Scream is definitively one of the most popular horror franchises ever and with the latest installment, Scream (2022), the “requel” and fifth installment of the franchise, and a sixth movie on the horizon, the meta slasher flicks seemingly are not slowing down anytime soon on delivering their usual scary movie bloodiness, carved-out by the shrouded guise of a ghostfaced killer.

Indeed, Ghostface’s targeting and terrorizing through five movies has been the stuff of legends when it comes to the slasher subgenre, and over the span of 25 years there’s been a number of dead bodies left in the cloaked killer’s wake. With that being said, let’s look at and rank, from least to greatest, each Scream movie based on body count.

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Scream (1996) - 6 Bodies

     Woods Entertainment

The movie that started it all actually has the least amount of kills… Only six (not including the killers). In Scream, killers Billy Loomis and Stu Macher set out on an expedition of killing, one-by-one, knifing some of their classmates to death, all in an effort to terrorize Sidney Prescott, who unwittingly and unknowingly, is being targeted because of her deceased mother’s life choices, which included an affair with Billy Loomis’ father.

Both killers are revealed in the end during a teenaged and hormoned fuel party that saw many of the so-called “horror rules” for survival broken. Ultimately, Billy and Stu both meet a gruesome fate.

Scream (2022) - 6 Bodies

     Paramount Pictures

The fifth movie and self-proclaim “requel” of the franchise ties with the first movie, of which it shares the same name, Scream. In the 2022 installment, once again, the body count totals six (not including the killers), as Amber and Richie attempt to kill classmates and townies that are connected to the original killings in Scream (1996), culminating with Sam Carpenter, who is Billy Loomis’ daughter. However, both Sam and her sister Tara survive, along with Mindy and Chad Meeks-Martin, Randy Meeks twin niece and nephew.

Sadly, in the wake of the new Ghostface attacks, Dewey Riley is also killed along with Sheriff Judy Hicks before killers, Amber and Richie, are both killed in during a melee of fighting at the end of the movie.

Scream 2 - 8 Bodies

     Dimension Films

This is the one that takes the surviving characters out of Woodsboro. In Scream 2, Sidney Prescott is a first-year college student attempting to move on with her life, letting go of the horror of the previous year and beginning new. However, the “Woodsboro Killings” were sensationalized by none other than Gale Weathers in a book and needless to say that becomes the catalyst for the next Ghostface killers, Debbie Salt aka Nancy Loomis, Billy Loomis’ estranged mother, and Mickey Altieri, a film student disturbingly bent on becoming famous as a Ghostface killer.

Between the two of them, they killed eight people in the film before Cotton Weary saves the day in the end.

Scream 3 - 9 Bodies

The trilogy comes to a close in this exciting and climatic finale and with it the largest body count is also registered… A total of nine (not including the killer). Scream 3 finds Sidney Prescott in hiding after the events of Scream 2. She no longer trusts herself or the people around her to live openly and safely as a part of society. However, Ghostface once again returns, targeting the cast and crew of the “STAB” movie franchise that’s inspired by Gale Weather’s books about the true-crime events of Woodsboro, and this time it’s one person behind the mask, Roman Bridger, who turns out to be the mastermind behind everything that has happened to Sidney, having originally been the one to get Billy Loomis to murder her mother.

In the finale, it is also revealed that Roman is the illegitimate child that Maureen Prescott had when she was young and gave away. Roman’s revenge extended to Sidney after the events of Woodsboro where she became famous for surviving.

Scream 4 - 9 Bodies

     Dimension Films 

Ten years have passed and in this fourth installment, Sidney Prescott has put her life back together and is a successful writer, therapeutically telling her story through prose and on book tours. Scream 4 brings Sidney back home as part of her book tour, but on her first return trip back to Woodsboro, Ghostface also returns, this time targeting a new group of teeangers, one of which is Jill, Sidney’s cousin, as well as Sidney.

Once again, Ghostface paints the small town blood red as a total of nine people are killed, making Scream 4 tied in body count with Scream 3. Scream 4 is similar to the original movie in that the setting is back in Woodsboro and the final act of the movie is again at a house party ladened with hormonaly fueled teenagers. At the party, Charlie Walker is revealed to be the killer, but is betrayed by the other killer, Jill Roberts, Sidney’s cousin, and is stabbed to death in order to frame Trevor.

Jill then stabs Sidney, believing she’s killed her, all in an effort to be the sole survivor and usurp Sidney’s fame. In the end, Sidney survives and when Jill tries once again to kill her, this time in the hospital, Dewey attempts to stop her but is knocked out with a bed pan. Sidney ends up killing Jill, electrocuting her with a debfrillator and shooting her in the chest.