The Identity Of Scream 7's Ghostface Killer, Explained

This post contains major spoilers for "Scream 7."

It's time for a new Ghostface to go on a killing spree. "Scream 7" is upon us, with Neve Campbell returning as Sidney Prescott, taking on the lead role in the series for the first time in a long time. Campbell sat out "Scream VI," which saw Ghostface operating a little differently in New York City for a round of bloodshed. But who donned the Ghostface mask this time around to bring Sidney back into the fold? The answer is fairly bizarre.

The sequel centers on Sidney Prescott (Campbell), who has managed to build a new, quiet life for her family in a small town. However, Sidney's darkest fears come to light when a new Ghostface emerges and begins targeting her daughter, Tatum (Isabel May). Sidney must face the horrors of her past once more in an attempt to protect her family.

Not too far into the movie, after a brutal confrontation at Sidney's house, the first Ghostface (not the only Ghostface!) is run over by a car driven by none other than Courteney Cox's Gale Weathers, one of only two characters to appear in every single "Scream" movie. After pulling the mask off of the body in the street, the first Ghostface is revealed to be Karl Gibbs (Kraig Drake), an escaped mental patient from a nearby institution whom Sidney spotted at her coffee shop earlier that day.

But it's never that easy, and Sidney soon receives another creepy phone call from Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard), who seemingly died during the kick-ass ending of the original "Scream" in 1996. So, Sidney and Gale go on a mission to uncover the other killer(s).

After a lot of back-and-forth between the various groups, with Tatum leading the youngsters and Sidney off with Gale, the threads begin to come together. Tatum is in peril following and interview Sidney does with Gale, and another phone call from Stu leads Sidney back to town to try and save her daughter. Several more young folks are dispatched before Sidney heads back home to save Tatum, where the killers are finally unmasked. That leads us to the wild ending of "Scream 7," which benefits from some further explanation.

The next person unmasked is the mental institution employee Marco (Ethan Embry), who we met when Sidney and Gale were looking for clues about Stu. Then comes Jessica (Anna Camp), Sidney's seemingly friendly neighbor who is fixated on someone from the Prescott family embodying the "final girl" archetype.

Sidney's seemingly friendly neighbor who is fixated on Sidney. Originally wanting Sid to become her "final girl" self once more, she shifts focus to wanting to kill Sidney in front of Tatum, thus turning Tatum into the new final girl, sort of rebooting the "Scream" franchise in the world of the movie. She and Marco, who used to work for Microsoft and is apparently good with computers, used AI deepfakes to bring Stu back from the dead, leaning on conspiracy theories that he never really died in the first place. We also get brief appearances from fake versions of Dewey (David Arquette), who had the most shocking death in 2022's "Scream," as well as former killers Roman (Scott Foley), and Debbie (Laurie Metcalf) to further f*** with Sidney's head.

With the help of her should-be-dead husband Mark (Joel McHale), Tatum and Sidney kill Marco before also taking care of Jessica, who briefly escapes only to literally have her face shot off. Tatum learned the hard way to always shoot the killer in the head.

"Scream 7" has been met with mixed reactions thus far, and that's going to happen when you're this far into a franchise. It's also a franchise that has brought new killers each time around, which adds an extra layer of complication and intrigue; it gets harder and harder to make the Ghostface reveal pack a punch. This is a strange one within the series canon.

Director Kevin Williamson, who also wrote Wes Craven's original "Scream," which saved the slasher genre in 1996, decided to play with the dangers of AI, something very much of the time. It's a clever way to bring back Stu, something many fans have wanted for a long time. But rather than do some sort of wonky, "Somehow, Stu returned" thing where he's actually alive and actually the killer, they found a workaround.

As for how effective Karl, Marco, and Jessica are as a trio of Ghostfaces? Personal taste certainly comes into play, but it's a weird grouping. Karl was a convicted killer who served time in a mental institution. That feels trope-y, but easy enough to believe. Jessica developed an unhealthy, parasocial relationship with Sidney, having survived her own abusive relationship and taken some misguided lessons from Sidney's book. Her motivations are very "Scream"-coded and in line with the series history.

Marco is the real outlier here. How did he get pulled into this? Jessica met Marco during her time at the institution, but how did she talk him into becoming a serial killer? That's never really addressed, but without him, the AI deepfake plot device doesn't work. In that way, it's not exactly airtight, but seventh entries in long-running franchises are rarely squeaky clean. It's the nature of the beast.

"Scream 7" is in theaters now.