Wes Hicks’ death from Scream (2022) has been assessed for medical accuracy. The slasher legacy sequel follows the Ghostface killer returning to the Northern California town of Woodsboro and targeting people related to characters from the original movies. This includes Wes (Dylan Minnette), who is the son of Sheriff Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton), who originally appeared in 2011’s Scream 4. Wes becomes Ghostface’s third victim in the movie when he is attacked in his home and stabbed through the side of his neck.
Doctor ER on YouTube recently shared a video where real-life ER doctor Jordan Wagner reacted to horror movie kills, including Scream‘s Wes death.
Wagner shared a long list of criticisms of the kill, including the fact that blood “coming out of his mouth makes absolutely no sense.” Wagner, who was “disappointed,” also criticized the color of the blood for being too dark in addition to the impossible angle at which the knife’s blade protrudes from Wes’ neck. Read a full transcript of Wagner’s quote below:
Oh geez. Right to the neck. Oh, right side of the neck! What structures do you worry about? The carotid and the jugular. Your internal jugular vein is basically a big blood vessel that sits more superficial to the skin and behind it is your artery and the carotid artery sits there pumping tons of blood.
The fact that blood is coming out of his mouth makes absolutely no sense, because that blade is actually not anywhere close to the oral pharynx, to the trachea, to the esophagus.
Come on, Scream people, you guys need me to help you advise what would actually happen. This color of the blood’s super dark. Venous blood is quite dark, but it’s not that crazy dark. That wound could even miss the major blood vessels there, it could actually go lateral to them. Lateral meaning to the outside.
I am kinda disappointed. You’d have to go more midline and then go on a lateral angle to have that go out where it is. To feel someone’s pulse, you have to push on this part of the neck. If you have your trachea, it’s going directly lateral to it over on this side.
The Scream Franchise Has Never Been Too Concerned With Realism
While Wagner’s comments are enlightening as to the medical realism of Ghostface’s kill, the fact that Wes’ death is medically inaccurate is in keeping with the rest of the franchise. Throughout the franchise, which now includes six movies, there have been quite a few killers who have donned the Ghostface mask. Every single one of them has committed an unrealistic act at some point throughout their movie.
In the Scream franchise, it has essentially always been the case that a masked Ghostface is considerably stronger than would be realistic for the character who is actually performing the killings. There are still unrealistic moments after the mask comes off in the third act for the big reveal, but for the most part, once the mask is removed, the characters’ abilities become more realistic. This is especially true for the particularly brutal slate of Scream (2022) kills, several of which were committed by Mikey Madison’s Amber Freeman, who is considerably smaller than most of her victims.
This is even the case in the original Scream, despite that movie showing Ghostface as a reasonably fallible killer. Tatum’s (Rose McGowan) kill, where her neck is snapped after she finds herself trapped in the cat flap of a rising garage door, patently defies the laws of physics. However, because of the nature of the Scream franchise, which indulges in and subverts many over-the-top tropes of the horror genre, these scenes tend to avoid feeling unrealistic or unsatisfying in the moment.
