Attention 'Scream' Fans — You Can Now Visit Stu's House IRL
Published Oct. 29 2021, 11:00 a.m. ET
What's better than watching your favorite horror movie over and over each Halloween season? Visiting the house that was featured in it, of course. If you're one of the millions of Scream fans who can quote the original movie like it's nobody's business, you'll be happy to know that Stu's house is real. And if you'd like to see the place that was used for the final bloody party scene in 1996's Scream, you can visit the location yourself.
Where is Stu's house from 'Scream'?
In the movie, Stu's house is in the fictional Woodsboro, Calif. in the middle of nowhere. In real life, Stu's party house is located in Tomales, Calif., 70 miles north of San Francisco.
Although parts of Scream were shot on sets, other scenes are filmed in real buildings that were already standing prior to filming.
Although Stu's house isn't haunted, there are stories about people dying in the house before filming began in 1996. In the Behind the Scream documentary, Matthew Lillard, who plays Stu, says two people died in the house before it was used for the movie.
"It's kind of, like, an eerie house," he says in the documentary. "Actually, two people have died in this house. Literally, two people have died in the house. So coming up the hill and you're doing a Wes Craven film and somebody tells you, 'Oh, by the way, two people have died in the house,' it brings on an entirely new thing."
According to the New York Post, however, the two people who died in the house weren't murdered at the hands of two disgruntled teenage boys (like the plot to Scream). Instead, Dirt reports that the original owners of the Scream house, Jack and Carolyn MacPhail, died from illnesses unrelated to the house itself.
The famous 'Scream' house was briefly an Airbnb.
Prior to the 2021 Halloween season, David Arquette, who plays Dewey in all of the movies, was part of a Scream promotion offering a few lucky fans the chance to stay in Stu's house. Per the Airbnb listing, the $5 stays included classic '90s snacks like Jiffy Pop and the chance to get a call from Ghostface on a landline phone.
It doesn't look like Stu's house from Scream is still an Airbnb, though. The house is situated on land that's part of what's called the Spring Hill Estate. It's a wedding venue for most of the year.
And even though most of the weddings featured on the venue's website are full of Pinterest-perfect palace settings and centerpieces, you have to expect that some horror film buffs have taken advantage of the fact that you can get married at Stu's house.
'Scream 5' revisits the former party house.
Although Stu dies at the end of the first Scream, the trailer for 2022's Scream (which fans have dubbed Scream 5), shows Sidney and Gale back at Stu's house. There's also a shot in the trailer featuring one of the new characters in Stu's old house, leading fans to believe she now lives there.
Scream 5's plot also suggests that the new Ghostface (or Ghostfaces, plural, because history could repeat itself here) is killing people related to the former victims.
Exactly how Stu's old house will factor in (beyond as the home of one of the possible Scream 5 victims) remains to be seen. But longtime fans are here for the ride.