VS Blog: Jason Dean vs Billy Loomis (Heathers vs Scream)
"Society wants to believe it can identify evil people, or bad or harmful people, but it's not practical. There are no stereotypes." ― Ted Bundy
Jason ‘J.D’ Dean, the rebellious No Name Kid from Heathers.
Billy Loomis, the ghost-faced serial killer from Scream.
You know, anyone can be a killer. Your neighbor, your family, and even your lover! You might think the most stereotypical killers are psychopaths who grin at the pain of others… and that’s actually a pretty good assumption. These two might keep it slightly hidden that they’re cold-blooded, but it’s just not enough once you look past the surface.
After their family issues, they’ve found a great place to express their teenage angst, which is killing others! Inspired by the media of their times and the influence of their parents, they figured that this was the best way to live their life. When it comes head-to-head with these high school murderers, only one will make it out alive in this bloodfest. Will J.D scream for help in this Scary Movie, or will it become Big Fun when Loomis gets brain-frozen with fear? We’ll find out today on Valve’s Versus!
Before We Begin…
This is a pretty easy blog in regards to media to cover. We’ll be drawing from the Scream franchise, specifically from Billy and Stu’s appearance in the first Scream film, as well as the Heathers film and musical. There isn’t much extended media where Billy and Stu appear in with the exception of a few video games, and similarly J.D’s appearances in the musical and movie are the only ones that will be actively looked into– we’re simply not diving into the TV show in this blog because it’s meant to be an entirely different universe and contradicts elements of both movie and musical intentionally.
Oh, yeah. This is also a bonus blog and a remake of an older blog. There’s some general arsenal elements pretty similar to that old blog, but I wanted to recover these two since they’re my favorite characters. This blog also isn't too big, mostly because Billy and Stu have actually had elaborate blogs on them before that touch on their scaling to the rest of Scream it got nuked and I just found this out last minute, and because the main focus is inherently on Scream 1 more than any extensive Scream series research. With all that out the way, let’s get right into this murder spree.
Background
J.D
“Today was great! Chaos is great. Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs, darling.”
Moving to the school is an experience we’re all likely unfamiliar with, drawing into practically a new life. For Jason Dean, however, this life of constant changing is something he’s lived for his whole life thanks to his dad’s job– never building friends because he’s moved all the way around from Las Vegas to Boston. Even though he’s lived an unstable life, J.D seemed to be able to keep his head above water, and on this occasion of moving schools, he’d been enrolled to Westerberg High. He was a blatant outcast by the start, as being a new kid would do that to you. This would be especially notable when your school is dominated by three girls all with the same name, the Heathers.
However, he’d been eyed by a girl named Veronica Sawyer, a relatively more popular student from the norm as she went hand-in-hand with the Heathers. After Veronica faces conflicts her own with clique, especially after some drunken jocks try to get action with her, she and J.D became more close… especially after a few slushies. After J.D and Veronica do your typical teenage relationship deeds, they’d eventually make the decision to prank Heather McNamara, the leader of the clique. They would make a fake hangover cure with the intention to make her feel even sicker, although J.D obviously held some different plans. With a silly joke about drain cleaners, he does a switch-a-roo and instead gets Heather to drink it. That was obviously not a good thing to drink, and leads to her immediate death to collapse onto a table.
With such an unplanned kill in mind, Veronica was far more panicked, but J.D had been clearly more experienced with deaths before. He convinces Veronica to write a suicide note, and proposes the idea that she’d kill herself intentionally to deal with the horrible world these teens had been stuck in. Afterwards, with Chandler’s death, Heather Duke began to explot the role of a Heather, resulting in the exploitation of so many others. During this time, they had even used Kurt and Ram to spread the rumor that Veronica gave oral sex to the former, which easily caused a snap in J.D. He’d convince Veronica to instead enact their revenge on the two, with the goal of “tranquilzing” the jocks. However, J.D had other plans, tranquilizing them after Veronica lured them in… permanently tranquilizing them.
From then on, Veronica saw J.D as the true toxic killer he was. This, alongside Dean blackmailing Duke and the extensive exploitation of other students, had lead to J.D deciding to interfere with Veronica’s own home life. Convincing her parents of her supposed attempts of suicide, he pretends to be worried about her taking her own life in order to blackmail Veronica, too. However, as he goes to break into her room, Veronica fakes her death, now to J.D’s dismay. But, he reveals his true intentions.
J.D himself, having set up explosions across the school, planned to detonate them and blow school to kingdom come. Yet, he wasn’t aware of Veronica’s fake death- who had now confronted him as a result of his actions. Even though he ultimately held the upper hand and continues to set up his explosives, Veronica eventually overwhelms J.D, shooting him and leaving him bleeding out in the boiler room. Leaving herself, she now believed herself to be done, until Dean walked out of the school. Accepting his defeat, he activates a detonation vest that he would use to blow himself up, leaving Veronica with one last talk as he kills himself.
Ultimately, this left no legacy behind J.D as he died because of his actions- with Veronica herself rather leaving J.D’s words behind her. Despite the love she held for the psycho, wanting to reunite and fix the rest of her days in school until she could exceed the expectations of school just as she did before. Just like the dinosaurs he always talked about, a big ol’ explosion took away everything from J.D, leaving nothing but a cold world behind.
Billy Loomis
“What's the matter, Sidney? You look like you've seen a ghost.”
Whether you’re passing by or unfortunate enough to be moving in, Woodsboro is infamous in its bloody origin and mysterious community. Despite tragedy having strucken the town over and over through a series of teenage murders, it somehow managed to reform and glorify the horrendous killings into works of fiction that were used for money and, more importantly, fame. However when looking at the true history of Woodsboro, you’d be shocked to realize the ideology and obsession that would haunt Woodsboro for decades to come came from none other than a high schooler and a respected colleague to most, Billy Loomis. Having peer pressured his friend, Stu Marcher, during their murders, Billy was the first ever Ghostface that would soon turn into a figure for psychotic teens everywhere.
Turns out, while in Woodsboro, Billy’s father had an affair with one Maureen Prescott and, as soon Billy’s mother found out, she left the family and practically abandoned Billy. In his anger and grief, Billy turned to the only outlet where he knew vengeance and violence were accepted… horror movies! He was already a big follower of horror flicks at the time, but he soon became a massive horror fanatic and even used the media as inspiration for his soon to be murder of the same woman who ruined his life, Maureen Prescott.
After he and his buddy Stu had killed the woman responsible for the faults of his life, Billy then found out she had a daughter around the same age as him, a chick named Sidney Prescott. Being the horror genius he was, he used the rules of every good horror movie to come up with a perfect opportunity to kill Sidney and any other teen in his way. He would date Sidney, get her to lose her virginity so he could kill her, and then place the blame for all of the killings on her father that he and Stu would kidnap. But, Sidney wasn’t the only target. If Billy and Stu were going to commit a murder spree, they would need to create the biggest murder spree.
Using the disguise of a ghost face under a black cloak, he and Stu had masked up and killed several people that they knew. They would take the life of one of Stu’s exs, Casey Becker, and her jock boyfriend, all with a simple question: “Do you know the killer in Friday the 13th?”. That night, the same ghost-faced killer even attacks Sidney during the day of her mother’s anniversary, and Loomis himself even nearly reveals his identity because his phone fell out his pocket! Thankfully, once he’s out of jail, Sidney forgives Loomis for a bit– and then suddenly, he’s attacked by the Ghostface killer!!! … kidding. He’d actually reveal his identity that night to her, as once the “injured” Billy was given a gun, he betrays Sidney and her fellow survivors.
Even though he’s against motivations, as he finds it much scarier if the killer is just crazy for the sake of crazy, he told Sidney his entire story just with the intent to kill her seconds later. But somehow, Billy and Stu would let their eyes off Sidney for a little too long and let her get away in order to attack them while wearing their own Ghostface costume. With a TV to the head for Stu, and two gunshots on Billy, the Ghostface killers were finally put to an end. But don’t fret, because even though Billy’s reign might not have been successful but in the long run, his influence and his ideas around the concept of horror has made Woodsboro rotten to the core. He’s now a hallucination for his kid, Samantha Carpenter, and his insanity and love for horror runs down his genes like how blood runs down the stainless steel of a knife.
Experience and Skill
J.D
J.D’s experience comes generally self-taught, having known how to handle a gun (of course) and gaining information off of explosives by learning it out of his dad’s company. He’s a more mature teenager than others, too, which was able to allure Veronica, and he knows a bit of knowledge on how to fight generally. It’s even been implied that J.D likely caused or performed murders in the past beyond what he did to Westerberg, however that’s completely up to interpretation.
Billy Loomis
As the original Ghostface and the one that started it all, Billy has trained himself in the art of murder. Mainly through exposure to your favorite slashers, ranging from Chucky to Norman Bates. He’s a natural at stealth against your typical brainless bimbo, and within the final act where he snuck into Sidney’s house on multiple occasions and chased her around. Ghostfaces can tank a whole lot of damage and still manage to take on foes with superior strength like your typical jocks and higher training like officers.
Equipment
J.D
.357 Colt Python
J.D’s leading weapon of choice, the .357 Colt Python is a six-shooter revolver with an effective range of around 180 meters. He uses this weapon as his most reliable tool- shooting down any jock who comes in his way… and has even been used against him. Womp womp. On the off chance he feels like scaring off someone than taking a life, he has also used blanks to spook the life out of a person.
Beretta 21A Bobcat
A secondary weapon wielded by J.D and gifted to Veronica Sawyer, the Beretta 21A Bobcat is a semi-automatic pocket pistol. This gun is supposedly outfitted with World War 2 era “Ich Lüge bullets” that merely penetrate the skin but no deeper with a sedative to fake deaths– just like the ones Germans used against the Russians when they invaded berlin. However, this is in-truth a lie, as this gun is outfitted rather with literal bullets, as the supposed fake bullets are… fake. Seriously, he meant it when he said “Ich Lüge”.
Explosives
After J.D was brutally attacked by Veronica after their scuffle, losing his hand and getting shot in the chest in the process, he was given one last chance… to blow himself up. Obviously, J.D was supplying much greater explosives in the boiler room, but \\used the main detonator as an explosive vest in order to take his life in Veronica’s favor.
Switchblade
J.D has access to a switchblade which he’s pulled on people he intends to threaten, such as when he intended on faking suicide on Heather Duke. However, he tried to push Veronica to perform the fake suicide with a kitchen knife.
Drain Killer
Used in a plot to kill Heather Chandler, J.D tricks Veronica into giving a cup of drain killer instead of a cup of juice to save her from a hangover. After Chandler drank the “juice”, she was immediately killed by it, to Veronica’s dismay and to J.D’s amusement.
Motorcycle
Like every teen girl’s edgy love interest, J.D rides a motorcycle everywhere… usually. Not much to give information wise given it doesn’t show up much, but it’s probably fast as hell.
Cigarettes
J.D enjoys smoking, so he usually carries a pack to smoke, but he obviously doesn’t fight with them… it would still probably hurt if he threw one right in your eye or something. You know, Afro Samurai style.
Slushie
“Our love is God, let’s go get a slushie”
Ah yes, a psychopath’s favorite pastime. Drinking slushies.
Billy Loomis
Ghostface Costume
Snazzy. Arguably the most famous horror movie costume ever, Billy unsurprisingly dawns his Ghostface costume to hide his true face and to blend in with the shadows easier. This costume has been passed down for years and used for a variety of different murder sprees in Woodsboro, but it’s easily the most iconic in the hands, or more accurately face, of Billy Loomis.
Buck 120 Knife
You can never truly be a Ghostface without an option to cut your opponent up like a fish, and in Billy’s case he has a Buck 120 used to butcher people as quickly as possible and slit their throats.
Beretta 92FS
In the climax of Scream, Billy managed to grab a gun from Dewey Riley, a sheriff protecting Sidney who he took out (but not killed!) with a stab to the back. Sidney held onto it, but she gave it to Billy, and then Billy reversed the roles to arm himself. This was a Beretta 92FS, a semi automatic and easy to hold pistol that packs quite a punch… Quite literally.
Phone
To communicate with his victims and his fellow Ghostface partner, Billy carries around a phone that is untraceable by most means. It’s probably not useful if he’s caught in a fight with it, but it’s very useful to apply in stealth to coordinate attacks or tricks.
Voice Changer
What’s the matter, Sidney?
One of the most iconic parts of the arsenal of a Ghostface is the ability to change their voice- masking their identity. This allows them to not only hide their identity but also trick and deceive their opponents with multiple helping hands, such as their friends, in order to screw with people’s heads. Loomis used this to disguise his voice to Sidney,
Duct Tape
Perfect for kidnapping and holding people in place… not much he can use for it besides that, unless he needs to fix a duct.
Rope
Taking a note from horror movies has made, Billy loves to play the card of using your victims as decorations and waiting for others to find them. Must’ve gotten this one from Jason… Voorhees, not Dean.
Corn Syrup
Inspired by the Carrie flick’s pigs blood, Loomis faked injuries and blood with the use of corn syrup. It’s pretty convincing, and could even be used to fake slash wounds from his partner.
Abilities
J.D
Superhuman Endurance
At the climax of the movie during his conflict with Veronica, J.D had his fingers shot off and was shot in the chest- seemingly killing him off as he was left to bleed in the boiler room. However, J.D’s endurance allowed him to pull through, getting outside around the same time as Veronica had despite his injuries. He had taken off the detonating explosives strapped in the boiler room in the same time, using them to leave Veronica with one last eulogy and took his life.
Broadway Force
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Funnily acknowledged in the story through it’s appearance in “Our Love is God”, J.D canliterally burst into a music number mid-fight, both confusing his target and giving him more intention to finish a fight as a result.
Billy Loomis
Superhuman Endurance
Billy’s plan to get away with his murders was to blame it on Sidney’s father, Neil Prescott. But in order to make it convincing he had to make it real, so being the geniuses they are, he and Stu took turns stabbing and injuring themselves until they started feeling woozy. Even being shot in his upper chest didn’t kill him, however a shot in the head will do him in for good.
The Rules
FATE HAX
Joking, joking.
Support
J.D
Veronica Sawyer
J.D’s love interest who he pushes into his crime sprees, Veronica Sawyer is a highly intelligent student who fell in love with J.D due to his maturity- an aspect she finally believed to share with someone at Westerberg. Despite her love for the psycho, she was soon roped into many murders as J.D brought his wrath against anyone who hurt his love. Not only does she incidentally support J.D throughout the murders, he pushes Veronica to perform a number of the kills herself, too. He then attempts to push her in the light of believing they are righteous and moral kills since, after all, their love is god.
Billy Loomis
Stu Macher
Sidney what do you mean Springtrap is behind me
The other member of the original Woodsboro murders, Stu is Loomis’ best friend and partner in crime who was manipulated into joining alongside the killing spree. Despite being really, really dumb, his knowledge on horror movies allow him to put similar practices he’s seen in them apply to reality. Alongside Loomis, they’ve been able to pinpoint crimes on other people, and were intentionally going to pin one of their largest sprees on Sidney’s father.
While both work together, however, Stu held his ambitions with vengeance and holds no worries about his friend comparatively, making him… not an easy teammate. Especially when, for some reason, they don’t just gang up on Sidney properly? Never bring this guy into competitive FPS, I swear.
Weaknesses
J.D
J.D’s biggest weakness comes from his mental state. Not only is he a ruthless killer at any time at the cost of his relationships, willingly murdering people for inconveniencing and harming his love or trying to hurt Veronica, he holds a ton of trauma both in family with the death of his mom and never holding a substantial connection with anyone besides Veronica herself. Dean is also just generally unstable as a person. Not only is he emotionally unstable, but he’s prone to making bold decisions on the fly, deciding on killing Veronica when she cut him off as well as pushing himself to destroy the entire school in Veronica’s honor despite intending on killing her.
Billy Loomis
Besides him and Stu’s obvious issues as killers, Loomis holds a lot of issues with his family problems that led to him forming the Ghostface spree in the first place, manipulating everyone around him into leading into this spree alongside Stu. Because of his breakdown, Loomis became a psychopathic monster with no high morals, and particularly this mindset leads to him becoming a murderer who, despite his cunningness, loves to bring immense pain to people. Showing off his kills a lot, Loomis’ big issue is that he simply loves to strike fear into people, leading to him being able to be snuck up on, shot, or stabbed easily when he’s completely focused on the kill. Plus, he’s very unreliable in combat, usually preferring to stab and gut his victims or at least painting a murder in his plan- so he’ll likely initialize combat directly than sneakily gunning down an opponent despite his access to those sorts of weapons.
Feats
J.D
Overall
Set up various murders alongside roping in his love interest Veronica Sawyer.
Successfully killed Kurt and Ram, Heather Chandler, and nearly succeeded on killing the entire school if it wasn’t for Veronica’s interference.
Set up explosives in Westerberg High without being detected.
Has likely performed several murders in the past, granted the list of ‘suicides’ followed by him moving schools.
Power
Easily overpowered Veronica with his bare hands in the final act.
In the musical, he fought Ram and Kurt in a 2-on-1 confrontation, who are school athletes.
In the musical, he kicked down Veronica’s closet door.
Busted a speaker by shooting at it with his revolver.
Wielded explosions that were going to turn Westerberg to ‘rubble’ and kill all of the students.
The explosion from his self-detonation shook the gym and completely obliterated his body.
Killed the dinosaurs. Trust.
Speed
Has been able to pull off quickdraws on and Ram and Kurt, both with real and fake rounds.
Easily took over Veronica in a direct confrontation when he was unarmed by disarming her and then overtaking her physically.
Durability
Despite getting his finger shot off and being shot in the chest by Veronica, he walked off the injury to set off his own explosions.
More than likely withstood blows from Kurt and Ram in their school scuffle, taking minimal injuries.
Just listen to Dead Girl Walking.
Billy Loomis
Overall
Along with Stu, whom he pressured, became the first ever Ghostface terrorizing Woodsbro.
During their reign as Ghostface, he and Stu killed a total of 5 people. With Billy taking over half.
Faked his own death with some Corn Syrup.
Caused his mother to go after Sidney Prescott in vengeance after his death.
Had a kid that turned out to be the final girl in Scream 5.
Power
Easily overpowered Gale Weathers, knocking her out with a single kick.
Comparable to Stu, who punched through a window and broke through it entirely with a headbutt.
Physically matched Stu in a stabbing match as well as later physically fighting against Sidney Prescott.
Speed
Easily outran Casey Becker (seen above) in a chase sequence.
He and Stu can both physically attack others, often killing them before they can properly react (or become too scared to).
Durability
Survived relatively well-off despite being stabbed twice in the chest with an umbrella. (which genuinely stabbed Skeet Ulrich)
Got up after he was hit with two beer bottles and then flipped over on a hardwood floor.
Was taken out by a near-fatal gunshot wound, but still came up and needed a headshot to be taken out
Able to withstand blows from Sidney who can break through glass with her jabs.
Verdict
Stats
Both J.D and Billy are portrayed as your typical normal human, although you could vaguely scale them to athletic ranges. Beyond the concept of “all Ghostface killers are comparable’, Loomis doesn’t have too many numerical values to attach, and J.D similarly doesn’t have many physical feats beyond what matches Ghostface (overtaking your typical teenage athlete). As far as it’s concerned, J.D and Billy shouldn’t be too far in strength for the other to be physically stronger.
Given they also typically wield knives or handguns, a strength advantage might not even matter in this fight. The only notable point of strength may come in the fact that Stu and Billy would both be present, and Veronica herself isn’t too notable in physical strength. However, with Billy and Stu both having knives that can certainly pierce through both J.D and Veronica, while J.D and Veronica both have handguns or knives that can definitely pierce through the Ghostface cloak, that isn’t too big of a disadvantage for Veronica and J.D.
With that in mind, both duos should be simply close in strength and speed not to matter. This is a tie.
Arsenal
For the more direct comparison, J.D and Billy have pretty similar arsenals. Down to the more realistic comparisons, it is at its core a gun versus knife fight. While Veronica isn’t a gun handler typically (but could certainly use a handgun if J.D handed her one), J.D is almost always accessing one on hand. However, J.D’s switchblade isn’t too reliable if he’s caught off guard by Loomis directly, and even more so if Loomis and Stu swap enough places to trade stabs with J.D and overwhelm him. It would require a ton of stealth and gameplay in order for Stu and Billy to reliably disarm J.D, especially alongside Veronica, but it is doable if J.D similarly isn’t on his A-game.
Simply, a gun is more reliable than a knife, although Stu and Billy could potentially overcome it because of J.D’s weakness in close combat alongside Veronica’s own inability to participate that well if the fight comes down to it. With that in mind, we’ll give some leniency to Stu and Billy and say that this category does come closer than you’d expect, but they’ll need to really keep up with their stealth just to overcome J.D pulling out a gun.
So… can Stu and Billy reasonably take out J.D and Veronica by stealthing around before J.D can reasonably gun them down?
Kind of.
Billy and Stu would be able to potentially do it if they’re super familiar with the environment, given that’s your most typical disadvantage when fighting a Ghostface. They’ve obviously been able to take out (notably incompetent) armed opponents, but if they’re not set up perfectly for a situation, it becomes exponentially more difficult to fight. Given the advantage, it actually does come down to the old “knife to a gunfight” where it’s pretty nonsensical to argue that, even with stealth, J.D and Veronica wouldn’t be able to take out Billy and Stu if they were trying to kill them randomly.
With all that in mind…
Conclusion
Advantages:
Has a gun.
Him and Veronica, while they conflict emotionally, have been more reliable together than Billy and Stu.
J.D would likely protect and arm Veronica if given access to a full arsenal.
While she hates the idea of taking a life, she would certainly be willing against murderers and especially vulnerable to J.D’s manipulation.
Hot.
Neutral:
Both have similar duo relationships for support in a fight.
Both are comparable physically…
Billy and Stu are probably more arguable to be stronger together, but wouldn’t matter overall.
Disadvantages:
J.D could be taken off-guard and disarmed or killed.
Veronica isn’t the most supportive combatant in a fight to the death, although she would totally help if they find out about Billy and Stu early-on.
Advantages:
Inherent stealth from the Ghostface costume makes it hard to see him.
This stealth could open up the option for Billy and Stu to take out J.D if they’re observant enough.
Hot.
Gay for Stu.
Neutral:
Both have similar duo relationships for support in a fight.
Stu and Loomis would probably stab each-other tbh.
Both are comparable physically…
Billy and Stu are probably more arguable to be stronger together, but wouldn’t matter overall.
Disadvantages:
They’re bringing knives to a gun fight.
Typically, they will start by making their victims aware of their presence, making it actually easier for J.D to gun down the killers in encounters.
The Ghostface costume could even make one of the two clumsy… but they already are normally.
Both Billy and J.D are pretty sick killers, and you could certainly argue in favor of the Ghostface killers with their immediate usage of stealth. However, because of their typical methods of killing and lack of prior awareness, it’s sort of difficult to argue that they’d circumnavigate around J.D pulling out a gun to shoot any Ghostface killer he encounters. Alongside Veronica’s awareness as an extra pair of eyes, and the potential means to arm Veronica, it’s way more likely that the Heathers duo would be able to deal with Billy and Stu than inversely. It would need the Ghostface duo to play at their best, something they’d rarely do against an unexpected target, against the most basic win condition of shooting any killers witnessed.
All in all, there are some ways to argue in favor of Scream’s first killers, but J.D’s reliability and simple ways to end the fight regardless of stealth with a single gunshot means that it’s simply way easier to argue in his favor. J.D isn’t alone, either, bringing another step-up to even out the main advantage the Ghostface duo holds over their usual victim. Veronica doesn’t need to outright fight, although she can, as just an extra set of eyes would certainly offer an advantage against Billy and Stu having to hide around in this fight.
Billy Loomis was a potent slasher, and his teamwork with Stu would bring a ton of exploitation potential given they’d need to win with stealth… but it’s just way too difficult to reasonably argue they’d overcome a gun or two in a fight. It’s especially notable given Billy and Stu actively get taken out by the advantage of a firearm, although admittedly they were injured. Not that it matters, because J.D would stop at nothing to keep fighting for Veronica, and scare these ghosts before they could eviscerate another lovesick teen couple.
The winner is Jason ‘J.D’ Dean… oh, yeah, and Veronica Sawyer.
But before you go, we’ve got one last announcement–
The next blog we’ll be working on is Green Lantern vs Human Torch… wait. I meant Alan Scott vs Jim Hammond! You can contact me @ scumofthe.earths on Discord if you’re interested in supporting the work effort. With that all in mind, we’ll be seeing you guys next blog! ❤️🔥
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