Jill Roberts, played by Emma Roberts, is one of the best Ghostfaces in theScreamfranchise and someone needs to figure out how to get her back into the series. WhereScream 4ranks in theScreamfranchiseis up for debate, butJill Roberts has always been one of the best characters to don the Ghostface mask.Scream 4, stylizedSCRE4M, takes place on the 15th anniversary of the Woodsboro murders depicted inScream. Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returns to town after 10 years when murders start occurring once again.
Like the other films in theScreamfranchise,Scream 4combines slasher movie tropes with knowing winks at the audience. Along with the usual satirical elements about sequels and horror,this 2011 movie includes relevant commentary about social media and the pursuit of internet fame, themes that are somehow even more relevant over a decade later.Scream 4is one of themost violent entries in theScreamfranchise, and that’s in part thanks to Jill Roberts, who goes on quite the spree. She’s anawesome character inScream 4and should really come back for a sequel.
Jill Roberts Is The Seventh Revealed Ghostface In The Scream Franchise
Roberts Is One Of The Best Killers In The Series
Jill Roberts is Sidney Prescott’s young cousin who still lives in Woodsboro and attends Woodsboro High School when the Ghostface killer reappears and goes on a killing spree. When Sidney returns to her home, she reconnects with Jill, who reveals her boyfriend, Trevor Sheldon (Nico Tortorella), has been cheating on her. Secretly, she begins dating Charlie Walker (Rory Culkin), the Cinema Club President who Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) recruits to help her uncover who the real killer is.
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Throughout the film, Jill is threatened alongside her classmates and the other Woodsboro citizens, so when a second Ghostface appears alongside Charlie towards the end ofScream 4, it’s a complete surprise when the killer removes her mask in front of Sidney to reveal Jill Roberts. Jill’s home life has always been bad, with her mother neglecting her. Then her older, more famous cousin comes to town to show off her new book. Finally, her boyfriend cheats on her.
All Jill wants to be is famous, but everything in her life recently has shown that no one cares about her.
All Jill wants to be is famous, but everything in her life recently has shown that no one cares about her. In order to acquire the stardom she desires, of the internet variety preferably, she decides to reenact the Woodsboro massacre, using Charlie as her accomplice. It’s themillennial version of Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich)and Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard). She takes it a step further, and turns on Charlie, killing him before going after Sidney,revealing she plans to pin everything on Trevor so that she will be the only survivor and receive the fame she’s always desired.
Reporters at the end ofScream 4refer to Jill as the “sole surviving hero”, meaning she finally got the fame she always wanted.
After seemingly killing Sidney, Jill gives herself a brutal injury to complete her plan. When she awakens in the hospital, she sees that Sidney is still alive and attempts to finish the job, only to be defibrillated by Sidney and then put down with a shot to the heart. Jill has one of thebest motives out of any Ghostfacein the series. She is the perfect avatar for the young millennial seeing others gain fame and fortune while wallowing in anonymity. It’s a very contemporary villain origin story, andRoberts’s acting switches from sweet to villainous quickly but believably.
Could Jill Return To The Scream Franchise?
Jill Roberts is killed at the end ofScream 4, and besides some mentions inScream VI, she isn’t seen again. So that means she should never appear in anotherScreammovie. Or, that would be true ifScreamhad no problem bringing characters back from the seeming dead. In fact, a character fromScream 4is resurrected forScream VI, and it happens to be Jill’s best friend, Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere). Kirby was stabbed to death, it looked like, at the end ofScream 4and left for dead.
However, she is shown to have survived the stab to the gut inScream VIand is now an FBI agent. Sothere is no reason that Jill could not come back either. Perhaps she was left for dead but secretly removed from the hospital by a yet unknown accomplice. Jill managed to get Charlie to commit murder with her charms. She could likely charm someone else to help her. Perhaps Jill was sent to jail but still found the online popularity she wanted. Maybe it’s enough that she’s given parole. Stranger things have happened.
The nextScreamcould have aSilence of the Lambs-vibe, with an older Jill talking to her old friend, now FBI agent, Kirby, helping her find who the real Ghostface killer is.
The nextScreamcould have aSilence of the Lambs-vibe, with an older Jill talking to her old friend, now FBI agent, Kirby, helping her find who the real Ghostface killer is. Of course, this would necessitate Jill breaking out at some point and hopefully putting on the mask once again. She does know how to wear it very well after all.
What Emma Roberts And Others Have Said About Jill Roberts Returning To The Series
Of course, all the ideas in the world about Jill Roberts wouldn’t matter if Emma Roberts wasn’t interested in returning to the role. Fortunately, she totally is. When asked what horror franchise she would like to return to, Roberts said (viaDreadCentral),
“Maybe I’d go back to Scream, I feel like I wasn’t done with Scream.”
One of the co-directors forScream VI, Tyler Gillett, said that he thought there would certainly be anopportunity for Jill Roberts to return to the screen. When asked about Jill, Gillett said, “I think everybody can come back.” It might have been a bit of a teasing answer from Gillett, butScream 7is in production. Though a new director is helming, Kevin Williamson, he could take a page out of theScream VIplaybook and bring back a belovedScreamcharacter. It’s about time for Jill Roberts to come home to Woodsboro.
Scream 4
Cast
Scream 4 marks the return of Sidney Prescott to Woodsboro a decade after the original murders. Having rebuilt her life as an author, her homecoming coincides with a new series of attacks by the Ghostface Killer, challenging both new and old characters within the familiar slasher franchise.
