All spoilers will be unmarked. You have been warned!
There's always new terrifying ways to be at the mercy of Ghostface.
Individual Pages:
- The various ways in which the film hammers home that the killers are not operating by a normal Scream premise, making them all the more unpredictable and terrifying.
- The fact that the killers this time around are using the masks of the previous 9 Ghostface killers.
- During The Reveal, Ethan points out to Sam during that he's wearing the mask of Nancy Loomis, her grandmother, which just adds another level of disturbing to their plan.
- This time around, there are also three Ghostfaces, not just the usual two — and they're all the father, brother and sister of Richie Kirsch from the previous film, out for vengeance against Sam.
- Even worse, if you factor in the opening scene as well, there were technically five Ghostfaces — for the first time ever, there were two Ghostface factions working separately.
- The fact that the killers this time around are using the masks of the previous 9 Ghostface killers.
- The opening sequence:
- The opening kill of film professor Laura Crane, played by Samara Weaving — lured out of a busy bar, suckered into a dark alley, and horrifically stabbed numerous times.
- The guttural screams of Laura as she's being attacked, making great/terrifying use of one of Samara Weaving's specialties.
- This kill essentially serves as the first showcase of just how brutal the film is going to be. If a new character whose only sins were unfounded trust and naivete (and giving a C- on a paper) can receive a death like that, you can only imagine what's in store for the main characters.
- The fact that even with the move in setting to New York City, a far busier location than Woodsboro, there's still no guarantee that you'll be saved. As one of this film's taglines notes, "In a city of millions, no one hears you scream."
- After Ghostface finishes Laura off with a final slash that would normally transition to the title of the film, we hold on the killer...and the film actually shows us their identity upfront (it's Jason Carvey), a first for a Scream movie. It then proceeds to show how the killers in this franchise can blend back into society with frightening ease. At one point, he even interacts with Tara, and she's none the wiser. It's a complete 180 from the usual Scream fare, and it's sickening.
- Worse, unlike the majority of Scream cold opens, this is something that could – and does – happen in real life.
- After returning to his dorm, Jason calls his roommate, who's using the Ghostface modulator, and slips into a terrifying monologue about how murdering Laura was like butchering an animal to him, as she devolved from a human being into meat in his eyes as he kept stabbing her.
- By the time Jason slowly realizes the Ghostface he's calling isn't his roommate, he gets suckered into a game of "hot and cold", which Ghostface uses to lure him towards the corpse of his roommate before then stabbing him so many times his intestines seep out. Jason definitely deserved it, but it's still gruesome to watch.
- The corpse of Jason's roommate is absolutely horrifying, on par with Olivia's kill — he's literally been cut up into pieces tiny enough that he's able to fit into a fridge.
- The opening kill of film professor Laura Crane, played by Samara Weaving — lured out of a busy bar, suckered into a dark alley, and horrifically stabbed numerous times.
- In a rare non-horror example, Tara agreeing to hook up with some random guy at the party in the beginning while being too drunk to consent. It seems like an absolute certainty at one point, despite Mindy, Anika and Chad all trying to intervene; especially disturbing is how after Tara tells Chad that she's fine, the guy begins forcefully dragging her up the stairs, showing his true colors. Luckily, Sam shows up in the nick of time to tase him in the balls and stop the act from happening, but especially considering the context of her still healing from the Woodsboro attacks, it's also an insight to how horribly she's dealing with her trauma.
- Perhaps worse is that Tara might not be too drunk to consent. She clearly hesitates when the guy first offers to take her up to his room for more booze, but then says "Fuck it" and agrees. It's clearly a bad decision. . . and regular people knowingly make similar bad decisions all the time. Tara seems to take a moment to evaluate the risk, then decides to disregard the risk. Later, in a rant to Sam, Tara points out that if she chooses to sleep with a sleazebag at a party, that's her choice, and while that's certainly correct, it's also extremely worrying.
- Ghostface going after Sam and Tara in a bodega, murdering two customers who get in his way and the bodega owner, whom he kills using the man’s own shotgun, and then using it to go after the girls. This scene plays out less like a horror movie and more like a real-life active shooter incident.
- Even earlier in this scene, while one of the killers talks with Sam on the phone, another comes out of nowhere to grab Tara from behind. More so than any other film, the killer could literally be anywhere.
- Ghostface breaking through the glass of the door and stabbing Dr. Stone in the nose – not up the nose as commonly seen, but right fucking through it – leaving him to wheeze to death as his entire face is caked in blood. When Kirby learns this from Bailey, she understandably cringes in disgust.
- The ladder scene. After Quinn is (seemingly) killed in her room, Ghostface attacks the core group in the apartment, resulting in a chase that traps them inside an apartment room. Danny, who witnesses the attack, tries to help by using a ladder as a bridge from their apartment to his. What follows is a nerve-wracking scene of Sam and Mindy (who's already suffered an arm wound by this point) slowly making their way over, desperately trying not to fall off. When it's time for Anika to cross over, she's already suffered a brutal gut stab and is practically hysterical with fear. Unfortunately for her, Ghostface has broken free from a barricade set up by Mindy and Sam, and has one end of the ladder to themselves. The killer decides to draw out Anika's torment by sadistically shaking the ladder, resulting in Anika falling and snapping her neck on a garbage dump in a brutal death.
- Ghostface vs. Gale. It's the first time in the franchise Gale receives a phone call from the killer, and in the background, you see them silently kill her boyfriend from the shadows. More than that, after the last installment and the death of Dewey, it's now immediately clear she no longer has Plot Armor. As Mindy points out in her rules for a franchise, the legacy characters have higher chances of dying, pointing out that Gale and Kirby will specifically be targeted. The entire time during their confrontation, the tension is high with the very real chance of Gale dying, and Ghostface eventually does stab her in the gut multiple times with a shard of glass. While she does survive the attack, it's only by an inch of her life, and it's left up in the air if she will die from her wounds until the very ending of the film, where Danny informs the group that she survived. That still doesn't stop the sequence from being genuinely terrifying, as a pillar of the franchise played by a beloved actress is in real danger.
- The subway sequence, after the group is split up, when Mindy and Ethan miss the train with everyone else, both groups seeing multiple people dressed up as Ghostface for Halloween. The paranoia builds up as it becomes clear that the actual Ghostface is on one of the trains. The lights on the subway begin flickering, and Ghostface appears before Mindy, silencing her screams with their hand, and stabbing her multiple times in the gut, while all the other passengers on the train remains oblivious to her being attacked.
- What makes this very terrifying is that Mindy’s literally feet away from other people during her attack, unlike most of the other attacks in the franchise. It’s very reminiscent of her own uncle’s death in the second film.
- Even worse, crime on the NYC metro has been increasing at an alarming rate. In other words, things like this aren't uncommon on the New York subway system, nor is the public's apathy at the situation.
- While they definitely deserved it, the deaths of Ethan and Detective Bailey are unflinchingly brutal.
- Tara falls from the second-story theater seating onto Ethan, who stabs her in the gut. Just as he begins to gloat, Tara one-ups her own sister's wound on Richie by stabbing Ethan in the mouth. Just for good measure, she then twists the knife. Oh, and just like Amber from the previous film, he does not die from that: right after Bailey is killed, he gets back up and starts charging at Sam and Tara, screaming like a raving lunatic with blood pouring from his mouth. Then Kirby drops a TV (the same one that killed Stu) on his head, and that finally does him in.
- Bailey gets it the worst, as he gets ambushed by Sam and stabbed 32 times in his chest and both his arms. Sam only stops for a moment, but at Tara's silent urging, she jams the knife into Bailey's eye! He's left twitching afterwards on the floor, a bloody and gory mess.
