The new Scream movie will reunite fans with the three leads of the film series, and this might be the movie that finally sees the death of Dewey Riley. The 1990s are often considered a weak decade in horror, but it saw the arrival of some movies that ended up becoming classics. One of the most notable and influential horror movies from the 1990s is Scream, written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Wes Craven. Scream is credited with revitalizing the slasher genre in the 1990s, and it was praised for how it addressed horror clichés and how the characters are aware of real-world horror movies, even using them as a guide to surviving the nightmare they are living.
Scream introduced viewers to Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) a high school student dealing with the murder of her mother and who begins to be haunted by a masked killer wearing a costume known as Ghostface. Sidney and her friends soon become Ghostface’s targets, and some of them are brutally killed. Sidney eventually discovers the truth about Ghostface and stops their murder sprees, with the help of her best friend Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy), her close friend and the town’s sheriff Dwight “Dewey” Riley (David Arquette), and antagonist-turned-ally Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox). Unfortunately for them, this was only the beginning of more murder sprees, and not all of these characters made it to the fifth Scream movie, as Randy was killed in Scream 2.
Gale and Dewey continued by Sidney’s side through all the sequels, and viewers also saw their relationship develop, and it wasn't an easy one. Gale used Dewey in Scream for her own, selfish purposes, but their chemistry kept growing in Scream 2 and Scream 3, and by the end of the latter, Dewey proposed. Scream 4 saw them as a married couple, but it all points at their relationship being different in the new Scream. Both Gale and Dewey are featured in the first trailer for Scream, but Dewey looks very different, and there are a couple of details that could be pointing at him not surviving these new attacks.
Scream 2022’s Trailer Hints At Ghostface Killing Dewey
The first trailer for Scream does a great job at giving a taste of the tone of the movie, the brutality of Ghostface’s new murders, and a hint at why they are targeting these victims. At one point, new character Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) shares with Dewey and others that Ghostface is attacking those linked somehow to previous killers, and to Dewey’s bad luck, as well as Sidney’s and Gale’s, they are all connected to the previous Ghostface killers. However, there’s something off about Dewey in the trailer as well as a lot of emphasis on him, hinting not only at a bigger role in Scream but also his death.
Dewey shows up in the trailer to tell Sidney that “it’s happening” again, there have already been three murders, and asks Sidney if she has a gun, to which she replies “I’m Sidney Prescott, of course I have a gun”. Dewey looks not only understandably shaken but also quite disheveled, which isn’t normal for him. Dewey is also shown living in what looks like a camper, suggesting he’s no longer with Gale, so he’s probably already going through a rough time and the murders are only adding to his problems. In addition to all that, Dewey is the one delivering the “rules to successfully survive a horror movie” in Scream 2022, a role Randy Meeks had in the first three movies (in Scream 3, he did so through a recorded message), he’s later seen going after Ghostface in a hospital, without any backup, and the montage of Ghostface attacks towards the end of the trailer shows Ghostface attacking Dewey, as well as a very quick shot of Gale screaming and being held back.
Theory: Dewey Dies In Scream 2022 (How & Why)
All of these hints point at Dewey dying in Scream, but the biggest questions are how he will die and why. Being a slasher movie, Dewey will definitely die at the hands of the new Ghostface, and while their preferred method is stabbing, previous Ghostface killers were creative sometimes: Tatum (Dewey’s sister) was killed when she was crushed by a garage door, officer Richards was impaled in Scream 2, and Tom Prinze was killed in an explosion in Scream 3. As to why Dewey will be one of the victims of the new Ghostface, he unfortunately has everything playing against him: he’s one of the three characters from the first Scream movie that are still alive, he’s taking a mentor-like role by telling the younger characters about the rules, he’s stepping in to confront the killer by himself, he has connections to all past killers (simply because he was one of their targets), and he doesn’t seem to be going through a good time in his life.
Why Dewey’s Death Makes Sense For Scream 2022
Each Scream movie has touched upon a horror cliché and theme: Scream was all about typical horror movie clichés, Scream 2 criticized sequels, Scream 3 addressed the rules for the end of a trilogy, and Scream 4 explained the rules for a remake. Scream 2022, then, will surely be about reboots and nostalgia, and mentor figures rarely survive these nowadays. Dewey’s history in the Scream film series isn’t on his side either – he was stabbed in the back in Scream and narrowly survived, he was stabbed several times (in front of Gale) in Scream 2, and he was hit in the head multiple times with a bedpan in Scream 4, leaving him unconscious. In fact, Dewey was originally planned to die in Scream, but Wes Craven liked the character so much he decided to shoot the scene where he’s being carried into an ambulance, and ultimately went for that ending for the character, allowing him to continue for the rest of the series – but his time might be up for real now, and it would make sense for Dewey to die in Scream as he’s a perfect target, has been very close to dying multiple times, and he can die as a hero by guiding the younger characters through this new nightmare (and he would leave Marley Shelton’s Judy Hicks in his place).
What Dewey’s Death Would Mean For The Scream Franchise
Being not only one of the only three original characters from Scream that are still around but also a favorite of the audience, Dewey’s death would be a big shake-up for the Scream franchise and for fans, but it’s also a move that feels necessary and even organic at this point. While any of the three main characters could die in this new movie, Dewey is the one who has always felt closer to death, but contrary to many other characters who died in the Scream franchise, he can actually die a hero. As mentioned above, Dewey seems to be on his way to becoming a guide or mentor to the new characters and will confront Ghostface all by himself, and while he’s shown armed with a gun (as he has definitely learned well that the only way to effectively defeat the killer is with a bullet to the head), the new Ghostface might be quicker and more skilled. Still, Dewey would die as a hero as he did everything he could to keep the killer’s potential targets safe, and if the trailer is to be believed, Dewey might die at the hospital defending Sam from Ghostface. Dewey, then, would become a hero in the Scream franchise, and while his place in future movies (if there are any) can be filled in by Judy Hicks, the characters (and the audience) will never forget him.
Like the previous movies, the new Scream will surely have a couple of plot twists and surprises, and Dewey’s death might be included in the package. While fans will surely be heartbroken to see him go, Scream can give him the goodbye he deserves, and he will still be key in stopping the new wave of murders in Woodsboro and keeping Sidney and Gale safe, as he has done many times before.
