List of Scream characters

Wes Craven's Scream series features a large cast of characters created primarily by Kevin Williamson with contributions from Craven and Ehren Kruger. The series focuses on the character of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and a succession of murderers who adopt a ghost-like disguise, dubbed Ghostface, to taunt and attempt to kill her. The series comprises four films: Scream (1996), Scream 2 (1997), Scream 3 (2000) and Scream 4 (2011).

Sidney is accompanied in each film by news reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and town Deputy Sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette). Sidney is initially hostile to Gale, because Gale has written a book about the murder of Sidney's mother, but they grow closer in each successive film as they survive Ghostface's murder attempts. In Scream 2 Gale and Dewey initiate a relationship, which leads to a marriage proposal at the end of Scream 3. In Scream 4, eleven years later, Sidney has written a self-help book about her experiences, while Dewey has become a Sheriff and is in a strained marriage with Gale, who is struggling to write a new novel.

Each film provides a motive and grounds for suspicion for several characters, concealing the identity of the true killer or killers until the finale, in which their identities and motivations are revealed. In Scream the fictional town of Woodsboro is besieged by a masked killer who focuses on Sidney, revealed in the finale as Sidney's boyfriend Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), aided by his friend Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard). Billy admits to being responsible for the murder of Sidney's mother Maureen Prescott, to take revenge for an affair Maureen had with Billy's father that caused his mother to "abandon" him. In Scream 2 copycat killers again stalk Sidney and her friends, before being revealed as Sidney's friend Mickey (Timothy Olyphant) and Billy Loomis' mother (Laurie Metcalf). In Scream 3 another killer hunts Sidney, claiming to have knowledge of Sidney's tragic past, prior to the events of the original film. The killer is revealed to be Roman Bridger (Scott Foley), Sidney's half-brother, who wants revenge for his rejection and abandonment by their mother. Roman is found to be responsible for convincing Billy to kill Maureen before the events of Scream, setting in motion the events that occur in each successive film. In Scream 4 a killer appears when Sidney returns to Woodsboro on the fifteenth anniversary of the original killings. This killer is revealed to be Sidney's cousin Jill Roberts (Emma Roberts), with horror film fan Charlie Walker (Rory Culkin) as her accomplice.

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