The first Scream 2022 trailer already has fans pondering who this Scream movie's Ghostface killer is, and there are multiple theories so far. When director Wes Craven’s self-referential slasher movie Scream arrived in cinemas in 1996, it redefined the rules of the sub-genre for the decades that followed. Scream’s teen heroes and heroines may have known the rules of horror movies and avoided clichés, but they still found themselves at the end of Ghostface’s knife.

Over the ensuing sequels, the Scream series continued to wrong-foot viewers who thought they had worked out the killer from the first frame. The franchise’s killers have always been tough to guess, although some sequels such as Scream 2 and Scream 3 earned the ire of critics who noted the eventual revelation left them feeling cheated. In the case of these sequels, the identity of the killers relied on viewers discerning some context that was impossible to guess, frustrating many fans.

Related: Why Scream 2022 Isn't Scream 5 (Is It A Reboot?)

However, Scream and Scream 4 operated more like classic Italian Giallo horrors, with the identities of the killers being almost impossible to work out but ingeniously obvious in retrospect. Now that Scream 2022 has released its first trailer, fans are busily attempting to work to who the killer is already despite having barely even glimpsed the new movie’s characters. Between new faces, old favorites, and even some former heroes, there are a lot of possible routes for the movie's plot to take, meaning a comprehensive rundown is required to list all the possible suspects who could be Scream 2022’s masked murderer.

Tara

Tara standing in her kitchen in Scream 2022

The original Scream shocked even seasoned horror viewers by killing off Drew Barrymore, the movie’s apparent heroine, in its opening minutes. Similarly, Scream 2022 announced that the movie would cast Tim Burton's Wednesday Addams actor Jenny Ortega early in production, and the trailer appears to imply that the rising teen star won’t make it past the opening credits. However, the Scream series is famous for subverting expectations. Thus, with viewers now expecting Ortega to die off early, it seems entirely possible that the reboot will appear to kill Ortega’s Tara offscreen, only to bring her back later in proceedings and reveal she is the killer. This is reinforced by Ghostface pulling her offscreen into darkness in the trailer, as opposed to visibly killing the character. Ortega's character also appears to be wheelchair-bound later in the trailer, prompting viewers to wonder why would the killer let her live when she's already stabbed and immobilized. This could support a theory that there's more than one killer and Tara's non-fatal injury provided her with an alibi, a la the original movie's Billy Loomis.

Sam Carpenter

Scream 2022 Sam Carpenter Melissa Barrera

Likely gaining her name from legendary horror director John Carpenter, Sam Carpenter seems to be the protagonist of this upcoming Scream reboot. However, the fact that she says “I know who you are” to Sidney shortly before Ghostface says it’s "an honor to meet" the legendary final girl could imply that Sam is the killer. This theory is reinforced by a shot of her holding Ghostface’s knife and the fact that it is Sam’s voice that intones a line about the victims being related to the original killers. However, the potential twist becomes a bit less likely when readers remember that Scream 4 pulled off effectively the same plot (establishing a young new final girl for the franchise, then revealing she is the killer) only a decade ago.

Richie/Vince

Scream 2022 new victim car

Not a lot is known about Richie and Vince, two characters glimpsed in the trailer for Scream's 2022 reboot. Nightmare On Elm Street remake star Kyle Gallner’s Vince is high on the list of potential suspects, and not just because his actor is pushing thirty-five yet the character is still hanging around with high schoolers. Judging by the brief glimpse viewers get of Vince hopping into his muscle car during the trailer’s tense action, Gallner's character is seemingly a classic bad-boy love interest in the tradition of Skeet Ulrich's Billy Loomis. He is seemingly attacked and possibly killed by Ghostface in the teaser, but so was Sidney's original bleeding boyfriend Billy in the first film of the series so there's no guarantee that this makes Vince less suspect. Not only that, but Vince’s actor (and the star of superhero satire The Boys, Jack Quaid, who plays the similarly barely-glimpsed Richie) are both a bit long in the tooth to be playing high schoolers, but around the right age to be secret sons of Billy’s father and Sidney’s mom Maureen. It was their sordid affair that set the entire saga’s events into motion before the events of the original movie, meaning their until-now unmentioned offspring could be out for vengeance.

Related: There’s Someone Inside Your House Ending Explained (Who Is The Killer?)

Sidney Prescott

Sidney talks to someone offscreen in Scream 2022

The most obvious theory is also the most far-fetched; namely, that the Scream reboot will upend proceedings entirely by revealing that the heroine of the franchise is the one doing the killing this time around. Some horror movies like Jordan Peele’s Us and 2021’s Candyman managed to turn their heroes into surprise villains, but Scream is less likely to succeed in this twist for numerous reasons. While Sidney’s traumatic past does make it relatively believable that she could eventually lash out violently at those around her, it goes against the spirit of her character for the archetypical final girl to secretly be a violent killer. Meanwhile, hiding the fact that the heroine is the killer would likely require some gymnastic storytelling and perspective-shifting that the series never relied on before, and thus, the unwelcome surprise would be an ill-advised twist likely to annoy fans of the earlier Scream movies.

Jill Roberts

Jill standing with Ghostface behind her in Scream 4

Although the killer of Wes Craven’s final movie Scream 4 is shot in the sequel’s closing moments, she’s hit with a seemingly fatal bullet to the chest rather than an immediately deadly head wound. While this may seem like a pedantic difference, the fact that Scream 4’s last lines call Jill “the last survivor,” combined with the trailer’s Ghostface saying it’s "an honor to meet" Sidney, could be proof that Jill survived her apparent death. Jill took a similarly acidic tone towards Sidney's fame, and the jealousy that drove her killing spree could have kept her alive for another round.

Stu Macher (Again)

Stu and ghostface

It may seem scarcely possible for Matthew Lillard’s lovable murderer Stu Macher to reappear in the Scream series when the character was last seen with his head embedded in a TV, but fans have noted that the franchise crucially failed to confirm that Billy’s co-killer was definitively canonically dead. Like Jill Roberts, Stu Macher could possibly return in Scream's 2022 reboot, and the fact that Sidney appears to visit his old home in the trailer has only fueled further speculation in this regard. The trailer also features a character noting that all the victims are “related to the original killers,” which appears to support this notion. However, it is still a somewhat fringe theory since Lillard’s involvement in the sequel has not been mentioned anywhere and would be a pretty major secret for the Scream creators to keep under wraps.

More: Everything We Know About Scream 2022