So if you're like me, you've likely noticed that Ghostface—or Ghost Face for legal reasons—is by far the most popular slasher among horny people. Like I have seen multiple Internet funnies based around the idea that a couple buying a Ghostface costume is probably doing so for sex reasons.
Now I'm not here to examine if and why slashers are sexy, because of course they are, the reasons are obvious. I'm looking at why Ghostface specifically is the most popular mask to fuck in, or fantasies about being fucked by someone in.
So first, just to get this one out of the way, it is a full head mask, which is going to completely obscure identity, as opposed to one that only covers the face. But also has a thin breathable cloth hood, making it considerable more comfortable to wear during vigorous activity than something like a Michael Myers mask. But that's just what makes it a good mask to fuck in, what makes you WANT to fuck in it?
Exposure and Accessibility
I'm going to paint in broad strokes here and say that the vast majority of Ghostfacefuckers are between 20 and 40, trending towards the younger side. Meaning that at the earliest, they were getting exposed to horror in the late 90s or early 2000s.
Excluding the godawful remakes—because nobody who likes those ever has or will have sex—there was a 16-year gap between the abysmal Halloween: Resurrection (2002) and the mid-as fuck Halloween (2018). And even then, the last good Halloween movie, Halloween H20: (1998) is a 20-year later legacy sequel. If it's 2010 and I'm a teenager getting into horror, I'm going to look at this 10 film series dating back to 1978 full of sequels, squeals in name only, legacy squeals that ignore most of the previous sequels, sequels to the legacy sequels, remakes, and sequels to the remakes, and just not bother—also the perpetual-edgy-12-year-olds who actually like the Rob Zombie films will make anyone with even a sliver of decency want to avoid the horror community forever.
But let's move on to Friday the 13th. Once again from that position, you're one year off from a pretty decent remake that you can headcannon into being a feature-length episode of Supernatural, but 7 years away from the last entry in the original series. And that last entry was a crossover [Freddy vs. Jason (2003)] which is only appealing if you have an existing investment in Freddy and Jason. Going past that, you have Jason in space [Jason X (2001)] and then another big gap to Jason Goes to Hell (1993), which makes a big deal about being the "final Friday." So once again, a long-running—albeit significantly less confusing—series dating back to 1980, where the most recent entries are all ones that seem specifically targeted to people with an existing investment in the series, and no clear entry point other than the first movie.
Now Freddy Kruger is really far down the list of sexualized horror icons, but I feel is still important to discuss here. So once again, as a teenager in 2010, you may have just seen the recent A Nightmare on Elm Street remake, in which all comedic elements are removed in favor of making Freddy Kruger unambiguously a child molester killing his former victims. Which is almost certainly why Freddy has so drastically dropped of in popularity with people under the age of 35. But let's say you didn't see that movie. Once again the most recent entry in the original series is from 2003, which as mentioned only has appeal if you're already invested in the characters, but from there you have to jump back to 1994's New Nightmare, which while an incredible meta take on the entire series, is also incredibly not friendly to people who haven't seen at least the first and third movie. Which is another thing, while the A Nightmare on Elm Street series only goes back to 1984, and only has 7 non-crossover entries, a lot of them are poorly received, even within the horror community, and when someone tells you "Yeah, you only need to see the first and third one... maybe the fourth," it's not exactly high praise for the series.
Which brings me to Scream. A a teenager in 2010, you may be hearing some buzz on "The Net" about the upcoming Scream 4, a series that—as indicated by the 4—only has 3 previous entries. And while the last one came out 10 years ago, the first one only came out 14 years ago. Compared to the other series I've mentioned, Scream would still be considered relativity fresh at the time, and very easy to get into. While they are a bit on the longer side, you only need to watch 3 movies to be fully caught up, and all three of them are good... well, two are amazing and one is okay.
But now let's turn the clock forward to 2025. The last appearance of original Freddy and Jason was over 20 years ago. The recent Halloween "legacy trilogy" has done an amazing job of being unappealing to both new and existing fans, and two Scream films have come out since 2022, with another scheduled for next year. Scream is the only major slasher franchise that has actually been making new entries for the sake of making new entries in the last decade—I don't know what the goal of the H40 trilogy was, but it definitely wasn't making good movies—and showing interest in continuing to do so.
So I guess the basic point here is that young people have no reason to have any investment in classic slasher series, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street are basically dead in the water, and the Halloween series was very intent on declaring itself dead with Halloween Ends—which is only saved from being the worst Halloween movie by that series having some comically-low points. If you're a modern horror fan, Scream is the only slasher series that actually feels contemporary.
Okay, so that explains why a younger demographic may have bonded more with the Scream series than the others... but what about the hornieness?
Gatekeepers and other Assholes
Gatekeeping assholes are a big part of any fan community, making sure that new fans feel unwelcome unless they're willing to submit to the established members of the community—*cough* theindiettrpgcommunity *cough*—and while this may seem ridiculous by today's standards, as late as the 2000s, Scream was not considered part of the elitist horror canon. If you came in to a horror community liking Scream—especially if you weren't also familiar with the "classics"—you would be ridiculed and called a "mainstream" horror fan.
So you have young horror fans, who like Scream, being told that they're not allowed to be a respected member of the community until they've seen all 11 Friday the 13th movies, all 8 Halloween movies, Zombi 2, and The Stuff for some reason. But there's one more thing.
Did you know that there's actually a large ultra-conservative element to the horror fandom? Like, full-on "I hope one of them [racial slur]s or [transphobic slur]s tries to start shit with me so I can [elaborate "self defense" murder fantasy]" conservatives. And guess what two segments of the fandom have significant overlap.
So as the audience gets more and more diverse, a larger and larger percentage is getting blocked from being accepted by the "real fans," who as a group just get more insular and toxic and their numbers dwindle and lose relevance.
Which as often happens, results in the overall community shifting towards a younger, more diverse, and more open demographic. So young, more sexually open horror fans are finding a community where the dominant slasher icon is one that is not only relevant to the the younger audience, but is also incredibly easy to project onto.
I'm not going to provide an exact number because of spoilers, but at this point more than 10 people have been Ghostface, that is a huge part of Scream's identity, Ghostface always comes back not because he's invulnerable, but because he's an idea.
Putting on a Jason Voorhees mask does not make you Jason Voorhees, putting on a Michael Myers mask does not make you Michael Myers, but putting on a Ghost Face mask kinda does make you Ghostface. Like, Ghostface is not a person, only a mask and mantle that anyone can put on. And that extends beyond the universe of Scream. You might think that Ghostface is a character in Dead by Daylight and Hunt: Showdown, and you'd be wrong, both of those games feature Ghost Face. So now I'm getting to the weird part. Ghostface is a character in the Scream franchise, owned by Paramount Pictures, who wears a Ghost Face costume... the rights to which are owned by Fun World. So the versions of Ghost Face that appears in those two games are not any version of Ghostface that appeared in the films, they are literally original game characters wearing the same mask as the characters from the films, with the films and games both licensing the design of the mask from Fun World, which is why you don't get the classic Ghostface voice—notably, the Ghostface who appeaser in Mortal Kombat 1 is a specific character from the film series and does feature the iconic voice.
So if you want to put on a mask and do some sex, you can be Ghostface for a little while, and if you want to draw some sexy fanart, You can put whatever kind of person you want under that mask. Which brings me to my next point: Femme Ghostface. If you're a gynesexual slasherfucker, you do not have many options. There are very few female slashers—even fewer who are identifiably female, but that's another whole thing—but of those few, several are Ghostface. If you draw or dress as a female Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, that is a genderswapped version of the character. If you draw or dress as a female Ghostface, that's just a female Ghostface. Because Ghostface can be anyone, you can apply that identity to yourself, or whatever kind of person you want to fuck. You can't say "Ghostface isn't X" because Ghostface isn't anything beyond a mask, attitude, and sometimes voice. Ghostface can be a woman, Ghostface can be fat, Ghostface can be black, Ghostface can be trans, Ghostface can be disabled. Ghostface is a character that resists purity policing by nature of not being able to be tied to a single person.
And just to be clear, I'm not saying that Ghostface is just a mask, and that the character of Ghsotface isn't important. What I am saying is that Ghostface is such a strong character that you can change anything about who's under the mask—and a great deal about the mask and costume—without compromising their identity as Ghostface. Of course I'm also not saying that you can't compromise the identity of Ghostface, just that the integrity of the character is in no way tied to who is underneath the costume.
And from there we get into popularity magnification, the hornier people are for Ghostface, the more horny Ghostface content is going to be produced, the more people are going to see horny Ghostface content, and the more people who are going to be horny for Ghostface.
Scream is more relevant to younger fans due to being the most recent, and recently active of the major slasher franchises
Younger people are often more sexually open and liberal
The old guard horror fandom is largely unwelcoming to younger and more sexually-open fans—unless they're attractive women who are willing to be subjected to constant harassment.
Those younger fans then built up more open horror communities
Ghostface as a character has a variable identity that can be adapted to whoever you are or whoever you want to fuck
So now we have a younger horror fandom for whom Scream is formative media, is much more willing to be open about sex and sexuality, and has a character they can easy project their sexual desires onto, and will always fit without compromising the character's integrity.
