Scream 5's Billy Loomis Cameo Accidentally Redeemed The Worst Villain

WARNING: The following contains SPOILERS for Scream 2022.

Scream 2022 features several cameos by legacy characters, but only one bizarrely serves to accidentally redeem a vile villain. Unlike most major slasher franchises, which feature the repeated return of the same killer, the Scream series is unique in that each and every installment boasts a new killer or killers. Sure, said killers always still make use of the same Ghostface mask, black costume, and voice changer, but one of the biggest aspects of each movie is taking guesses at, then ultimately learning who's behind the mask this time.

No matter who else ended up doing the slashing in a Scream movie - or might do in the future if a Scream 6 happens - it'll always be hard to outshine the original gruesome twosome: Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard). Billy and Stu did the killing in the first Scream movie, and Billy's sadism combined with Stu's manic energy made for a hell of a pair. Not that Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) was very pleased to find out that the guy she'd lost her virginity to - Billy - mere minutes prior was a serial killer.

However, unbeknownst to Scream devotees, it wasn't just Sidney who shared a bed with Billy around the time of the first Scream. As Scream 2022 revealed, new lead character Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) was the product of a fling between Billy and her mother, the latter of whom lied to her boyfriend and claimed he was Sam's father. Upon returning to Woodsboro, Sam is haunted by visions of her biological father, still covered in blood from the night he died. While it's cool to see a slightly de-aged Ulrich back in a Scream movie for the first time in more than 25 years, the way these visions of Billy are used oddly places him on the side of good.

As depicted in the original Scream movie, Billy Loomis was a remorseless, unrepentant psychopath and serial killer, who gets his kicks via slicing people up. Even before the movie begins, Billy had hacked up Sidney's mom Maureen, who he blamed for the breakup of his own parents. The fact that before killing her, Billy made sure to manipulate Sidney into having sex with him really says it all about the kind of man he was. Yet, the visions Sam has of Billy in Scream 2022 play a direct role in her surviving the film, and the deaths of new killers Amber and Richie.

While it's true that these are confirmed to be hallucinations of Billy had by his daughter, and not his actual ghost, it doesn't change the fact that this imagined version of Billy is basically his daughter's guardian angel. Or guardian devil as the case may be. The way he spurs Sam on with a fatherly nod near the end almost plays like a triumphant moment, but if there's one character in the entire Scream franchise that's 100 percent beyond redemption, it's Billy Loomis. If a Scream 6 gets made, and Sam returns as a potential victim, this strange lionizing of Billy may well continue, and that just doesn't feel right.

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