The Scream franchise, helmed by the late Wes Craven and written by Kevin Willamson, has always adhered to certain slasher movie rules. If a character says they’ll “be right back,” they’ll probably end up dead. Similarly, the final girl always lives, and so on. Because of some of these rules, the franchise has followed certain patterns, and one such pattern could provide a clue as to who the killer might be in the new Scream.
The patterns mostly revolve around characters from Scream as opposed to its sequels. For example, in the first three films, one of the original characters from the original Scream gets killed. In Scream 2 it’s Randy and in Scream 3 it’s Cotton Weary.
The argument could be extended to say that Kate Roberts takes the place of an original character in Scream 4, as she is Sidney’s Aunt. However, even if she isn’t counted towards this pattern, she and her daughter, the killer, Jill Roberts certainly count towards a different pattern. This also might prove that someone in the new Scream who was in the originals, might die. Sorry, Dewey.
The pattern that might be able to weed out the killer in the new Scream is that each film has a killer that has a connection to the family of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). Stuart (Matthew Lillard) and Billy (Skeet Ulrich), the killers from Scream, killed Maureen Prescott, Sidney’s mother. One of the killers in Scream 2 was Billy’s mother, who divorced her husband because he was having an affair with Sidney’s mother. In Scream 3 the killer was Roman (Scott Foley) who was Maureen’s son and the killer in Scream 4 was Jill Roberts (Emma Roberts) who was Sidney’s blood relation – her niece.
This pattern would suggest that whoever the killer is in the new Scream is someone who is either related to Sidney or someone who has a history with someone in her family. This tracks with the old rumor that Matthew Lillard was going to come back to play Stu, who with Billy, killed Sidney’s mother.
The trailer which was released a couple of months ago seemed to point in the direction of it being someone from the franchise’s past and it would not be out of the ordinary if the identity of the killer lines up with these patterns. With that being said Scream is known for changing the rules.
What do you think about this Scream theory? Do you think the killer is someone Sidney Prescott knows? Let us know in the comments below!