Laurie Metcalf says her reveal as one of the Ghostfaces in Scream 2 — and being outed as Billy’s mom — is the best in the franchise.
SPOILERS: In addition to Scream 2, this article will have spoilers for every other movie in the franchise.
We all know that one of the big draws of the Scream franchise is Ghostface’s identity. But some are a lot harder to figure out who is behind the mask than others. The big surprise in 1996’s original wasn’t that it was Billy or Stu, it was that it was Billy and Stu (despite some red herrings, we all knew those dudes were wackos). And nobody was surprised when freaky Tarantino film student Mickey turned out to be one of the killers in Scream 2. The same could be said of Debbie Salt – after all, why put a prominent actress like Laurie Metcalf in a seemingly thankless role? But Metcalf thinks her Scream 2 reveal still ranks as the best in the franchise’s history.
Speaking with Collider, Laurie Metcalf stated bluntly, “I think in the Scream movies, my character has the best reveal.” The more important reveal wasn’t that she was one of the Ghostfaces but that she was Billy’s mother, a final act revelation that also just made most of the audience realize that Sidney had had no interactions with her up to that point, thus couldn’t have outed her.
Metcalf appeared to have a lot of fun during her time playing the “dual” role in Scream 2, saying, “I mean all I had to do was — I guess I just sort of, in my head, split her apart and Debbie Salt, I just played as a villain. And then Nancy, I played as a rabid mother avenging her son. They were very separate in my head… There was no overlap… If you’re good at playing the lunatic, you basically, as an actor, you have a free pass to be as crazy as you want to be.”
As for other Ghostface reveals outside of Scream 2 (a movie that truly holds up) and the original, I’d still like to give a shoutout to Roman Bridger in Scream 3, which gave us not only a surprise choice as Bridger was seen “dead” not long before but also more history for Sidney. As for Scream 4, those Ghostfaces were just rehashes of all that came before it, as yet another relative and movie-obsessed maniac were given the knives. 2022’s Scream’s killers were pretty obvious to those paying attention, while last year’s Scream VI had more Ghostfaces than ever, with the most obvious being the one dude who would have access to all of that police evidence…
How would you rank the Ghostface reveals across the Scream trilogy? Is Laurie Metcalf’s Scream 2 twist near the top? Give us your list below!
