Why Ghostface Is Different In Scream VI

Barely a year after the fifth Scream film brought the dormant horror franchise screeching back to life, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett already have another sequel in the can, with Scream VI due for release this coming March.

The recently released full trailer for the film suggests it's going to be a highly unique Scream sequel, selling itself on the fact that this new Ghostface killer is set to be quite different from the previous ones we've encountered.

The killer - one of them, at least - even directly tells Gale (Courteney Cox), "There's never been one like me, Gale. I'm something... different."

And while it's entirely possible this is mere marketing spiel intended to get fans speculating, the trailer does provide some neat visual hints at precisely how the new killer will mark a major deviation from their predecessors.

While Scream VI will surely only stray from the series' popular formula so much, some creative twists on the typical throughline could help breathe some majorly fresh life into the franchise.

As fans continue their theory-crafting, we've barely got a month to wait until we have all the answers for ourselves...

Surely the most immediately startling thing about the new killer is that, at least for some of the movie, they're using a damaged, weathered mask, instead of the usual brilliant white Ghostface visage.

This of course suggests that the killer has somehow obtained a vintage mask used in some of the actual killings themselves.

This is backed up later in the trailer when we see a shrine apparently belonging to the killer, containing nine Ghostface robes seemingly belonging to each of the nine killers to date.

Given the series' focus on legacy and the last film revealing that Sam (Melissa Barrera) is the daughter of killer Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), it makes the most sense that this mask is taken from the original Woodsboro murders, belonging to either Billy or Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard).

The mask will almost certainly play into the killer's identity in some form or another - perhaps they're a relative of Stu - but given that the trailer also shows Sam holding the damaged mask and Ghostface using other masks, clearly it won't be the primary one throughout the whole movie.

Even so, for a while it'll immediately differentiate the new killer from their predecessors and help them stand out.