The iconic ending scene in Scream actually injured actor Skeet Ulrich in real life. The 1996 movie, directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson, stars Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, a high school student in Woodsboro, California and the target of a killer who dons a Halloween costume known as Ghostface. In the movie, Ulrich played Sidney's boyfriend, Billy Loomis, who—along with his friend, Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard)—played an integral part as the franchise's first killers. The mystery Ghostface concept became a recurring plot point, as audiences tried in each sequel to figure out who would be revealed to be behind the mask.
Where other slasher movies had gotten stale after the boom in the '70s and '80s, Scream instantly became famous for the way it combined black comedy and satire with violence and mystery. The movie also poked fun at the clichés within the horror movie genre, referencing classic films like Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th. Even as Scream satirized the horror genre, though, it also kept horror movie "rules" in mind by featuring both a final girl and a twist ending.
During the climax of Scream—after the house party empties out—Billy and Stu reveal to Sidney that they are both the killers. In fact, they're the ones who murdered Sidney's mother a year prior, because she was having an affair with Billy's father. Billy and Stu also reveal that they've kidnapped Sidney's father, and plan to frame their murder spree on him. In the end, news reporter Gale Weathers and Sidney work together to defeat the murderous teenagers, though Matthew Lillard has remarked he doesn't believe his character, Stu, actually died. This has given weight to some suggesting Stu Macher and Matthew Lillard should return for Scream 5. Even so, Sidney and Gale got the upper hand, with Sidney killing Billy with last shot in the head. Arguably one of the most iconic final sequences in a modern horror movie, the ending of Scream was more realistic than some might believe—footage of Ulrich's real injury actually made it into the film's final cut.
Before she ultimately kills Billy, Sidney goes through the ringer trying to defend herself and her father against Billy and Stu's murderous advances. At one point, she corners Billy by jumping out of a closet in the Ghostface costume. In this surprising moment, she stabs Billy in the chest—twice—with an umbrella. Billy yells out in pain, then falls to the ground, bleeding and obviously badly hurt by the attack.
It turns out that Billy's pain in this scene was completely real. Though the umbrella had a retractable tip and Ulrich wore a protective vest under his shirt to protect himself from potential injury, Sidney's second stab of the umbrella missed the vest. It stabbed Ulrich on his chest instead, which ended up impacting a wound from an open heart surgery operation the actor had when he was ten years old. In the end, Craven decided to use the footage of Ulrich's genuine pain in the final cut of Scream, which adds not only realism, but also an interesting behind-the-scenes story for fans of the director's slasher movie franchise.