Ghostface (alternatively stylized as Ghost Face or GhostFace) is an identity that is adopted by the main antagonists of the Scream franchise. The figure was originally created by Kevin Williamson, and is primarily mute in person but voiced over the phone by Roger L. Jackson, regardless of who is behind the mask (as all killers use a voice changer utilizing that exact voice, starting in person with Scream). The disguise has been adopted by various characters in the movies and in the third season of the television series.
Ghostface debuted in Scream (1996) as a disguise used by teenagers Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard), during their killing spree in the fictional town of Woodsboro, particularly targeting Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). The mask was a popular Halloween costume created and designed by Fun World costume company before being chosen by Marianne Maddalena and Craven for the film. The identity is used primarily as a disguise for the antagonists of each film to conceal their identities while conducting serial murders, and as such has been portrayed by several actors.
In the Scream universe, the costume is not unique and is easily obtainable, allowing others to wear a similar outfit. In the first movie, the costume is shown in packaging labeled "Father Death." Ghostface often calls their targets to taunt or threaten them, using a voice changer to hide their true identity. Later installments utilize modern technology of the time to taunt and pursue victims. Because the identity beneath the mask constantly shifts, Ghostface lacks a single, definitive motivation; their triggers range from revenge and fame-seeking to peer pressure. However, every iteration is a sadist whose thrill of the kill is fueled by a twisted obsession with horror movies and the ongoing continuity of the film series. The events of the first film provide worldwide fame and notoriety to the survivors, and the new Ghostface killers have motives that may sometimes be connected to the in-universe Stab film series, loose adaptations of the tell-all books about previous Ghostface killings by Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox). Sidney is often the main target for almost all the films, while Samantha "Sam" Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and her half-sister, Tara (Jenna Ortega) are primarily targeted in the fifth and sixth films.
The Ghostface persona remains the same throughout the Scream film series, featuring a black hood and cloak with a jagged base and a white rubber mask resembling a ghost with an anguished expression. Though each iteration of Ghostface is human, they often exhibit extreme durability against physical harm, high levels of physical strength, and an almost supernatural stealth ability, able to appear and disappear in seemingly impossible situations.
In the 2015–2016 television series Scream, Ghostface was replaced by The Lakewood Slasher (created by the series' writers Jill Blotevogel, Dan Dworkin and Jay Beattie), who appeared in the series for the first two seasons, and by The Shallow Grove Slasher (created by Brian Sieve and Eoghan O'Donnell), who appeared in only the Halloween Special episodes of the second season; both are voiced by Mike Vaughn (who credited in the series' end credits as "The Voice"), due to licensing issues. The original Ghostface persona returned in Scream: Resurrection, once again voiced by Roger L. Jackson, replacing Vaughn. In the films, Ghostface has appeared in all entries to date, returning most recently in Scream 7, with Jackson reprising his role, also credited as "The Voice" in the film series' ending credits.
The character has become a popular culture icon since its inception, referenced in film and television as well as spawning a series of action figures and merchandise, as well as parodies and titular spoofs, most notably in the Scary Movie franchise, where Ghostface is voiced by Dave Sheridan.
Contents
Appearances
Films
Ghostface first appears in the opening scene of Scream (1996). The character, voiced by Roger L. Jackson, calls and taunts teenager Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) with horror clichés and trivia questions, before murdering her boyfriend Steve Orth (Kevin Patrick Walls) and then her. The identity has been adopted by the primary antagonists of each successive film to conceal their identities, prior to being revealed in each film's final act.
In the original Scream, the identity is used by a killer stalking the fictional town of Woodsboro, California. After the murder spree begins, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) begins receiving taunting and threatening phone calls from Ghostface, who claims knowledge of her mother Maureen Prescott (Lynn McRee)'s brutal rape and murder, one year prior to the events of the film, a murder that was blamed on Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber). The Ghostface disguise allows suspicion to fall on many people, including Sidney's boyfriend, Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich); her father, Neil Prescott (Lawrence Hecht); her friend, Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy); and her schoolmate, Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard). Ghostface is revealed in the finale as both Billy and Stu, who reveal that they murdered Sidney's mother and framed Cotton. Billy cites his motivation as abandonment by his mother, brought about by his father's affair with Maureen, while Stu initially claims he embarked on the spree for fun, but later ultimately cites "peer pressure". As the two killers reveal their plan to frame Sidney's father for their killing spree, reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) suddenly appears and attempts to shoot them with their gun, only for Billy to knock her out and prepare to kill her. However, he and Stu suddenly realize that while Gale was engaging them, Sidney managed to escape. Sidney ultimately turns the tables against Billy and Stu, temporarily adopting the Ghostface persona herself to taunt them with a phone call, revealing that she called the police on them and thus foiled their plan to get away with their killing spree, leaving the two killers shocked, horrified, and enraged. Briefly dressing up as Ghostface, Sidney attacks and knocks out Billy with an umbrella and then engages in a fight with Stu, ultimately killing him by dropping a television on his head. Gale shoots Billy to stop him from killing Sidney, who then finishes Billy off with a bullet to the head, citing the fact that "They ALWAYS come back," a common horror cliché, and one of the many tropes taught to her by Randy Meeks, who is obsessed with horror and openly listed these clichés earlier in the film during a party.
Ghostface's second appearance was in Scream 2 (1997) where it was again used as a disguise by the main antagonists. A series of murders occur at Windsor College, Sidney's current location, with the initial victims sharing names with Billy and Stu's victims from Scream. The killers again taunt Sidney and attempt to kill her, and later kill Randy. The Ghostface disguise allows suspicion to fall on several characters, including Cotton again, and Sidney's boyfriend Derek Feldman (Jerry O'Connell). However, Mickey Altieri (Timothy Olyphant), a friend of Derek, reveals himself as the killer, seeking fame for his prolific exploits. Mickey's accomplice is revealed to be Billy's mother (Laurie Metcalf), under the alias Debbie Salt, who is seeking revenge against Sidney for her son's death, while showing unwillingness to accept her own faults as a mother which included abandoning Billy, which Sidney points out during their confrontation. Mrs. Loomis shoots Mickey, claiming to have indulged his desire for fame only to enlist his help in enacting her revenge, and tries to kill Sidney, only for Sidney to fight back. Just as Mrs. Loomis ultimately prepares to kill Sidney, Cotton suddenly arrives, and Mrs. Loomis tries to manipulate him into letting her kill Sidney, but to her shock, she fails to do so and Cotton instead shoots Mrs. Loomis in the neck. Seconds later, Mickey springs to his feet screaming but is quickly shot to death by Gale and Sidney. Sidney then shoots Mrs. Loomis in the head, saying "just in case".
Television series
Ghostface appears with a different mask and under the name the Lakewood Slasher (voiced by Mike Vaughn) in the anthology television slasher series Scream. Emma Duvall (Willa Fitzgerald) and her friends are stalked and murdered by someone wearing the disguise. In the end, the killer is revealed to be Emma's half-sister, Piper (Amelia Rose Blaire), who was given up for adoption at birth by Emma's mother Maggie (Tracy Middendorf), and wanted revenge for Emma getting what she never had. Piper and Emma have a struggle before Piper gets the upper hand, but Audrey (Bex Taylor-Klaus), one of Emma's best friends, shoots Piper in the chest and she falls in the lake. She surfaces, only for Emma to finish her off with a bullet to the head.
Appearing in the second season, the new Lakewood Slasher killer begins harassing Audrey and Emma, and the survivors of the first massacre. In the end, he's revealed to be Kieran (Amadeus Serafini), Emma's boyfriend. A chase ends with Emma and Audrey getting the upper hand, but Emma decides to let him rot in prison instead of killing him. The police arrive and arrest Kieran. However, Kieran was murdered by an unknown killer. In the series' special Halloween episodes, a new killer named Shallow Grove Slasher (also voiced by Vaughn) and later revealed: Tom Martin (Alexander Calvert), who using his fake identity name as Alex Whitten, attempt to murder Emma and her friends who are on vacation at Shallow Grove Island. In the end, Emma kills Tom by falling off the balcony.
Ghostface appeared in the third and final season, titled Scream: Resurrection, premiered on VH1 on July 8, 2019, with Roger L. Jackson reprising his role. In this season, the killers wear the Fun World mask and are revealed in the episode "Endgame": Beth (Giorgia Whigham) and Jamal "Jay" Elliot (Tyga), who is the older half-brother of main character Marcus Elliot (RJ Cyler).
Video games
Ghostface, under the alias the "Ghost Face", appears as a killer in the asymmetrical multiplayer Survival horror game, Dead by Daylight, voiced by Filip Ivanovic. He was added via the Ghost Face DLC released on June 18, 2019. This version is Danny Johnson, also known by the pseudonym Jed Olsen, a narcissistic freelance newspaper journalist from the fictional town of Roseville, Florida, who covers the Ghostface murders by day and commits them by night. Johnson was created for the game because the developers were only able to acquire the license for the Scream mask, which is separate from the one for the character, as the films used a pre-existing mask. Players can access different styles of the mask for Ghostface as well.
Ghostface appears as a playable operator in Season Six of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Call of Duty: Warzone, voiced again by Roger L. Jackson.
In April 2022, Ghostface was added in an update as a free playable skin for a limited time in the online multiplayer social deduction game Among Us.
In July 2024, it was announced that Ghostface would appear as a playable character in Mortal Kombat 1 via the "Khaos Reigns" DLC, coming with Roger L. Jackson reprising his role. His inclusion has inspired numerous internet memes, with users humorously highlighting the improbability of Ghostface standing a real chance in a fight against the roster of Mortal Kombat characters and fellow guest fighters featured in the game and its predecessors.
Ghostface is a usable skin in the online game Hunt: Showdown as of October 24, 2024 under the title of the DLC package named "Ghost Face Rampage”.
On October 10th 2025, Ghostface came to the online game Fortnite as a purchasable skin from the shop as part of 2025's version of "Fortnitemares", the game's annual Halloween event. For a limited time, players can receive an in-game "Last Call" weapon, consisting of a 90s payphone and Ghostface's iconic knife. The item also transforms the player wielding it into Ghostface himself, allowing them to stalk other players as a reference to the killer's identity being assumed by different people. Roger L. Jackson reprises his role for all spoken Ghostface lines.
Music videos
Jackson reprised his role as Ghostface in the second part of the music video "Twisting the Knife" by Ice Nine Kills featuring the song's guest artist and star of Scream 7, Mckenna Grace and original Scream actor David Arquette appears as a fictionalized version of himself. After completing on set for the shooting of the song's music video, Ghostface kills Arquette and Francis Rizzowitz (Johnny Brennan), before Ghostface unmasked as the character named the Silence and the video ends with the caption "To be continued ...".
Concept and creation
The Ghostface costume is the outfit worn by the main antagonists of the Scream franchise, consisting of a rubber white mask with black eyes, nose, and mouth and black, cloth-like material; a hooded robe, with faux-tatters draping from the arms; and a spiked trim to the base of the outfit. In the movie, the costume is considered common and easily purchasable, making identifying the buyers difficult and creating the possibility for anyone to be the killer.
The Ghostface mask was first developed for novelty stores during the Halloween season between 1991 and 1992 by Fun World, as part of a series entitled "Fantastic Faces", the mask itself known as "The Peanut-Eyed Ghost", with the final design approved by Fun World vice-president Allan Geller; the design was adapted from a "wailer" ghost mask created by Alterian, Inc. artist Loren Gitthens in 1990 and 1991. Craven claimed to have originally found the mask but later clarified that he had misremembered the event and that it was producer Marianne Maddalena who discovered it. She found it while inside a house during location scouting for the film and brought it to the attention of Craven, who set about trying to obtain the rights to use it. Fun World licensing director R.J. Torbert joined Fun World in 1996 and was given the task of naming the mask prior to its film debut, deciding on "GhostFace" with the blessing of Fun World owners Stanley and Allan Geller. Torbert felt it looked like a "ghost in pain", believing it to be a unique design. The Ghostface design and title are owned by Fun World.
The design of the mask bears reference to Edvard Munch's painting The Scream, the film poster to Pink Floyd's The Wall, the ghostly characters that appeared in the 1930s Betty Boop cartoons, and Season 1 Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! ghosts in the episode “A Night Of Fright Is No Delight”. The mask is stark white and depicts a caricature of someone screaming and crying at the same time. Designer Sleiertin stated that the mask displayed different emotions, "It's a horrible look, it's a sorry look, it's a frantic look" and has specified that it was not inspired by The Scream. Since the appearance of Ghostface in Scream, the costume has become the most worn and sold costume for Halloween in the United States.
The initial script labeled the main antagonist as "masked killer" with no specifications to its appearance, forcing Craven and his staff to produce the costume eventually worn by Ghostface as they were shooting. Craven asked Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger of design company KNB Effects to produce a mask specifically for the film based on the Fun World design, but did not like the final result. After Fun World and Dimension Films were able to complete an agreement for the use of the Ghostface mask, Craven was able to use the original design as he wanted. The custom mask made by KNB Effects still appears in the scenes involving the murders of Casey Becker and Principal Himbry, as filming of these scenes completed prior to the finalization of the deal between Fun World and Dimension Films.
Characterization
Ghostface is rarely depicted as speaking while physically on screen in order to aid in concealing the identity of the character behind the mask. Exceptions to this are grunts and groans when injured, which are dubbed into the film during the editing phase by Jackson. Ghostface only speaks physically on-screen on four occasions in the series; on the first two occasions, it is just before his true identity is revealed; the third occasion is the hospital scene in Scream (2022); the fourth occasion is the opening sequence in Scream VI. The voice given to the character, provided by Jackson, is used when talking to another character over the phone or to display the use of the voice changer when the killer reveals himself. Despite being portrayed by different characters in each film, Ghostface displays similar personality and physical attributes regardless of who is wearing the costume or speaking to a target, such as taunting his victims over the telephone, the ritualistic cleaning of his knife after a kill, slashing the throat of his victims before killing them by stabbing, almost superhuman strength and durability, and grunts and groans when injured.
Ghostface is first referred to by that name in the first movie, when character Tatum Riley, played by Rose McGowan, calls the masked killer "Mr. Ghostface", prior to her death.
Ghostface is often shown to taunt his targets, initially representing himself as charming and even flirtatious when speaking. His conversations turn confrontational and intimidating, using his knowledge of other characters or graphically describing his intentions before appearing to the target physically. Craven considers Jackson's voice performance as Ghostface to have "evil sophistication". When confronting his intended victim, Ghostface is portrayed in varying ways, sometimes quick and efficient and other times clumsy, falling, or colliding with objects that hinder his pursuit, a characteristic that varies based upon who is wearing the costume. Whoever inhabits the costume, Ghostface taunts its victims and prolongs a kill when it appears to have an advantage. The Billy/Stu Ghostface would gut its victims after killing them; this was not performed on Tatum Riley who was killed in a mechanical garage door. This Ghostface, in particular, would ask its victim questions about horror films and employ the tropes of the genre in its attacks, displaying a detachment from reality and aligned with the same self-awareness of the film itself which toys with the expectations of the horror genre. The second Ghostface, created by Mickey and Mrs. Loomis, would repeatedly stab its victim to death but often in a public place or with witnesses. The third Ghostface, created by Roman, preferred more clean kills with precise stabbings, and used theatricality and movie props to attack his victims, using a voice changer that allowed him to sound like many other people, casting suspicion and doubt on other characters. In addition, he would use images and the synthesized voice of Maureen to specifically taunt Sidney, even shrouding himself in a bloodied, crime scene cover, alluding to the murder of Maureen, to fool Sidney into believing that she was losing her sanity. The fourth Ghostface, created by Jill and Charlie, filmed each murder on web cameras hidden around the environment and spy cameras in its mask. Charlie mostly repeatedly stabbed his victims to death in a more vicious and brutal fashion and would go further and gut them if he wanted, while Jill mostly stabbed only once. The two killers also made some of the murders public to gain the attention of the world press. The fifth Ghostface, created by Richie and Amber, mainly focused on brutally attacking and injuring victims in Amber's case, while killing most of them in a swift manner, usually by a neck stab, in Richie's. The sixth Ghostface, created by Richie's family, committed violent murders and attacks on either the ones close to Sam Carpenter or anyone standing in the way, while leaving the masks of previous Ghostface killers at the scene of the crime afterwards. The seventh Ghostface, created by Jessica and her accomplice Marco, while still embarking on a violent spree like previous killers, focuses less on phone calls and uses AI recreations of past killers, mainly Stu Macher, to taunt Sidney in video messages.
Legacy and cultural impact
McFarlane Toys produced a 6-inch figurine of Ghostface in 1999 for the "Movie Maniacs II" series of horror and science fiction inspired line of character models. A series of figures were produced by NECA for Scream 4 featuring the standard mask and black cowl plus variations such as "Zombie Ghostface" with a decayed appearance on the mask and "Scarecrow Ghostface" with brown, burlap material used for the mask and clothing.
Ghostface has been parodied and referenced numerous times in media following his appearance in the Scream franchise, most prominently in the parody film Scary Movie (2000) where a killer dressed as Ghostface commits a series of murders. However, unlike the original film, the killer is revealed to be a single person, Doofy Gilmore, who is played by Dave Sheridan, who also provides Ghostface's voice. Sheridan would reprise his role in the self-titled sixth film in 2026. This parodic version of Ghostface later appears in the June 1, 2016 Erma comic strip, named "Prank Call", wherein the character is making prank calls whilst quoting Scream, alongside the series' titular character. In the parody film Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th (2000), a killer wearing a Jason Voorhees-style hockey mask is set on fire, his mask melting to resemble that of Ghostface. The film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) features Ghostface, as Shannen Doherty and Craven provide cameos as themselves making the then non-existent Scream 4, but Doherty objects when Ghostface turns out to be played by the orangutan, Suzann.
As in film, Ghostface has been referenced repeatedly in various television programs and commercials. In the same year as the release of Scream 3, the mask made an appearance on Beverly Hills, 90210 and the Nickelodeon series Cousin Skeeter. It was also used as an ornament in the bedroom of Dawson Leery in Dawson's Creek, a show created by Scream writer, Williamson. The character appears in a 1999 episode of Celebrity Deathmatch entitled "The Unknown Murderer", where he threatens to kill a scream queen every round, murdering Barrymore, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jennifer Love Hewitt before planting his cell phone on a platypus to frame him, causing Campbell and Sarah Michelle Gellar to fight it. The mask was later used in The Sopranos episode "Fortunate Son" (2001) where it is worn by the character Christopher Moltisanti to commit a robbery.
The costume is referenced in an episode of the television series Boomtown entitled "All Hallow's Eve" (2002) where a police officer uses the costume to frighten a bully who has been terrorizing other kids. In the Japanese anime FLCL episode "Marquis de Cabras" (2003), protagonist Naota's face changes to resemble that of Ghostface frequently during a scene where he and his family are eating spicy curry. The character makes a cameo appearance in Tripping the Rift in the episode "The Devil and a Guy Named Webster" (2004) as the judge when Chode sells his soul to the devil and finds a way to sue him. He also appears in a 2004 advert for Trivial Pursuit: '90s edition; representing iconic characters of the 1990s alongside Dennis Rodman and the character Rose from the 1997 film Titanic. A parody of Ghostface appears in the television series All Grown Up! episode "Interview with a Campfire" (2004) where Lil DeVille is taunted by phone and stalked by a character wearing an Easter Bunny mask.