Why the Scream Mask is the Face of Horror

It’s no secret that Scream is a horror movie classic.

The 1996 film, starring Neve Campbell, David Arquette, and Courteney Cox, turned 25 last year. Both David Arquette and Neve Campbell reprised their roles in the fifth installment of Wes Craven’s masterpiece this January.

While it’s been almost 30 years since audiences were introduced to the world of fictional town Woodsboro, Scream was always destined to be a memorable horror film and revolutionize slasher movies after it. Screenwriter Kevin Williamson created a self-aware, meta movie that didn’t take itself seriously and poked fun at tropes and techniques that other popular horror films used, all while being inside one of them — the villain of the movie being a masked killer, the asking of “Who’s there?” during the late-night phone call.

There is even a scene where Sidney is on the phone with the killer, saying horror movies are “some stupid killer stalking some big breasted girl who can't act, who's always running up the stairs, when she should be going out the front door.” When Sidney first encounters the killer, she tries to run out the front door but then proceeds to run upstairs, unaware that she played out the trope that she despises in horror movies so much.

Scream mixes clever writing with comedy to make a movie that was half parody and half love letter to horror films, especially after the boom of horror movies from the two decades before, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

With a sixth installment in the works for 2023 and a three-season spinoff on MTV that donned the same name, the longevity of the Scream franchise is apparent.

Nineties nostalgia coming back in the form of Hollywood making reboots and remakes is still a mixed bag. While some people want to relive the best pop culture moments of that decade for newer generations, others say that it’s time to be more innovative.

Some movies just have those aspects that make them unforgettable. And for Scream, that is largely in part due to Ghostface. Noting the masked killers from previous movies like Jason Voorhees and Leatherface, the mask of Ghostface proved a horror antagonist is only as good as how they conceal their identity.

And as all the installments have proved, the enemy is much closer than the protagonist thinks.

It was film producer Marianne Maddalena who discovered the mask. The head producer was doing location scouting and came across the mask in an abandoned house in Santa Rosa, California. She showed it to Craven for inspiration to what the mask could look like, but it belonged to a Halloween mask company named Fun World, meaning Dimension Films would have to get the rights to use the mask. They eventually came to an agreement and were able to use the Fun World mask for the movie.

The Ghostface mask was designed by a Fun World employee named Brigitte Sleiertin to be a part of a “Fantastic Faces” pack. With expressions that looked like a mix of the comedy and tragedy mask, Thalia and Melpomene, it is a standout in the world of horror film masks. The stretched, elongated mouth and sad hollowed eyes, resembled a look of someone in pain which is ironic because it is a character that causes so much of it.

The mask is so recognizable that there was an ongoing theory that it may have been inspired by Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream. However, Sleiertin has since debunked that theory. The Ghostface mask, and the costume as a whole, has become the most worn and sold costume for Halloween.

For a feature that is so significant, it would be a shock to horror fans and audiences if the mask was changed in any way, which is what happened when MTV released the trailer for the show reboot. The signature look of the mask was altered dramatically, almost looking like a blend of the masks of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. It wouldn’t be until the third season, Scream: Resurrection, that the show ditched their replica and went back to the original Ghostface mask.

The pushback against Scream (MTV’s version) wasn’t just about the mask looking bad or too similar to other horror movie antagonists — It’s about the legacy that the franchise has established in pop culture and the references from the film have been seamlessly incorporated into shows, movies, and commercials for 26 years.

The mask has appeared in episodes of The Simpsons, The Sopranos, Beverly Hills, 90210, and Dawson’s Creek and movies like Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and the parody film of Scream, Scary Movie. Earlier this year, Campbell starred in an ad for the American Red Cross parodying the cult classic.

In the horror genre, almost every movie after Scream delved into creating a masked killer for the ages.

I Know What You Did Last Summer (also written by Williamson) was released in 1997 and is often called a copycat of the movie. The killer, The Fisherman, didn’t wear a mask but his costume was a large hat and coat with a collar that covered his face. Urban Legend and Urban Legends: Final Cuts (2000) had their killer wear a fencing mask for their film. The 2001 film Valentine, where the killer seeks revenge because of how the group of friends treated them, had their antagonist in a cherub cupid mask for the entirety of the film.

Wes Craven said it himself in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter: the mask was one of the critical reasons for the success of the film.

“No way. No way,” Craven said. “I knew it in my bones that [Ghostface] was a unique find.”

Scream inspired the movies that came after it to change what the “face of evil” looked like in horror movies. Filmmakers saw the extra layer of terror and fear the characters would go through when they realized their demise was at the hands of someone they did not know and will never know.

Someone’s face allows us to communicate, connect, and comprehend who they are. When that is covered, it plays into deep, psychological fears about mystery and the unknown. When that is concealed, it obstructs the understanding of their identity.

A mask like Ghostface’s has been a barrier to the comprehension of final thoughts to his victims, but an iconic trademark to audiences for decades.

While we wait another year for the sixth movie to take its place in the franchise, 26 years is a great benchmark to reflect on all it’s done and what it will continue to do for the genre of horror.