Warning: Article contains major spoilers for Scream 2022.
While Scream 2022 follows franchise suit by playing on horror rules and expectations for killer twists, the film still includes plenty of fairly obvious clues to the Ghostfaces’ identities. Ever since Scream 1996, each installment in the franchise has played with audiences’ ideas about who the typical horror killer would be, the most probable surprise twist killer, and who aligns with the movies’ pattern of expecting both the obvious and unexpected. Scream 2022 is no stranger to the franchise subverting expectations and ending with a surprising - yet somehow also obvious - Ghostface killer reveal.
The Scream franchise has seen plenty of surprise killer reveals, which are typically elevated by the fact that all but one movie has two Ghostfaces working together in an unsuspected alliance. Scream 1996 saw the two Ghostface killers revealed as Billy Loomis and Stu Macher, who were suspected all along but still came as a significant twist and act of betrayal when learning their reasons for killing. Scream 2 added more intrigue to the murders, where Mrs. Loomis (Billy’s mom) and Sidney’s classmate Mickey Altieri, who met online, joined forces as Ghostface. Scream 3 was one of the biggest twists of all, with Stab 3 director Roman Bridger revealing himself as Ghostface and Sidney’s secret half-brother. Scream 4 featured another familial betrayal for Sidney, as her cousin Jill Roberts and Jill’s classmate Charlie Walker exposed themselves as a Ghostface tag-team.
Scream 2022’s killers turned out to be two of the characters most suspected ahead of the films’ release, thus cleverly making viewers believe it couldn’t be them due to how obvious it was. Scream 5’s twist ending explains that Amber Freeman (Mikey Madison), Tara’s best friend, and Richie Kirsch (Jack Quad), Sam’s boyfriend, are Woodsboro’s 2022 Ghostface killers. The two reveal that they met on subReddit for Stab fans, quickly forming a secret romance where they planned to craft a “re-quel” of Stab 1 (Scream 1996) and give new material to the filmmakers. While the details of why Richie and Amber chose to go on a Ghostface murder spree came as a surprise, Scream 2022 was riddled with clues to their killer identities.
Right off the bat, Scream 2022 gives a major clue to the killer’s identity. While the typical train of thought for horror would lead one to suspect Amber as the horror-rule-following Ghostface killer due to the texts to Tara coming from her phone, Scream’s subversions of tropes would lead one to think that this is an obvious red herring. Instead, Scream 2022 plays with the rejection of the horror trope that its viewers have learned, revealing that Amber really is one of the Ghostface killers. While Amber claimed that the Ghostface killer cloned her phone to text Tara in Scream 2022’s opening scene, it was actually just Amber texting her while Richie stood outside her window recording her.
While casting can either be an obvious hint or subversion of expectations for a character’s motives, Mikey Madison being cast as Scream 2022’s Amber Freeman turned out to align with fan suspicion that she would continue her maniacal character streak. Madison came to fame after starring in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood in which she portrayed Sadie, a murderously-inclined Manson Family member. OUATIH wasn’t a whodunit like Scream 2022, as her role as a Manson Family girl immediately cued to audiences that she would be attempting murder by the end of the film. Madison’s sadistic character was also subject to OUATIH’s best-remembered kill, where her face was slammed into walls by Brad Pitt before running at Leonardo DiCaprio’s character and being burned to death by a flame thrower. Scream 2022 directly parodied her OUATIH death when she was smashed in the face by a hand sanitizer bottle before going up in flames from a gas stove. Instead of playing on the fact that Madison’s character Amber seemed menacing but was actually an ally, Scream 2022 ran with her talent for playing vicious murderers.
One of the oldest horror rules in Scream’s movies is to never trust the love interest of a main character. This turned true for Scream 1996 when Sidney’s boyfriend Billy Loomis turned out to be a killer and Scream 4 when Kirby’s would-be hook-up Charlie revealed himself as a Ghostface murderer. Scream 2 did manage to subvert this trope, leading audiences to suspect Sidney’s boyfriend Derek as a killer, only for him to nearly become a victim himself. Scream 4 also avoided this with Jill’s ex-boyfriend Trevor, who she was actually going to frame as Ghostface when it was her and her secret boyfriend Charlie all along. One of the very first things that Dewey says to Sam in Scream 2022 is that Richie is likely the killer because he’s the new love interest, which turned out to be spot on. Like Scream 2022's murdered Dewey (only half-jokingly) suggested, Richie began a relationship with Sam only to elevate his plans with Amber for their Ghostface killing spree.
Soon after Mindy told Amber that she shouldn't go into the basement alone because a killer could find her, Richie asks Mindy if she’ll come with him to the basement. Considering Richie’s knowledge of Stab and the horror rules is supposedly minor, this is a major hint to his identity as Scream 2022’s killer. Asking Mindy to go with him to the basement to get beer when he seemingly doesn’t know the horror rules is suspicious, particularly because they’re sure the killer is in the house. This sequence was also directly paralleling the scene from Stab that Mindy was watching in which Stu goes to the basement to “get a beer,” changes into his Ghostface costume, and returns later to stab her original Scream family member Uncle Randy. Mindy, like Randy, had also just said to never say “I’ll be right back” because that means certain death, after which Richie - like Stu - repeats the phrase in a seemingly ironic manner, only for him to be the actual killer. Mindy says no to going to the basement with Richie, which was smart because Richie was actually going down there to change into his Ghostface costume. Had Mindy said yes, she would have been killed in the dark basement with no one to interrupt the murder. However, paralleling the Stab (and Scream 1996) scene, Richie came back upstairs in the Ghostface costume to stab Mindy, which she thankfully survived.
Another trope that could be a 50-50 chance for hinting at the identity of Scream 2022’s violent killer was Richie only getting cut on the arm by Ghostface instead of stabbed. While Scream’s horror movie rules have taught viewers that getting slashed in the arm is a tell-tale sign that the victim is actually working with Ghostface, there have also been instances when this proved to not be true. In Scream 4, Jill Roberts was cut on the arm to avoid suspicion, but she also turned out to be the Ghostface mastermind with Charlie. Scream 2 also played on this trope, where Dewey accused Sidney's boyfriend Derek of being slashed on the arm for a superficial wound. It turned out that Derek wasn’t a killer and just a red herring, but he was actually considered to be one of the killers in Scream 2’s alternate leaked script. Since Richie was an obsessive Stab movie fan, he and Amber likely planned the superficial arm cut in the hospital as an homage to Emma Roberts' Jill and Jerry O'Connell's Derek.
For a character that supposedly didn’t know anything about Stab until he watched the movie on Netflix in the hospital next to Tara, Richie became a fanboy way too quickly, thus hinting at his identity as the Ghostface killer. It’s only revealed that Richie watched the first Stab movie (though he could have researched more information) during Scream 2022, so it was odd when he referenced information from Stab 2-4. When meeting Dewey in Scream 2022, Richie notices that Dewey is watching one of Gale’s TV broadcasts and asks to confirm if the two of them were previously married. Dewey said yes, but this information wouldn’t be known until later installments of Scream's fictional Stab movies, so unless Richie spent more time researching Dewey and Gale’s divorce and marriage, he wouldn’t have known this unless he had seen the movies before. Richie also gets overly excited when he first sees Ghostface in person, saying “Holy s***, it’s Ghostface!” This at first sounds like Richie is excited yet terrified, but really he’s having an absolute fanboy moment because he’s been obsessed with (and secretly is) Ghostface the entire time. Someone who only just watched Stab would have been mildly surprised and very scared, but Richie becoming a fan with such knowledge and excitement so quickly was a clear giveaway that he was one of Scream 2022’s killers
