Ghostface AI Trend: Where It Started and How to Make It

1. Pick a clear, well lit photo of yourself, face toward the camera. Only use photos of yourself or of adults who agreed.
2. Open an AI image app that edits an uploaded photo; Gemini is the one the trend started in, and ChatGPT also takes a photo with a text instruction.
3. Upload the photo and paste one of the prompts below. Keep the first sentence: it is what keeps the face yours.
4. Generate two or three versions and keep the one where your face is right; small changes to the eyes and jaw are the usual miss.
5. Post it next to the original photo, which is how the trend is usually shared.

An app may refuse a named film character or change it. If yours does, use the third prompt, which describes a generic masked figure instead.

Starting points we wrote ourselves; each app reads them a little differently, and we have not tested them in every app.

Use my photo. Keep my face, hairstyle and expression exactly as they are. I am lying on my bed in a late-1990s bedroom at night, pink satin sheets, posters on the wall, holding a big corded phone to my ear. Behind me, in the dark doorway, Ghostface from the Scream films stands still, half in shadow. Grainy 90s film photo, warm lamp light, soft focus on the doorway. No text.

Use my photo. Keep my face, hairstyle and expression exactly as they are. I sit on a sofa in a dim 1990s living room on Halloween night with a bowl of popcorn, lit only by the TV. Ghostface from the Scream films is reflected in the dark window behind me. Disposable camera flash, film grain, faded colours. No text.

Use my photo. Keep my face, hairstyle and expression exactly as they are. I am on my bed at night holding a corded phone, lit by a small lamp. Behind me, half hidden in the dark doorway, stands a tall figure in a black hooded robe and a plain white mask. 1990s film photo, grain, the figure slightly out of focus. No text.

The Ghost Face mask is not public domain. Fun World, a division of Easter Unlimited, registered its copyright in 1993, holds a trademark on the costume’s design, licensed the mask to the first Scream film in 1996, and has gone to court over its use on merchandise (the 2018 suit against basketball player Terry Rozier). The character itself belongs to the Scream films.

Posting a fan edit of yourself is how the trend spreads, but selling it, printing it on products or using it to advertise something is a different matter. If you need an image you can use commercially, use the generic masked figure in prompt 3. We are not lawyers; this is what the public record shows, not legal advice.

Creators animate the finished still with app templates or image-to-video models, which add a few seconds of movement: the mask stepping closer, the phone cord swinging. Results depend on the tool, and the same rights limits apply to the moving version.

AI Halloween does not make Ghostface or any film character. What it makes is the video side of the Halloween AI trend: two everyday photos become a 15-second zombie short with sound, where someone you love has turned, the gun drops and the leap ends in a hug. 12 credits at 720p; no free generation and no free preview.