10 Horror Movie Victims Who Were Actually The Villain
4. Jill Roberts - Scream 4 (2011)
There was never a question that one of the Scream movies would end up on this list, was there? After all, three of the four films in the franchise have all had someone we believed a victim be behind the mask.
The question is, which film did it best? In this writer's opinion it was the sadly underrated Scream 4 from 2011.
Previous entries that have used this trope have either made their killer somewhat obvious (Scream) or not developed enough (Scream 3.) Scream 4 seems to strike the perfect balance in the character of Jill Roberts, excellently portrayed by Emma Roberts.
Jill is presented as the easy-breezy high school lead in the film, and was pushed from the get-go as the "new" version of Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott. For the majority of the film we believe this is going to be the case. Roberts nails the naive, trusting final girl troupes and even has an attack scene or two.
All of this works as wonderful misdirection and when Roberts is revealed as one of two killers, it is genuinely shocking. Further brilliance is the character's motivation... she just wants to be famous. A motive far more relevant today than when the film saw release.
Roberts sells the icy, psychotic bitch delightfully and her dedication to her "final girl" facade makes for some wonderful darkly comic scenes that rank among the best in the series.