Despite the Scream franchise’s body count, there’s one character that fans haven’t been able to put to rest. Fortunately, Collider’s Perri Nemiroff went straight to the source to mine for solid answers to theories that have been circulating since 1997. While talking with Scream’s original screenwriter, Kevin Williamson, we discovered the true fate of Matthew Lillard’s Stu Macher.
In 1996, Wes Craven’s Scream offered its audience a slasher that did some healthy self-reflecting. From motive to suspects, every aspect of a good horror movie came under scrutiny by its cast, who seemed to know they were running the slasher gamut. Based on the screenplay by Williamson, horror buffs, on and off-screen, were pleasantly surprised by the big reveal when our final girl, Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott, was cornered by not one unexpected killer, but two. As it turns out, Sid’s boyfriend, Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), and their friend Stu were taking turns slicing and dicing their way through Woodsboro High.
In final girl form, however, Sidney buried a couple of bullets in Loomis, and supposedly crushed Stu’s head with a television set. By the time the credits rolled, Ghostface was toast – or so we were led to believe. A year later, Williamson’s follow-up, Scream 2, hit theaters, and eventually, fans began to spot a familiar Ghostface in the crowd. In the background of a scene at Sid’s college, Lillard can be seen mingling with party goers. This, plus the fact that Lillard himself mentioned Stu’s return in Scream 3, has kept rumors swirling about the character’s status – dead, or alive? When we asked the writer himself, Williamson officially put those rumors to rest, explaining:
“No, he’s dead. I think that started because of the college scene, the frat party scene because he’s standing in the background. He just came to visit set that night.”
For a lot of fans, this may come as disheartening news. Lillard is such a unique presence in every film, from SLC Punk! to Thirteen Ghosts, and is, arguably, the best Shaggy variant in James Gunn’s Scooby Doo. In Scream he provided dark comedic relief, pleading peer pressure and referring to himself as “far too sensitive,” while covered in the blood of his friends. With directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s Scream 5, and now Scream VI, giving the franchise a new life, those fan theories to bring him back were more than likely taking wind again.
Still, Scream VI is bringing back a couple of legacy characters, and the story still remains firmly rooted in the Woodsboro lore with Melissa Barrera’s Sam Carpenter. Though we have to bid a final farewell to Stu, the sixth film is bringing back Scream 4’s Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) and Courtney Cox’s Gale Weathers, alongside Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Dermot Mulroney, Samara Weaving and more.
Scream VI hits the streets of NYC on March 10, 2023. Check out the first trailer below: