'Scream': Five best death scenes

Published Apr 11 2011, 09:46 BST  |  By Simon Reynolds

Has it really been more than ten years since we last saw Neve Campbell and the rest of the Scream gang? The fourth instalment in Wes Craven's slasher franchise hits cinemas this Friday and in honour of the hippest and most self-aware horror series of them all we've trawled through the video archives to find five gruesome kills from the original trilogy. Watch our most memorable Scream deaths below, then scroll down to leave us your favourite Scream kill scenes in the comments (warning: This article contains violence and images that younger readers are advised to avoid):

5. Liev Schreiber (Scream 3, 2000)
The initial suspect in the murder of Sidney Prescott's mother Maureen, Cotton Weary was in fact framed by original killers Billy Loomis and Stu Macher. Cotton, who was having an affair with Maureen at the time of her death, parlayed his trauma into becoming a Z-list celebrity. A talk show host by the time Scream 3 rolled around, Cotton and his girlfriend Christine (Kelly Rutherford) met a grisly end at the start of part 3 when Ghostface came looking for Sid...



4. Sarah Michelle Gellar (Scream 2, 1997)
Sarah Michelle Gellar was defining her career in the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when she appeared in 1997's hastily-assembled Scream sequel. It's a clever bit of casting, as SMG's smart-lipped sorority girl Casey 'Cici' Cooper gets nowhere near being "the final girl" as she carks it on campus. A knife in the back and drop off a balcony sees Buffy bite the dust in the clip below, which has a cracking 'jump' misdirection at the 3-minute mark and also features the voice of Gellar's Cruel Intentions co-star Selma Blair...



3. Rose McGowan (Scream, 1996)
"You wanna play psycho killer? Can I be the helpless victim?" Rose McGowan's Tatum Riley almost gets away from Ghostface. But alas, that garage exit is just a bit too small for her to squeeze through. Getting squelched up against the ceiling is an undignified and painful end for Sidney's best pal. Incidentally, Rose McGowan allegedly discovered during filming that she could fit all the way through the pet flap of doom...



2. Jamie Kennedy (Scream 2)
Randy Meeks's knowledge of horror cinema's rules and conventions helped him survive the first Woodsboro bloodbath (just about!), but when it came to the sequel he was all out of luck. Played with a nerdy exuberance by Jamie Kennedy, Randy's murder in the back of a truck was not met favourably by Scream fans so Craven resurrected the character via a recorded video message for Scream 3.



1. Drew Barrymore (Scream)
It had to be this, didn't it? The opening scene to Scream shocked cinemagoers and perfectly sets up the self-referential, satirical tone for the horror franchise. Drew Barrymore, who was on the verge of a career resurgence at the time, could've been the star of the franchise... Not so in Craven and writer Kevin Williamson's mind. The pair rip a page out of Alfred Hitchcock's book (Psycho famously offed Janet Leigh early), killing Drew's Casey Becker in the opening minutes as she waits for her boyfriend. It sums up Scream's ethos perfectly: Nobody is safe!



Disagree with this list? Let us know your favourite Scream kills in the space below!