, Unlike Son: Tara is kind, sweet-natured and caring and extremely loyal to Sam, completely unlike her mother who is spiteful, cold and abusive and blamed Sam for mistakes and disowned her.
- 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.
- 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.
- The Movie Buff: She's an avid cinema buff like her friends, showing a particular love for arthouse horror films.
- 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.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: She has black hair and fair skin, and is quite a looker.
- 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 more feminine 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, even if Sam's overprotectiveness gets on her nerves.
- 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.
Chad Meeks-Martin

Played By: Mason Gooding
Appearances: Scream (2022) | Scream VI | Scream 7
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.
- 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, and he has the build of a football player to back up his threats, stepping in to stop a frat boy from potentially raping Tara, getting in Vince's face when he won't back off 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.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Utterly wrecks Quinn as Ghostface and would’ve killed her if not for Ethan literally backstabbing him.
- 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.
- Gentle Giant: He's easily the most physically imposing and capable of the Core Four but is a sweet, laid-back and sincere guy.
- 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

Played By: Jasmin Savoy Brown
Appearances: Scream (2022) | Scream VI | Scream 7
A resident of Woodsboro, the daughter of Martha Meeks, the twin sister of Chad Meeks-Martin, and the niece of Randy Meeks.
- 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. By the seventh film, she's grown it long again.
- 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 in 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, but is correct when she immediately pegs Ethan as one of the New York Ghostfaces.
- 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).
- Redeems herself in the sixth film by instantly (and correctly) suspecting Ethan as a Ghostface.
- 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

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.
- 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 kidnap him at some point during the first film and stick him in a closet at Stu's house.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Played with. Dewey 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, and Ghostface calls Sidney to taunt her with the message "What good's it to be a survivor if everyone close to you is dead?", this could imply Neil died in the interim. However, it is also possible he moved away from Woodsboro since the events of Scream 3, and he and Sidney became estranged at some point between the third and fourth films.
- Frame-Up: Billy and Stu attempt 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 (née Roberts)

Played By: Lynn McRee
Appearances: Scream (1996) note | Scream 2 note | Scream 3 note
Sidney's mother, murdered a year prior to the first film.
- 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.
- Break the Cutie: Her Hollywood backstory could imply that she was not as practically nasty as she was later, so when John Milton ordered a gang rape on her, it drastically affected her.
- 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 depict 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.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Not wanting to be part of your long-lost child's life is pretty cold, but considering Roman was born as a result of Maureen's rape, it's understandable she'd find being around him too difficult.
- 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.
- Like Mother, Like Daughter: Similar to Sidney, Maureen was a famous celebrity herself, and has fallen victim into having a rocky relationship and witnessing at least a killing incident all by herself.
- 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 killers left a coat drenched in blood that Cotton had forgotten at the Prescott house after the romp with Maureen.
- 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 accuses her of 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 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.
Mark Evans
Played By: Joel McHale
Appearances: Scream 7
Sidney's husband.
- Ankle Drag: In the trailer, Ghostface drags Mark across the floor before attacking him.
- Revision: He was originally supposed to be Patrick Dempsey's Mark Kincaid from Scream 3, but negotiations with Dempsey fell through and so Sidney's husband became a different character who is also named Mark.
- Unseen No More: Mentioned along with his children in the previous two films, before finally appearing in the seventh entry.
Tatum Evans
Played By: Isabel May
Appearances: Scream 7
Sidney's teenage daughter and eldest child.
- Dead Guy Junior: Was named after Sidney's high school best friend Tatum Riley, who fell victim to the first Ghostface spree.
- Unseen No More: Was mentioned along with her siblings in the previous two films, though not by name, finally appearing in the seventh entry.
Meeks Family
Randy Meeks

Played By: Jamie Kennedy
Dubbed By: Nobutoshi Canna (Japanese)
Appearances: Scream (1996) | Scream 2 | Scream 3 | Scream (2022) note
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.
- Allegedly Dateless: Randy is treated as being unlucky in love and says that in his ideal movie he 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're watching 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, and has continued to be mentioned in every film since.
- 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 survives 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 Big Bro: Is implied to have been this to his younger sister Martha, who as an adult dedicated her living room to his memory as a home theatre.
- Cool Uncle: To Chad and Mindy, though he sadly never got to meet them, having died long before they were born. There's a portrait 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
- 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: After suriviving the first film, he gets killed halfway through Scream 2, further upping the ante by showing not even previous movies' survivors are safe in this series.
- 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 that she gruesomely murders him.
- 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

Played By: Heather Matarazzo
Dubbed By: Yuka Tokomitsu (Japanese)
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.
- 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. She tries to compliment him on looking well too, but stops halfway through due to his haggard appearance.
- 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, her existence doesn't contradict anything from the first two films as we never see or hear any details about 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?
Sam's Family
Cristina Carpenter
Played By: N/A
Appearances: N/A
Sam and Tara's mother.
- 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 to both of her daughters. 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: 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) with 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. It's known she's Hispanic as she's the only parent Sam could've gotten her Hispanic looks from.
- Hate Sink: Despite never appearing in the films, what we learn about Cristina doesn't exactly paint a flattering picture. She was cold and abusive to Sam, blamed her for Cristina's own mistakes, cut Sam out of her life completely and cares more about keeping her affair with Billy a secret than her daughter's safety and her relationship with Tara is not implied to be much better since Tara seems surprised her mother would even attend an AA meeting, indicating she refuses to take responsibility for her actions or addiction, and it's quite likely she was abusive to Tara too. It's telling that Tara has enough of her by the second film and cuts ties with her completely when she never considered doing so with Sam despite the two being estranged for five years.
- Hypocrite: Despite the fact that it's apparently her fault that Richie and Amber ever found out about Sam's parentage, she 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 to keep Tara from knowing that 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.
- Even in her backstory, it's likely she lied to her boyfriend about him being Sam's father so she'd have a husband to support her and not have to bear the stigma of carrying a serial killer's baby.
- 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.
- Manipulative Bitch: Lied to her boyfriend that he was the father of her baby, presumably both to avoid the stigma of carrying Billy's child and to make sure Sam had a father.
- 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 with 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, albeit not a particularly great one. 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.
Mr. Carpenter
Played By: N/A
Appearances: N/A
Cristina's ex-husband, the legal father of Sam, and the biological father of Tara.
- The Ghost: Like Cristina, he has not been seen in any of the movies, not even in photographs.
- Jerkass: While he had every right to want to divorce Cristina after discovering the truth about Sam, he still raised Sam as his daughter for 13 years, but disregarded all that and walked out on both her and his biological daughter Tara.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While abandoning Sam and Tara was inexcusable, he had every right to divorce Cristina as she lied to him about him being Sam's biological father to manipulate him into marrying her and continued to lie for 13 years. Given that he and Cristina were in high school when she got pregnant, it's entirely possible he may have had to give up going to college to be a dad to Sam.
- Parental Abandonment: When he left Cristina, he also walked out on Sam and Tara.
Henry "Hank" Loomis

Played By: C.W. Morgan
Appearances: Scream (1996) | Scream 3 note
Billy's father and Nancy's ex-husband. He is a lawyer.
- 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 the mastermind Ghostface killer, 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, though she hasn't been shown expressing an interest in getting to know Hank.
Other Recurring Characters
Cotton Weary

Played By: Liev Schreiber
Dubbed By: Jūrōta Kosugi (Japanese)
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.
- 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.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After he eventually stopped Nancy Loomis' killing spree, he finally gets his name cleared from being falsely accused of murdering Maureen Prescott. And then Roman arrived...
- 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 besides 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. Though Sidney does put a bullet in her head just to be sure.
- Punny Name: His talk-show is named 100% Cotton.
- Red Herring: In the second film, Sidney and Gale suspect he's the killer.
- 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: At 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 quite the Deadpan Snarker.
- Turn the Other Cheek: After a long wait of proving his innocence from false accusations, Sidney manages to give him a chance to prove that, despite how much he annoyed her before.
- 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.
Kirby Reed

Played By: Hayden Panettiere
Dubbed By: Ayahi Takagaki (Japanese)
Appearances: Scream 4 | Scream (2022) note | Scream VI
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.
- 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
- 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 the guy who had a crush on her and her 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, who stabs 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 the explanation as to why Kirby was able to withstand 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: Kirby inadvertently acts as one for Ghostface by picking up Jill after the latter and Charlie murder Kate 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 more confident than the boy she has a crush on, 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.
- Good Counterpart: To Jill. Both girls are horror enthusiasts who were able to witness the 2011 Woodsboro killing spree. They were also associated with the Sole Survivor label. However, it turns out that Jill's the mastermind behind those serial murders, as she committed them just so that she could set herself up as a "victim" for her to be publicly seen as a fake sole survivor, since she's greatly envious about her cousin Sidney's fame as such. On the other hand, Kirby is a legitimate sole survivor as she was genuinely victimized by Charlie, Jill's accomplice, and is also not as arrogant and hostile as her old best friend was.
- 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.
- 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 revived and did survive in the end. 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 being 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 takes 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, 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.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: 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.
- 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.
Deputy Sheriff Judy Hicks

Played By: Marley Shelton
Dubbed By: Yūko Kaida (Japanese)
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.
- 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 (not that she would likely have survived anyway, as bulletproof vests are designed to specifically stop bullets, not stabbing instruments).
- 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.
- Fish Eyes: She has a noticeably lazy eye that the film focuses on whenever it's playing up her social awkwardness.
- 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.
