10 Horror Movie Villains Who Were Recruited For Evil

2. Billy Loomis - Scream (1996)

Childs Play 3
New Line

What do you do when your dad has an affair with your girlfriend's mum, breaking up your family? Well, apparently you literally take direction from a third party and start a psychotic murder spree aimed at killing your girlfriend and framing it on her father...

Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) only featured in Scream (1996), but Scream 3 (2000) retconned his and Stu Macher's (Matthew Lillard's) plan by revealing that it was all the brainchild of manipulative film director and secret half-brother of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Roman Bridger (Scott Foley).

Rejected by his mother Maureen Prescott (Lynn McRee), who gave birth to him when she was a fledgling actress in Hollywood, Roman plotted her downfall and murder. Filming Maureen meeting with various men - including Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber) - to have affairs, Roman struck lucky when he caught Billy's dad meeting Maureen on camera.

Driving Billy's mother (Laurie Metcalf) away with this revelation, Roman showed the footage to Billy, inspiring him to kill Maureen and pin it on Cotton. Roman also tutored Billy on how to commit a perfect series of murders. A year later, his thirst for revenge not satisfied, Billy tried to murder Sidney as part of a killing spree to be blamed on her father (Lawrence Hecht), who he would also have killed.

When Billy and Stu's plan failed and Mrs Loomis' own efforts to avenge her son's perceived murder were unsuccessful, Roman was finally forced out of the shadows, driven wild by Sidney's fame as the survivor of both events, bringing events full circle.

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I started writing for WhatCulture in July 2020. I have always enjoyed reading and writing. I have contributed to several short story competitions and I have occasionally been fortunate enough to have my work published. During the COVID-19 lockdown, I also started reviewing films on my Facebook page. Numerous friends and contacts suggested that I should start my own website for reviewing films, but I wanted something a bit more diverse - and so here I am! My interests focus on film and television mainly, but I also occasionally produce articles that venture into other areas as well. In particular, I am a fan of the under appreciated sequel (of which there are many), but I also like the classics and the mainstream too.