Why Couples Are Buying Scream's Ghostface Mask This Halloween (It's Filthy)

Every year, some sort of bizarre Halloween trend pops up, and this year, couples are apparently donning a memorable horror movie mask and getting freaky with each other. (Yes, that's really happening. Buckle up.)

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The trend is apparently so pervasive that California store Soul of Halloween made a whole TikTok about how their employees know exactly what's going on if they see a couple picking up matching Ghostface masks (the famous one from the "Scream" movies). A whole host of short video clips found on the website feature couples cosplaying using the mask — one even bears the hashtag "#darkromance" and then cuts to the guy, clad in the Ghostface mask, walking into a bedroom to, uh, romance his lady. (We told you this was strange!)

Okay, so what is going on here? What's the backstory and deal with the Ghostface mask in the first place, and how did it become a major symbol of the "Scream" franchise? Why are couples using it for dirty reasons, and how does it trace back to a line from the very first "Scream" film? 

There's actually a long, storied history behind the Ghostface mask, so bear with us. A massive article about the iconic prop in the popular horror zine Fangoria explains that the mask was originally crafted by special effects makeup artist Loren Gitthens, who created it; in the early 1990s, the novelty company Fun World sold it in its collection called "Fantastic Faces" (with this particular mask referred to by some as "the Wailer"). In a behind the scenes feature on the "Scream" franchise, screenwriter Kevin Williamson said that he sort of remembers how he and the crew stumbled across the mask. "No one could agree on a mask and I remember we were in a location scout, and we found Ghostface... in a box of stuff in a garage... [Director] Wes [Craven] immediately looked at it and said, 'This is like the famous Scream painting.' And so we took that to our production and we said, 'Riff on this... make something like this.' They must've done 20 different designs. Every one of them was rejected by the studio, and finally we were like, why don't we just get the rights to this mask?"

The rest is history — and, yes, the mask does look a lot like Edvard Munch's famous and often purloined painting "The Scream" — and ever since the first "Scream" movie came out in 1996, the mask has been synonymous with the horror movies, with each film's respective killer (or killers) donning the disguise to commit their vicious murders. So where did couples get the idea to use the mask to get freaky? One TikToker has an idea.

TikTok content creator NoahGlennCarter posted a stitch — with a video of a couple in matching Ghostface masks — that apparently attempts to explain why couples might be doing this. As he explains, it all comes back to a line from the first "Scream" movie, as well as an ongoing throughline in the entire franchise, about how people in horror movies who dare to have sex typically end up dead.

@noahglenncarter

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Jamie Kennedy's Randy Meeks explains this in the first film, by saying that you won't survive "the movie" if you have sex, drink or do drugs, or dare to utter the phrase "I'll be right back." (He turns out to be right about a lot of this stuff, to be honest.) In the TikTok, the point is made pretty much immediately — the couples are going to put the costumes on and do dirty, dirty things in them — so that is, presumably, one explanation for this phenomenon. People could also be making these videos for clout and not actually doing anything. There's no way to know, and it's safer not to ask.

Okay, so what other pop-culture focused Halloween costumes might be big this year besides two naughty little Ghostfaces? Some people might go all-out and try to copy Chappell Roan's medieval garb from her performance at the MTV Video Music Awards in September (which could have been her take on Joan of Arc or Julie d'Aubigny, a queer swordswoman who once freed her lover from a French convent by committing arson), while some might grab a sparkly cowboy hat as an ode to Beyoncé's album "Cowboy Carter." Couples might go as Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, Arthur Fleck and Lady Gaga's take on Harley Quinn, or Sabrina Carpenter and Jenna Ortega from the former's "Taste" music video. With the "Wicked" film adaptation finally hitting theaters in November — well, the first part, at least — former theater kids might emulate Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande and go as Elphaba and Galinda. (There are a ton of choices, to put it lightly.)

Listen. If you and your partner feel like staying in on Halloween with a couple of Ghostface masks, that's your business as long as you're both consenting adults. Just know you're not alone, according to TikTok. If you need a refresher on Ghostface's whole deal, though, the first four "Scream" movies are streaming on Max, and everything from 2022's fifth movie "Scream" on is available on Paramount+.