Every Kill in Scream 7, Ranked

Scream 7 is officially a hit, which is good news for die-hard fans of the Ghostface saga, because we’re now definitely getting at least one more. And, with that new movie will come a new game and, thusly, a new slew of kills. But, for now, we have exactly 10 new ones to attribute to the belts of either Ghostface (as an overarching slasher icon, as opposed to a single individual) or Sidney Prescott. And, while Scream 7 isn’t quite as thoroughly written or intelligent as the franchise when it was at its best, the one area where it definitely does not short the audience is in the violence department.

In fact, there are a few kills in this one that rank with the most inventive and jarring the franchise has ever thrown the audience’s way. However, of the ten, some are very much better than others.

Spoilers for Scream 7 follow.

10) Marco Davis

The running trend of the Scream franchise when it comes to the Ghostface killers is that you have to shoot them in the head. That’s how Marco Davis goes out in Scream 7.

This kill ranks low because, for one, we barely get to know anything about Marco in the movie. He pops up in one scene midway through the movie and then in the reveal scene. In terms of Ghostfaces, he’s the second fiddle to Jessica Bowden’s top dog, the clear accomplice, and like the afterthought he is he’s dispatched just as quickly, rushing toward Sidney and getting shot. Pretty boring stuff that could be seen in a John Wick movie.

9) Karl Allan Gibbs

You know the thing in movies where a character stumbles into the street and you know exactly what’s going to happen? That’s what happens to Ghostface number three: Karl Allan Gibbs.

After attacking Sidney, Tatum, and Mark Evans in their house, he’s overrun, pushed from the house to the yard, and ends up in the street. Cue the van that sends him flying a few feet up the street. Nothing you haven’t seen elsewhere.

8) Aaron

Speaking of things you’ve seen elsewhere, there’s the off-screen throat slit that sends out Aaron. We hardly knew thee.

Aaron exists to up the kill count and establish the much better kill that follows. He’s the one operating the rig system keeping Hannah Thurman in an inescapable position. Once Aaron’s gone, Ghostface has control of that rig. There are great off-screen throat slits (Ned in the original Friday the 13th is the gold standard), but for the most part they’re slasher old hat.

7) Ben Brown

Every Scream movie has at least one character it’s trying to get the audience to believe is putting on a Ghostface mask. Detective Mark Kincaid in Scream 3, for instance, or Cotton Weary in Scream 2. They’re fake-out suspects. Scream 7 has two fake-out suspects.

One of them is Ben Brown, the boyfriend of Tatum Evans. But he’s no Billy Loomis. He’s an overall good guy and dies protecting his girlfriend. Even still, for the final non-Ghostface kill of the film, especially for a character so integral to the proceedings, getting a few knife marks on the sternum is pretty lame.

6) Jessica Bowden

Now we come to the third of the three Ghostfaces, and the main one: Jessica Bowden. Sidney’s neighbor and supposed friend, Jessica is actually an obsessed fan who got the wrong message out of Sid’s book, wasn’t happy with her sitting out New York, and wants to make her daughter the next final girl.

Clunky motive aside, Jessica is definitely the best of the three killers, and gets the best death, even if it still isn’t especially grand. After duking it out with Sidney for a bit, taking a wound here and there, Tatum steps in and she and Sidney take turns shooting Jessica in the face. It’s fine, but it ranks as high as it does because they really do go to town on her, resulting in a remainder of basically just a sliver of forehead and half of her jaw.

5) Chloe Parker

Scream 7 is something of a Ghostbusters reunion, considering both Mckenna Grace and Celeste O’Connor are on the cast list. Unfortunately for their characters here, they’re in far more danger.

As far as O’Connor’s Chloe Parker goes, she feels as though she’s survived Ghostface’s attack on the bar where we spend about 10 minutes. She hides behind the literal bar itself, thinking Ghostface has exited. Then, she rises, and is immediately attacked, getting in a brawl that ends when she is thrown a few feet, bashing into some bottles, one of which lacerates her throat.

4) Scott

Scott isn’t the first one to get stabbed in the head by Ghostface. While it was offscreen, Cotton Weary was stabbed in the head in Scream 3. Furthermore, Officer Anthony Perkins was stabbed in the head and stumbled a few paces in Scream 4.

But like Perkins, this kill goes out of its way to show the audience the effects of such a wound. We look at Scott in a close-up and see his right eye’s iris and pupil just roll upwards. It’s a nice touch.

3) Madison

For our money, Scream VI is still the most humorless and self-serious of the franchise (which isn’t as much of a bash as it sounds like), but Scream 7 establishes early on that it hasn’t lost the more horror-focused vibe of the Radio Silence era. This is seen front and center with the death of Madison, which caps off the opening scene with Ghostface burning down the Airbnb recreation of the Macher house.

After killing Scott and chasing her around for a bit, Ghostface is knocked off the second floor and lands on the first with a thud. Then, as was seen in the trailer, he spins around and holds the knife up as Madison falls on it. That alone is a great series of shots, and would already secure Madison the third spot here, but then he douses the house, and her, in gasoline and lights a match. Horrific.

2) Lucas Bowden

Lucas Bowden nearly got the number one spot here. And, like the kill that did get the number one spot, his death stands out for two reasons.

If there’s any character who is set up to be the killer, it’s Lucas (even more than Ben). He’s creepy, he asks Sidney too personal questions, and he kind of just lingers around. But he’s not the killer, his mother is…and she kills him without a shred of remorse or second thought. That detail is one of Scream 7‘s stronger narrative choices, all told. Then there’s how brutal his death is. Jessica lifts him up, drags him through the puddle of blood next to Choe’s body, lifts him up, lines him up with a spike-topped beer tap, and jams the back of his head down, allowing foamy, bloody beer to pour through his mouth like a toothy spigot. My Bloody Valentine‘s miner would be proud.

1) Hannah Thurman

Guttings are nothing new to Scream. It’s been a part of Ghostface’s violent oeuvre from the very beginning. In fact, the first two on-screen kills of the franchise, Steven Orth and Casey Becker, were gutted. Scream 7‘s Hannah Thurman (Mckenna Grace) goes the same way.

However, Hannah gets the number one spot on our list for two reasons. One, Grace is such a likable Hollywood up-and-comer that it’s really hard to watch her similarly likable character go, especially so early in the movie. Two, her death is dragged out. Ghostface tortures her as she’s strung up in a stage play rigging system. She’s helpless, swinging back and forth, and he more or less just holds his knife up so it can slice her in various places, ultimately ending on her cut, which drops her entrails to the stage.

Do you think Scream 7 has some of the best kills of the franchise? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!

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