Researched
This post is based on extensive research. While I only visited two locations, this felt more suited to this category. The information contained within is thoroughly fact-checked. We will update this post with firsthand impressions once we visit more locales.
While house sitting alone one night, screenwriter Kevin Williamson caught a TV special on the Gainesville Ripper. Suitably spooked, he called a friend for company and the pair began quizzing each other on horror movie trivia. And so, the spark for Scream was born.
Williamson holed up for a week to bash out the script, leading to a bidding frenzy that eventually caught the eye of Dimension Films, and in turn, Wes Craven. Thanks to Williamson’s knowing script, the Scream series reinvigorated the gasping slasher genre in the mid-90s.
Peppered with self-aware teens and horror references galore, the then-titled Scary Movie came to life under Craven’s directorial eye. Once it hit theaters, audiences loved its mash of scares and chuckles and word of mouth spread. At the end of its theatrical run, Scream scared up $173 million in worldwide box office receipts, and the horror genre was given a new lease of life.
Where was Scream filmed?
The Scream filming locations are anchored in the Northern California wine country. The Sonoma County towns of Glen Ellen, Tomales, Healdsburg, Sonoma, and Santa Rosa all feature in the film, lending the slasher the perfect small-town atmosphere.
For fans of the Scream franchise, visiting the film’s actual locations goes beyond mere sightseeing; it’s an experience that brings it shuddering to life. There’s an undeniable feeling that comes from standing in the same spots immortalised on film. Trust me, this is coming from someone (me, it was me) who got weirdly choked up at the grocery store where Sidney and Tatum pick up party snacks.
This guide will dive into why these spots were selected by Craven and his production crew, what happened during the location shoots, and how you can visit the Scream filming locations yourself.
Why these locations were handpicked for Scream
3080 Marlow Road, Santa Rosa, California 95403
1465 Town and Country Drive, Santa Rosa, California 95404
217 Healdsburg Avenue, Healdsburg, California 95448
124 Matheson Street, Healdsburg, California 95448
824 Mcdonald Avenue, Santa Rosa, California 95404
276 East Napa Street, Sonoma, California 95476
7420 Sonoma Mountain Road, Glen Ellen, California 95442
This is a private residence. 1800 Calistoga Road, Santa Rosa, California 95404
3871 Tomales Petaluma Road, Petaluma, California 94971
The first draft of Williamson’s screenplay initially took place in his home town of Bayboro, North Carolina. But production struggled to find locations that fit his exact descriptions without requiring a lot of work.
They needed “either a lot of painting or upgrading or downgrading,” explains production designer Bruce Alan Miller in the E! A True Hollywood Story: Scream documentary. The dark, brick homesteads they visited in Wilmington didn’t sync up with Craven’s vision.
After reading the script, Craven knew it was critical to find the right spot, and as a native Californian he felt it had to be rooted in the west coast state. He wanted to find a place to tap into a special sort of Americana.
Nevertheless, the Weinsteins had other ideas, wanting to save $1 million dollars by shooting in Canada. And while producers ventured to Vancouver for a preliminary scout, ultimately Craven “took a hard stand,” and insisted that the movie shoot in the US.
“We looked in L.A., and we flew to San Jose and drove up to Northern California, stopping at towns and looking,” co-executive producer Stuart M. Besser told E! And, in February 1996, they found the fictionalised version of Bayboro, now known as Woodsboro, in the small towns of Sonoma County.
Situated an hour’s drive north of the San Francisco Bay Area, the wine country’s bucolic, small-town feel matched the atmosphere of Williamson’s script. “Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, Tomales Bay… all of those towns, they had a charm to them, they had a small-town America feel to them,” said Miller.
This echoed Craven’s wishes for a filming location on homegrown soil. “I wanted very much that very, very American feel to it, so that’s how we ended up there,” Craven reveals in Scream: The Inside Story.
Not only that, it aligned with Miller’s goals for the production design. Unlike North Carolina, where they struggled to find houses that matched the specific geography inked into Williamson’s script, in Sonoma they uncovered a range of perfect homesteads none of which required any major building.
The glass windows from Casey Becker’s front porch, intricate sprawl of Stu Macher’s home, all of these key components were crucial to exacting the terror of the setpieces, were found on their scouting missions.
So let’s dive into them.
Primary Scream filming locations
Stu Macher’s House: 3871 Tomales-Petaluma Road, Tomales, CA
“It all began with a Scream over 911, and ended in a bloodbath that has rocked the small town of Woodsboro,” begins Gale Weathers’ voiceover accompanied by a wide shot of a Californian sunrise illuminating the wine country foothills. It’s hard to imagine that closing shot without that breathtaking view of the Cotati Valley from the Tomales Bay location.
The Victorian homestead was built in 1990 for Jack and Carolyn MacPhail, a couple who both passed away in 1991 shortly before construction was completed. The house remained in the family until it was listed for sale several years later. Details of the couple’s passing didn’t elude the filmmakers, with cast and crew both aware of the dwelling’s macabre history.
In a set interview featured in the Behind the Scream documentary, Matthew Lillard said: “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.”
The house sat on the market until Scream location manager Eric Klosterman came across it one morning. According to Miller, Klosterman was at a bakery in downtown Tomales and spotted the house in the realtor’s window next door. Once Craven and Miller saw it, they knew it was the one with the latter stating the abode appeared like a “haunted house”:
“It’s set up on this hill which is spooky looking,” Miller explained, “And there’s this flow around the house with lots of ways that people could walk and go from one room to another. Somebody could be in trouble in the driveway or in the front of the house, and you wouldn’t know about it in the TV room.”
But its success rested upon more than the house’s layout – Craven’s keen eye for horror movie geography brought those aspects clearly to life.
“You have to solve certain problems that relate to the geography of the house,” stated Craven in Cinefantastique’s Lawrence French in January 1997, explaining the script’s original attic chase sequence between Sidney and the killer. “But we never found a house that was designed like that.” So, they reworked the script based on the layout of the Tomales homestead. The Victorian mansion’s unique framework could easily have proven confusing for audiences, but Craven turned it into a memorable location.
On the dressing front, the production was delighted by most of the existing components but augmented it some. “We wanted Stu’s home to have elements of a dark and haunted Gothic house and it needed to be very isolated,” Craven added.
“The art department went in there and did an enormous number on the house. We put in all sorts of beams, and stained-glass windows, darkened all the colors, and brought in all the set dressings. It was done in a sort of farmhouse style, and we changed it into a Gothic farmhouse. We shot everything right in the house, and even used the attic. The attic wasn’t very creepy, so we darkened it.”
Scenes filmed at 3871 Tomales-Petaluma Road
Arguably the most beloved horror movie finale of all time, the movie’s last act takes place entirely at 3871 Tomales-Petaluma Road, als known as 261 Turner Lane in the movie.
From the moment the Top Story news van pulls up to its long, winding driveway to the opening bars of Birdbrain’s “Youth in America”, all the way through to Gale Weathers’ closing report to camera, the film’s twists and turns all unravel here.
Here are the scenes that take place at Stu’s house:
- Randy, Stu and friends watch Halloween
- Sidney and Billy sneak off to have sex
- Tatum’s death in the garage
- Gale and Dewey’s walk in the woods
- Sidney’s chase with the killer
- The final kitchen showdown
Stories from the set
One of horror history’s most well-loved endings took a whopping 21 nights to shoot, its cast and crew calling it quits as the sun rose and starting over again the next evening. This rigorous shooting schedule took its toll.
Every sequence that takes place at Stu’s house technically falls under Scene 118 in the script, making it one of the longest scenes of the production. The crew even got t-shirts printed up that read “I Survived Scene 118′:
The assistant director referred to it on the daily call sheets as the “People live, people die” scene. Is it any wonder Craven called it “the scene from hell?”
Sidney Prescott’s house – 1820 Calistoga Road, Santa Rosa, CA
The Prescott house appears only in a handful of scenes but it needed a specific atmosphere for the movie’s second attack sequence that strikes when Sidney is home alone. “There is something that’s not normal about it, it’s just sitting there, isolated by itself,” Miller told E!.
“We wanted houses that were vulnerable.” Miller explained to Cinefantastique when discussing how they chose the Woodsboro dwellings. “We didn’t want homes that looked like castles, or that you could really protect yourself in. We needed houses that were close to the ground, and that had windows and doors that were very accessible, so if somebody was going to be stalking them, they could get to them very quickly.
It would be your average middle-class teenager’s home, with nothing too scary about it. When they come home, they think they’re safe and then all of a sudden there’s a knock at the front door, and then there’s a knock at the back door. What teenager thinks that death is just around the corner? They just don’t think in those terms, but in reality they are susceptible to being stalked.”
Scenes filmed at 1820 Calistoga Road
- Sidney exits the school bus and enter her home
- A montage of shots as the sunsets
- Sidney on the phone with Tatum
- Sidney on the phone with the killer, and the chase sequence
- The cops arrive and Sidney is outside in an ambulance
Stories from the set
“Fantastic location,” laughs Craven on the Scream audio commentary, before revealing how much it cost to use the home: “We just about bought it between the rental fees and the repair fees.”
“We were shooting in the beautiful wine country around Santa Rosa, using some very interesting houses we found there, so I wanted to be able to see out of windows a lot, and get a sense of inside, outside, as opposed to doing interiors on a stage. There was a lot of tricky balancing of light levels from interior to exteriors. that we had to contend with. It’s a shame so much of the film takes place at night, because it’s so beautiful where we were shooting.
Casey Becker’s house – 7420 Sonoma Mountain Road, Glen Ellen, CA
“She worked for five days and made cinematic history in genre films,” Craven said of Barrymore’s performance in the film’s iconic opening sequence. And for such an impactful, and devastating introduction to Scream, production sought an isolated house for Barrymore’s character Casey Becker to spend her final moments.
Initially, they ventured to a familiar horror movie locale. “We’d gone to the Cujo house,” Miller told E!, “and I think that’s when the location manager saw the house back in the trees and made contact with the people.” While they opted not to shoot at the Cujo homestead, Williamson told The Ringer the famous abode was production basecamp for the opening shoot.
It was that “house back in the trees” which would go on to become the Beckers, and it was located next to an isolated vineyard. “Although it looks like this beautiful idyllic setting, if you’re in that house and someone’s wandering around outside stalking you, you’re very vulnerable.”
Scenes filmed at Casey’s house
- Casey on the phone with the killer
- Casey’s attack and death
- Casey’s parents coming home
Stories from the set
Throughout production, Craven chose to shield the actor who voiced Ghostface from the cast. Roger Jackson, who plays the spectral killer, was not in the same room as Barrymore for filming. In fact, the two never met. “We hid him. We had separate rooms. He was never around. He was never at craft services. He was absolutely incognito. It made it scary for the actors and Wes just got better performances out of them,” executive producer Marianne Maddelena told THR.
“The first night when we were filming the bulk of the scene with Ms. Barrymore, I was outside the window under a little canopy trying to keep dry because it was raining,” Jackson explained to THR.
“I’m looking at her through the window while I’m talking to her on the phone, but she couldn’t see outside. Then on the second night they moved me to the garage of the house and set me up with a monitor so I could watch the camera feed.”
Woodsboro High School – Sonoma Community Center, 276 E Napa St, Sonoma, CA
Discovering the Santa Rosa High School was part of what clinched the production’s decision to shoot in that area, Miller describing it as “Gothic, and has a kind of castle-like quality to it. It’s Gorgeous To Look At, and it looks a little scary.”
But they didn’t shoot there.
Despite this perfect locale, things didn’t quite go to plan. While the school administration and the Principal were excited for the movie’s production to enter its halls, shortly before cameras were set to roll the Santa Rosa School Board finally read the script and took umbrage with the violence.
In addition to the movie’s they even referred to the movie’s Principal Himbry as “foul-mouthed” even though he only calls two pranksters little shits.
At a public forum it was decided that the movie would not be shot there. Craven was frustrated by the way the decision had been reached: “It was all based on a manufactured reality… Over and over they were saying it was about disemboweled teenagers, and a foul-mouthed principal. From that you could imagine that every other scene is people being gutted, and having their viscera being thrown at the camera, while the principal was running around using four-letter words. If I heard that, I would say. ‘Hey. wait a minute, let me read it,’ but people just accepted that that was what the script was about, which was completely not the case.”
The way the issue was finally resolved was not to my liking,” Williamson told Cinefantastique, “because it was counter to the message of the film, which is that you can’t blame movies for real life violence. The Santa Rosa school board felt that, *We can, and we do,’ and they did. As a result, we weren’t allowed to shoot at their school. “
While the ethical frustrations facing the filmmakers were aplenty, the delay also cost Miramax what Craven estimated to be around $350,000. Despite several other schools in the surrounding area following suit, and refusing Craven’s production, they eventually found a spot that worked perfectly – Sonoma Community Center.
“It had been a high school and it didn’t fall under the jurisdiction of any of the school boards, so we could pay to use it,” said Dimension Films development head, Richard Potter.
Scenes filmed at Sonoma Community Center
- Sidney arrives to school the morning after the opening deaths
- Sidney in class
- Stu, Tatum, and Sidney hanging out at the lockers
- Sidney’s bathroom attack and discussion with Billy
- Stu, Tatum, and Sidney leave school when Principal Himbry announces curfew
Note: the Principal Himbry office sequences were shot on a warehouse set in downtown Santa Rosa.
Stories from the set
Originally the Sonoma Grammar School, this landmark building became the Sonoma Community Center in 1952 and has since established its mission as a place “where recreational, artistic, instructive, literary, and educational projects for the general welfare of the community may be furthered.”
The Center recently celebrated its 70th birthday which included photos and mementoes from the Scream set.
The Riley house – 824 McDonald Ave, Santa Rosa, CA
The Riley house in Scream
The Riley household is nestled in amongst other Santa Rosa horror hotspot. “It was right across the street from the house used by Alfred Hitchcock in Shadow of a Doubt,” noted Miller. “It was a wonderful fluke, because Shadow of a Doubt is one of my favorite movies.” While Miller had hoped to film in that iconic horror abode, the upstairs landing didn’t have sufficient space, so they ventured across the street for what would become the Riley house.
Despite the upstairs being unsuited, one room at 904 MacDonald Ave did make it into the finished product: the kitchen from the Shadow of a Doubt house is where they filmed the Riley house breakfast scene. Thanks to Mark Hough for confirming!
Scenes filmed at the Riley house
- Sidney and Tatum hang out in Tatum’s bedroom
- Before the party they hang out on Tatum’s deck
Stories from the set
During filming, Hitchcock hung out on 824’s beautiful porch – the very same wraparound one Sidney and Tatum spend time on while being stalked by Ghostface.
While scouting for the location, the crew visited the house across the street – the aforementioned Shadow of a Doubt house which was owned by a widow whose grandchildren often came to stay. It was here, in one of their rooms, that producer Marienna Maddelena spotted a mask draped over a chair: the Ghostface mask that would become an iconic part of Scream lore.
“We were scouting a location and we went to this two-story house on this lovely street. The lady was fine with us walking around and I went upstairs and there was a boy’s bedroom. It had the feeling that no one had been in it for a while. Like, whoever had moved out. And I saw the mask sitting on a chair. At the time it had a white shroud. And I thought, “Oh my God, this mask, this is it.”
Downtown Woodsboro – Healdsburg, CA Town Center
To capture the small-town feel Craven felt integral to the movie, producers honed in on Healdsburg Town Center to stand in for downtown Woodsboro. “It had a very pretty town square,” revealed Miller to Cinefantastique. “It really looked more like New England than California.”
The police station – City Hall, 124 Matheson Street, Healdsburg, CA
The police station where Billy is questioned, where Sidney waits for Tatum, and the infamous alleyway where Sidney punches Gale were all filmed at the same place — Healdsburg City Hall.
“There’s a City Hall on the corner of the square that we turned into our police station. We just changed some signs and put a few things in the windows. We couldn’t use a real police station, because we would have been at their mercy, and we couldn’t be disrupting their police activity,” Miller told Cinefantastique.
We also see the building later on when Dewey drops off Sidney and Tatum in town before the party. In this screenshot, you can see evidence of City Hall. Just beside Tatum is a drop-box for people to pay their city utility bills:
Healdsburg City Hall was relocated elsewhere shortly after filming on Scream wrapped, but the building remains. It’s now a deli called Oakville Grocery that retains some of the original – and recognisable – structures that made their way into the film.
The town square and fountain – Healdsburg Plaza Park, 217 Healdsburg Ave, CA
The town square appears for establishing shots and lengthier dialogue sequences in Scream. Craven lensed quick snatches of a garbage truck to denote early morning in Woodsboro at the corner of the park, and part of the town curfew montage features store owners locking up and a mother and child rushing to their car.
But its most memorable sequence features the core gang chewing the fat over Casey and Steve’s murders. This is where we first meet Stu and Randy and we’re treated to the “liver alone” pun by Matthew Lillard and Matthew Lillard’s extremely long tongue.
This one-acre urban park sits at the intersection of Matheson Street and Healdsburg Ave, and was dubbed one of the most beautiful town squares in the US.
The grocery store – Pacific Market, 1465 Town and Country Drive, Santa Rosa, CA
The Pacific Market in Santa Rosa was known as Town and Country Market in 1996 during filming and when I visited in 2008. You can see my photo above (that’s my then-partner looking very excited about shopping carts) which I took without a movie still for reference – and I suspect I’m in the wrong spot entirely! Surely this means another visit is on the cards to rectify this massive error?
The scenes filmed here follow on from Sidney and Tatum hanging out at the Rileys. Dewey drops them off outside the police station and they wander over to the store, where they are stalked through the aisles by Ghostface.
Randy’s Video Store – Bradley Video, 3080 Marlow Road, Santa Rosa CA
Part of the allure of Scream is its love of movies. The video store where Randy works ropes in a slew of visual nods – a promotional standee of Jamie Lee Curtis in Mother’s Boys – alongside its staple sound bites. A customer asks Randy for “the werewolf movie with ET’s mom in it,” to which he fires back, “The Howling. Horror. Straight ahead.”
But it’s the existence of the actual establishment itself that anchors the film to its era. A small town under a curfew and what’s everyone doing? Hitting up the video store! And this isn’t a Blockbuster the kids frequent either, but a local Bay Area video store called Bradley Video.
Unfortunately the store closed down in 2008 after the owner filed for bankruptcy, along with another 10 Bradley Video locations in the area. The building where it was once located remains vacant, if you want to visit it and commiserate.
A big thank you to I Am Not A Stalker for the image of Bradley Video.
Visiting the Scream filming locations
With the exception of three scenes – Sidney’s bedroom, Principal Himbry’s office and the high school bathroom – the entirety of Scream was filmed on location. Once you’re in Sonoma County you can explore most of the sites without permission. Several homes sit on private properties that require homeowner consent before visiting.
Travel and accommodation options
Airports and public transportation
The closest major airport is San Francisco International. Sonoma County Airport located in Santa Rosa offers direct flights from eleven locations in the US. Of course, you can connect from elsewhere at those departure airports too.
Hire a car
From there, you can rent a car – you can book in advance thru Qeeq or try DiscoverCars.com to find a better price than going directly to the main car rental companies.
Take the bus
You can take a shuttle bus up to Sonoma County which takes around 2.5 hours and costs $48 with multiple drop-off options.
A cheaper option is the Greyhound or Amtrak that takes you from San Francisco International Airport to Santa Rosa Transit Terminal. Find the best option on Busbud.
Hotels and lodging recommendations
Sonoma county offers plenty in the ways of budget, moderate, and luxury accommodations – it all depends on what you’re looking for.
Mid-priced option: The DoubleTree by Hilton Sonoma Wine Country
The rates are what you’d expect for a three-star hotel in the middle of wine country, around $160 per night. Plus, if taking the SFO-Santa Rosa airport shuttle you can get dropped right at its doors. And, while it boasts the same name as the hotel where the cast stayed during filming, that original site burned down in the 2017 Tubbs Fire which devastated Santa Rosa and the surrounding areas.
Luxury option: The Vintners
This is a more up-scale spot that starts at around $300 a night.
Budget option: Point Reyes Hostel
I stayed a little out of town at the Point Reyes Hostel, which was clean and affordable at around $50 a night. It’s around a 40 minute drive from Santa Rosa. You can also try a Quality Inn in Santa Rosa.
The Scream House tour
The only organized tour of the Scream locations currently on offer lets you experience the Victorian house at 3871 Tomales Petaluma Road – aka Stu’s house.
The entire property is now a wedding venue that’s also leased out for other tours and parties – including a group that hosts Scream-related tours. For 2023, you can visit in July and October and prices are $200 per person. You can book over at Eventbrite.
Self-guided tour tips
Preparing for your visit
I’d recommend doing a combination of the Scream house tour along with a self-guided tour of some other key locations.
Back in 2008 when I visited the locations, there were no house tours of Stu’s abode available. Somehow, we managed to find the road below – bear in mind, this was before smartphones, GPS, etc – and I snapped this phenomenal photo that appears as if it were plucked from the movie itself:
While you might struggle to see all of the locations, once you’ve visited Santa Rosa, Healdsburg and Sonoma – and once you see Stu’s house – you’ll get a feel for the movie.
Navigating the locations
I recommend breaking up a visit into two days.
Day One
- Bradley Video, Santa Rosa
- Tatum’s house, Santa Rosa
- Pacific Market, Santa Rosa
- Woodsboro Town Square, Healdsburg
- Woodsboro Police Station, Healdsburg
Day Two
- Sonoma Community Center, Sonoma
- Casey’s house, Glen Ellen – you might not have access
- Stu’s house, Tomales-Petaluma Road – you can try to recreate my amazing photo up top from the roadside if you don’t opt for the tour!
- Sidney’s house, Santa Rosa – you may also struggle to get access as it’s now behind a gated driveway.
- If Day Two feels a little sparse – you can always visit a few other spots nearby.
Hiring a car offers the most ease to get to the more awkward spots, but local buses are an option.
Safety and etiquette while visiting
The biggest note about all of these locales is noting which ones are private residences and which ones are accessible to the public. Some homeowners don’t welcome Scream fans onto their property, which is to be expected.
Places to Visit in the Area
Other horror movie locations nearby
Luckily, John Carpenter’s The Fog lensed in this area. An hour’s drive west and you can visit the Point Reyes Lighthouse in Inverness where Stevie hosts her radio show amid the creeping fog.
Hitchcock had some affection for the area, filming Shadow of a Doubt in Santa Rosa, then returning to film The Birds in nearby Bodega Bay a few years later.
Local attractions and activities
Rancho Obi-Wan, Petaluma
If you’re a Star Wars fan then I’d recommend checking out Rancho Obi-Wan, the largest collection of Star Wars items in the world. Curated and carefully tended by Steve Sansweet, the former head of Fan Relations and Director of Content Management at Lucasfilm, this archive is nearly 25 years old.
Jack London’s Wolf House, Glen Ellen
The remains of Jack London’s abode still sit, silently eroding, and they’re rather haunting.
Tell us about your visit
That’s all here for now on the Scream locations, but if you’ve any hints or tips on how you perhaps got a better view of Stu’s house or if you got permission to snap a pic of Sidney’s house – let me know in the comments!
Correction. Tatum’s kitchen was shot in the Shadow of a Doubt house. I was there.
Thank you Mark for shedding extra light on this location! Will update post to reflect this 🙂
The breakfast scene at Tatum’s house was actually filmed across the street from the actual location for Exteriors. It was shot inside the house that AlfredHitchcock used in shadow of a doubt. I know this because I lived in Santa Rosa at the time of filming and I am also involved in Film Production in the northern Bay Area. If you could make that correction it would be greatly appreciated, and I’m sure the fans would appreciate where that scene was actually shot