TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Scream: Legacy Trio
(aka: Scream Dewey Riley)

Go To

Characters in Scream: Legacy Trio
L-R: Dewey Riley, Sidney Prescott, Gale Weathers

"You know how they say it always goes back to the original? Here's the original."
Gale Weathers, Scream (2022)

The original trio of survivors from the first through the fifth movies.


    open/close all folders 

    In General 

  • Dwindling Party: They survive four movies with nary a casualty until Dewey bites it partway through the fifth. By extension, this also leaves Sidney and Gale as the only survivors of the original Woodsboro massacre, Randy being killed in the Windsor College Murders and Neil having passed away between the third and fourth films.
  • Nice, Mean, and In-Between: Dewey is the nice, who is kind to everyone at almost all times, including the townspeople and his subordinates almost to a fault. Gale is the mean, who even after taking a level in kindness is still the roughest in calmest of situations, and Sidney is the kind but guarded in between, who's not afraid to throw a punch or snark at someone who's disrespecting her.
  • Power Trio:
    • Kind-hearted and protective Dewey is the Id.
    • Intelligent and ruthless Gale is the Superego.
    • Level-headed and brave Sidney is the Ego.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: In Scream 2, Dewey and Sidney get along fine due to their previous friendship, but both of them have personal issues with Gale, who dumped the former and exploited the latter's hardships. All three become Fire-Forged Friends by the third movie.
  • Two Girls and a Guy: The Woodsboro survivor group starts out as a Gender-Equal Ensemble quartet, but Randy's death leaves Dewey as the only guy.

    Sidney Prescott 

Sidney "Sid" Prescott

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sidney_scream1.png
"I'm Sidney fucking Prescott, of course I have a gun."

Played By: Neve Campbell

Dubbed By: Michiko Neya (Japanese), María del Mar Tamarit (European Spanish)

Appearances: Scream (1996) | Scream 2 | Scream 3 | Scream 4 | Scream (2022) | Scream 7

"You forgot the first rule of remakes... don't fuck with the original."

The professional survivor, Sidney's life has been defined by a series of killing sprees all directed at her. First her mother Maureen was killed out of a jealous rage, then her friends in high school and college were hacked to bits, and then they started making hit slasher movies based on her tragedy. While this has brought her fame, fortune and a bestselling autobiography, it also means that she has had to spend large parts of her adult life constantly looking over her shoulder for the next wannabe Ghostface.


  • Action Girl: By the fourth film, she's ready to take on the killer at the drop of a hat. In the fifth, her response to Dewey as to whether or not she's prepared for the new attacks solidifies her status.
    Sidney: I'm Sidney fucking Prescott. Of course I have a gun.
  • Action Mom: Sid is married with kids by the fifth film. She still returns to Woodsboro to help kill the new Ghostfaces.
  • Advertised Extra: Much of the marketing for 5 made it look like Sidney would be the protagonist, but the role is actually filled by Sam Carpenter. Sidney is the Big Good who, apart from her phone call with Dewey, only shows up for the film's final act.
  • Agonizing Stomach Wound: Sidney survives this type of wound in both the fourth and fifth films, though is in critical condition and hospitalized in the ICU during the former.
  • Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: By the time of the third film, she became distant to other people due to being a Broken Bird.
  • And Starring: As one of the legacy characters, but not the protagonist, she receives this billing in the fifth film.
  • Arch-Enemy: While the Ghostfaces of the first four films all share a general interest in targeting Sidney and ending her life, some have specific animosity toward her.
    • Billy Loomis killed her mother and wants her to die in a plot that makes her father the Fall Guy for his and Stu's scheme. Even after his death, his legacy continues to torment Sidney as it plays directly into her distrust of her next boyfriend Derek, Billy's mother seeking to kill Sidney for causing her son's death, the emergence of other Ghostfaces seeking to kill her where Billy failed, and meeting Billy's illegitimate daughter conceived during the time they dated.
    • Roman orchestrated the killing of their mother and plotted to both frame Sidney for his own crimes and take her life out of jealousy for her being the child Maureen accepted. Roman was notably the first Ghostface to use Sidney's friends as bait to get her to do his bidding and the only one she faced who operated alone.
    • Jill reminds Sidney of herself when she was younger and is seemingly targeted by Ghostface, making it all the more shocking for Sidney when the former reveals that she seeks to mimic Sidney's image as a survivor by committing the murders herself. Even after her failed attempt to kill Sidney comes closer to ending the latter's life than anyone before her, just hearing the possibility of her survival spurs her to launch another attack.
  • The Artifact: The first four films (all directed by Wes Craven) follow a general pattern of Sidney being targeted by Ghostface, who elicits her involvement in the story by either coming after her or someone she is close to first. The fifth film subverts this by having neither Amber or Richie seek her out, but elicit her involvement due to the former's murder of Dewey. Before this she has little to no role in the story but remains present because of her friendship with Dewey established in the Craven-directed films.
  • Attack the Injury: When Billy has her pinned down in the first movie, she sticks her fingers into the stab wound she inflicted with an umbrella earlier.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: In the fifth film, when Amber comes out the house pretending to have been a victim of Ghostface's attack, Sidney and Gale can correctly tell she is faking.
  • The Baby of the Bunch: Sidney is the youngest of the original trio.
  • Badass Adorable: A very pretty, naturally sweet-natured young woman who only becomes more badass with each passing installment. In her first on-screen fight against Ghostface, she successfully holds her own and knocks him down, and can generally be counted on to put up a strong fight.
  • Berserk Button: Invoking her mother or threatening her friends can set her off the deep end.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Transforms into this as her character evolves over the course of the series.
  • Big Good: Sidney becomes one throughout each of the movies, the fourth and fifth movies especially, where It's Personal and she's willing to take a proactive approach.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: Let's see. Her mom was a Broken Bird who did not process her trauma in any healthy way, her brother Roman and cousin Jill were two psychotic, self-obsessed, jealous murderers, and her aunt Kate was a bitter, resentful woman who may have played a small part in Jill becoming as messed up as she did.
  • Big Sister Instinct: Goes above and beyond to protect Jill from Ghostface in the fourth film. It’s all the more heartbreaking when it turns out Jill is Ghostface herself.
  • Brainy Brunette: Sidney has dark hair and is smart enough to live through all the movies.
  • Broken Bird: She shows what constantly being the Final Girl in real life would be like.
  • Bully Hunter: When she actively fights back against Ghostface, who beneath the mask would simply be The Bully in another work, if not a Serial Killer in a horror film.
  • Bullying a Dragon: The more Ax-Crazy killers she puts in the ground, the more blatantly stupid it becomes for a copycat killer to mess with her. They still keep coming for her, though.
    Mickey: I've worked hard to give the audience what they want. See, that's what Billy was good at. He knew it was all about execution.
    Sidney: Yeah? Well, you're forgetting an important thing about Billy Loomis.
    Mickey: What's that?
    Sidney: I fucking killed him!
  • Butt-Monkey: When you consider that she's destined to spend the rest of her life being periodically attacked by masked psychopaths attempting to copy one another's murder sprees. Oh, and Tori Spelling played her in the Stab movie. Why, Sidney, did you have to mention that?
  • Cain and Abel: The Abel to Roman's Cain in Scream 3. Roman is a half-brother she never knew about, who has a vendetta against her because Maureen picked her over him.
    Roman: I shot you.
    Sidney: [reveals bullet proof vest] I guess we think alike.
  • The Call Knows Where You Live: Scream 3 opens with her living in an isolated cabin, where she works remotely as a therapist. Then Ghostface tracks her down and begins messing with her mind, forcing her to reunite with Dewey and Gale, noting that the cabin is no longer safe and she may as well be with people when things go south.
  • Cartwright Curse: The first two boyfriends she had die; Billy because he was one of the killers and she had to put him down herself, and Derek because he was a suspect and she didn't act fast enough before Mickey killed him. Finally subverted in the third film, where her Implied Love Interest Kincaid ends up surviving.
  • Catchphrase: "Fuck you!" has kind of become hers over the years. Every Ghostface has tried to give their Motive Rant when they finally confront her and she's been having none of it.
  • Celibate Hero: In the third and fourth films, she no longer dates anyone and mostly keeps to herself.
  • Character Development: At the beginning of the first film, she's just a perky high school kid who, over time, develops into a guilt-ridden survivor in the second film, to a reclusive hermit by the third. The fourth, however, shows that, many years later, she's fully willing to take the fight to the killer, having her first encounter with him directly after Olivia's death. And winning. She goes even further in the fifth film, not only being extremely aware of how dangerous Ghostface is to the point of trying to get Sam to not run off, but tracking her and deliberately trying to take out the two Ghostfaces with all the energy of a tired war veteran. She even outright mocks and hangs up on Ghostface, showing just how little fear is left within her.
  • Clashing Cousins: With Jill Roberts in Scream 4.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Sidney uses anything at her disposal when Ghostface comes for her; umbrellas, guns, defibrillators, sticking her fingers into open wounds, biting the killer, you name it.
  • Cosmic Plaything: Her life, to put it bluntly, sucks. She's targeted repeatedly by various serial killers who make an effort to torment her all the while acting like they're the victim, subject to repeated harassment by the media and random pranksters for her survival of the killing spree, and suffers from near-constant betrayal and loss. It's at its worst in the second film, by the end of which she's lost the life she's struggled so hard to build because of Mrs. Loomis's Revenge Myopia and Mickey's pathetic desire to become famous.
  • Crazy-Prepared: In the third film, Ghostface has Sidney use a metal detector before inviting her inside, and she reveals a gun in an ankle holster. He has her get rid of it, but didn't consider she also had a second gun taped to the same ankle. Like Roman, the Ghostface in that movie, she was also smart enough to wear a bulletproof vest as well, which ends up saving her life when Ghostface shoots her. In the fifth movie, once she enters Amber's house (formerly Stu's house), she starts shooting every door, with the knowledge that Ghostface likes to pop out and ambush her from there, which ends up working in her favour as it wounds Richie, giving everyone a significant advantage against him when he's revealed to be the killer.
  • Daddy's Girl: While we don't see a lot of screentime between Sidney and her father, Neil, we do see how much they do genuinely care for each other. She is affectionate whenever he leaves on a business trip and calls him "daddy" instead of just "dad".
  • Damsel out of Distress: While she's the target for each Ghostface, she survives each encounter by taking them out instead.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Before the events of the original film, Sidney has spent the past year coping with the death of her mother which has included having having to testify against her accused killer Cotton Weary and being under scrutiny from media figures such as Gale Weathers.
  • Deconstructed Character Archetype: Being the Final Girl in real life is not good for one's mental health. She has genuine PTSD due to her experiences, she begins Scream 3 as a reclusive hermit out of fear for her life, and in general she has had her entire adult life defined by what occurred in 1996.
  • Decoy Protagonist: In the fifth film, Dewey contacts Sidney after the first Ghostface murders and it appears she will be taking center-stage to stop the new spree. Instead, Sidney rebuffs any intention of going to Woodsboro and the plot continues to focus on Sam Carpenter, with Sidney not getting involved in the plot until Dewey is killed, making it a case of It's Personal.
  • The Dog Bites Back: In the original film, after Billy successfully killed her mother and tries to kill her, Sidney defeats him and ends his life.
  • Doom Magnet: She's destined to spend the rest of her life being periodically attacked and having all her friends killed by nutjobs trying to imitate the previous killers. In the second movie, her drama teacher outright compares her to Cassandra, a woman from Greek myth who was cursed.
  • Double Tap: After Billy and Mickey have both sprung up after seemingly being shot dead at the end of their respective killing sprees, Sidney refuses to allow Mrs. Loomis to do the same and shoots her corpse in the head to make sure she doesn’t get back up. She also advises Sam to do this as well at the end of the fifth movie, which prompts Sam to shoot Richie’s corpse three times, the final time in the head.
  • Drama Club: She's a theater student in the second film, playing Cassandra in a stage play, and the fourth film reveals that she played Tiger Lily in a high school production of Peter Pan.
  • Dramatic Irony: Though she wears it temporary to get the drop on her killers, Sidney is technically the first Ghostface to unmask themselves as both Billy and Stu reveal themselves without the costume on.
  • Dude Magnet: She dates Billy, Derek, and Kincaid over the course of the series, but also attracts Stu (who admits he always had a thing for her) and Randy without even trying. She eventually settles down with Mark Evans during the interim between Scream 4 and 5.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: By the fifth movie, she has moved on from Woodsboro, settled down with a man named Mark Evans, and had children with him. Even more so, by Scream VI, while she sends her love to Gale and the Carpenter sisters, she finally has found the strength to put Ghostface behind her and not get involved, which the three agree is for the best.
  • Enemy Mine: A rare heroic example, as she teams up with Gale to stop both Billy and Stu.
  • Everyone Went to School Together: Judy Hicks, a new character in 4, reveals that she and Sidney went to high school together, though the latter does not remember her. Likewise, Sam Carpenter, the protagonist of the fifth and sixth films, is the daughter of a former classmate of Sidney's.
  • Experienced Protagonist: By the third film, she's become Crazy-Prepared enough to actually successfully take on Ghostface, and is savvy enough to their tactics to get the drop on them. By the fourth film, she's no longer running from Ghostface save to protect others, actively charges towards danger to save others, and shows little fear when fighting Ghostface directly. By the time of the fifth movie, over twenty years after the original killings, she's become such that she keeps two high-powered pistols on her person at all times, has so little fear of Ghostface to hang up rather than play their games, and even identifies one of the killers almost immediately upon seeing them. During the climax, she's actively engaging in Casual Danger Dialogue with Gale during the whole fight.
  • Fall Guy: Subverted. Roman intended to blame her for his killing of John Milton by planting a fake recording of her voice swearing revenge on the latter's answer machine, but the former is killed while trying to execute this cover-up.
  • Famed in Story: Becomes a celebrity after the events of the first movie.
  • Final Girl: Initially played straight (except for the film's subversion of Sex Signals Death), although she slowly evolves into a deconstruction as the series goes on, with her life defined by her "perpetual victimhood" and the bloody consequences that this has for those around her.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: Sidney and Gale start out, to put it lightly, on a bad note, with Gale exploiting the violent death of Sidney's mother for the sake of book sales and publicly casting doubt on Sidney's testimony against the supposed killer. However, they're forced to team up against Ghostface during the first film's climax, and from there, their relationship slowly improves over the series. By the fifth and sixth films, they're solid friends.
  • Foil:
    • To the primary Ghostfaces in the first three films. Billy, Nancy, and Roman all suffered from legitimate trauma but choose to deal with it by lashing out at innocent people and using their suffering as an excuse to shirk responsibility for their actions. Meanwhile, whilst Sidney struggles to recover from her traumas and resultant PTSD, she still does her best to help the people around her and does her best to make up for her mistakes.
    • To Dewey Riley. While Dewey is already an adult when the series starts and is the older brother of Tatum, Sidney is still in high school and is around the same age as Tatum. Dewey quickly develops a rapport with Gale, while Sidney has a slower transition to being on friendly terms with her. Dewey's family is shown to be generally friendly and supportive of him, while multiple family members of Sidney (namely Roman and Jill) are antagonistic to her. Sidney leaves Woodsboro repeatedly and makes sporadic appearances usually only during a Ghostface murder spree, while Dewey stays there and becomes a staple of the community as an officer. Ghostface never specifically targets Dewey, but almost always targets Sidney. Both are struck by Jill in a sneak attack, but Sidney is still conscious, while Dewey is rendered unconscious from her attack. Although both were present for five Ghostface murder sprees and neither are successful in killing either Ghostface, Dewey is killed by Amber, while Sidney survives both Amber and Richie.
    • To Gale Weathers. Sidney was personally involved in the Maureen Prescott case, while Gale just covered it without any emotional investment. While both met Cotton Weary, Sidney played a role in his imprisonment by identifying him as her mother's killer and never spoke to him while he was jailed, while Gale was involved in trying to prove him innocent and spoke to him during his imprisonment. Although both are writers, Sidney writes to address her own trauma with little to no interest in financial or career gains, while Gale writes to increase her notoriety and wealth. While both survive multiple Ghostface murder sprees, Sidney is generally involved in some final confrontation that sees her face the killer one-on-one and kill them, while Gale normally only gets involved in small doses of the fight.
    • To Randy Meeks. Sidney dislikes horror movies and finds them insulting, while Randy loves them. Randy is a virgin in the original film, while Sidney has an intercourse with Billy. Sidney is never shot by either Billy or Stu despite their prolonged pointing of guns at her, while Randy is quickly shot by Billy after he reveals himself as one of the killers. Mrs. Loomis fails to kill Sidney out of revenge for her murder of her son, but succeeds in killing Randy after he badmouths Billy.
    • To Jill Roberts. Sidney has faced Ghostface multiple times and generally fights back, while Jill is inexperienced and mostly runs away. While Jill matches Sidney's background in living with a single parent, Jill lives with her mom, while Sidney lived with her dad. Although both had a boyfriend during their first Ghostface spree, Billy was one of the killers and tried to kill Sidney, while Trevor was not and was killed by Jill. Sidney was an innocent victim of the Ghostface sprees who unwillingly became famous from being a survivor, Jill is the perpetrator trying to pose as a victim hoping to get the same attention for herself that Sidney acquired. While Sidney lost her mother to Ghostface and loved her, Jill killed her mother simply to match Sidney's background and felt no affection for her. Although both are taken to a hospital, Sidney is there to recover from wounds caused by others, while all of Jill's were self-inflicted. During their final battle, Sidney has multiple allies like Dewey, Gale, and Judy come to assist her, while Jill operates alone.
  • Friendly Enemy: With Cotton in the second film.
  • Genre Savvy: "Horror movies are all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who's always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting."
  • Girls with Guns: After all of her encounters with Ghostfaces, she has learned to arm herself for her protection and that of her loved ones.
    Dewey: I want you to be safe up there. Do you have a gun?
    Sidney: I'm Sidney fucking Prescott. Of course I have a gun.
    (Dewey chuckles)
  • Good Is Not Soft: Generally a friendly person; however, as the killers learn the hard way, once you piss Sidney off, she will not hold back. She's also not afraid to punch Gale in the face for being an insensitive bitch in the first two movies.
  • Hated Hometown: Can you really blame her? When Dewey asks her not to come back to Woodsboro during the fifth massacre, she replies that she has no intention of doing so. She eventually does, but only to avenge Dewey after he's killed.
  • Heroes Love Dogs: In the third movie, she has a dog named Cherokee.
  • Heroic Second Wind: Her fight with Jill in 4. She is stabbed by her cousin prior to falling to the floor in an unconscious state, and recovers enough at the hospital to wake as Jill comes into her room to finish executing her. Sidney fights her on more even terms until the interventions of Dewey, Gale, and Judy lead to Jill's defeat.
  • Horrible Judge of Character:
    • Her romantic relationships with Billy and Derek in the original film and Scream 2 prove this. She is never able to see any of Billy's traits as similar to that of either a killer or someone dangerous until he reveals it to her. When she begins dating Derek, who is the polar opposite of Billy in just wanting what's best for Sidney, she is too scarred from her experience with the latter to ever give the former the benefit of the doubt and suspects that he could be trying to kill her all the way until shortly before he is killed in front of her.
    • When both Randy and Stu appear to her, bloodied and begging her to help them because the other is a psychopath, she can't decide which one if either is telling the truth and locks them both out. Though she was right about Stu, Randy was ultimately innocent.
    • She spends enough time with Mickey for them to have a solid rapport, but she never flags the fact he's a serial killer as well until he reveals it. Granted, Mickey was much better at hiding his psychopathy than either Stu or Billy, but still.
    • She never suspects that either Jill or Richie are killers in 4 and the fifth film, instead trying to rescue both from Ghostface until they engage in some sneak attack that reveals their true intentions.
    • Subverted though with the fifth film, where she's able to identify right away that Amber is one of the killers, and refuses to fall for their Wounded Gazelle Gambit.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Wields an array of Improvised Weapons throughout the series, to the point that it's practically a Running Gag. Her greatest hits include an ornate ice pick, an umbrella, a defibrillator, a framed picture on the wall, and a necklace. If you're trying to kill her, she can and will use anything she can get her hands on to defend herself, and use it well.
  • In-Series Nickname: She's also referred to as just "Sid" by others.
  • Irony: Both Roman and Jill target Sidney out of envy for her fame, unaware and uncaring that, while they would revel in it, Sidney has never sought the spotlight and values peace and happiness more than the fame she received as a survivor.
  • It's All My Fault: Because so many of her loved ones have been killed, she begins having survivor's guilt and believes that they died because of her. That said, while she feels guilt over their deaths, she spares no guilt for the Ghostfaces when they try to blame their problems on her, saying that they have no one to blame but their own screwed-up existences.
  • It's Personal: She tends to develop a personal animosity toward the killers in most of the films, usually brought on by them killing someone close to her. Billy killed her mother, Mrs. Loomis killed Randy, and Amber killed Dewey.
  • Kirk Summation: In the third film, she can't help but be annoyed and disgusted with Roman for blaming Sidney's existence for his life, and thus his eventual murdering spree. Finally, she gets fed up, having heard this speech before, and shouts furiously that he's really just looking for an excuse and every last one of the scapegoating Ghostfaces should learn to take some responsibility for once in their twisted lives.
  • Legendary in the Sequel: Sidney was a relatively unknown girl who had a highly-publicized personal tragedy happen to her before the events of the first film. In the sequels, classmates, law enforcement, and teenagers have levels of familiarity with her that make her comparable to a celebrity, with Charlie and Robbie even requesting that Gale get Sidney to address their class before they start working with Gale.
  • Like Mother, Like Daughter: She and Maureen are famous in the spotlight, and have been victims of tumultuous relationships and murderous incidents, which affected them both deeply.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Despite being friends for decades at this point, in the fifth film, Sidney is unaware of Dewey no longer being a sheriff or declining to help Sam and Richie solve the new Ghostface murder spree.
  • Made of Iron: Similar to the Ghostface killer, she's pretty durable, considering she survives getting stabbed a few times, a couple car crashes, and falling out an upper-story window onto a boat.
  • Mama Bear: Of all the times she’s fought Ghostface, she’s the most formidable in the fifth film. She even mentions she won’t rest until the new killers are in the ground because she has kids.
  • Mistaken for Murderer: Subverted. Roman declares his intent to frame her for murdering Milton as revenge for his role in denigrating their mother, but she foils his plot.
  • Most Writers Are Writers: In Scream 4, she publishes a memoir, which becomes a bestseller.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Gets a scene in her bra in the first film, with the sequels giving her scenes in tank tops or dresses.
  • Never Accepted in His Hometown: In Scream 4, she is visibly jeered at by people at Woodsboro when people start dying the moment she arrives. This might have been the reason why she lived out of town in the interim years. Even back in her teen years in the first film, it was implied Sidney was never popular at school as she only had a limited friend circle, with her claims of being attacked being gossiped about and denied by other girls who also talk trash about her dead mom.
  • Never Got to Say Goodbye: Many of her friends who succumb to Ghostface often die without her being able to properly part ways with them.
    • In the second film, the last conversation between Sidney and Randy is the pair discussing the murder at the Stab showing and Randy being in denial about the killing being the start of a new killing spree. She is in the library while he is murdered by Mrs. Loomis.
    • In the fifth film, the last time she speaks to Dewey, Sidney tells him that she's glad he's there to protect whoever the killer is after and warns him to be safe. She arrives in Woodsboro shortly after his murder.
  • Nice Girl: She's introduced as innocent, supportive and caring, and it doesn't completely go away even after her various traumas.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In Scream 4, Sidney tries to protect Jill and her friends from the new Ghostface. For her troubles, she is stabbed in the stomach and nearly killed by the very same person she tried to protect.
  • Not Quite Dead: In Scream 4, after Jill stabs her in the stomach again, Sidney falls to the ground and the former is convinced she is deceased. It is only after the two are taken to the hospital that Dewey informs her (and the audience) that Sidney is still alive.
  • Odd Friendship: With Gale Weathers. While the two gradually become closer due to their shared experiences with Ghostface and shared professional background, they still have very different goals and personalities that are mostly connected thanks to Dewey.
  • Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: In the fourth and fifth films, where she's in her 30s and 40s respectively, the killers are still teenagers, or young adults in Richie's case.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Sidney usually takes no BS when confronted with the killer face to face after The Reveal. Even at her most broken, once Roman confronts her, she calls them, and all other Ghostfaces, out on blaming her for their problems. This is not the case in the fourth film when she finds out the killer is her cousin Jill. Yes, she's still willing to kill them when push comes to shove, but she's not in her usual "go fuck yourself" mode when she has to fight and kill a relative she watched grow up. She's much more taken aback and restrained, and even remorseful. Jill is also the only killer she doesn't finish off with a headshot to make sure.
  • Parasol of Pain: She stabs Billy with an umbrella to briefly incapacitate him.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: Shooting Billy and Mickey in the head while they were clearly helpless was completely unnecessary of Sidney. But considering what they made her go through, it's understandable.
  • Platonic Life-Partners: With Dewey Riley. He guards Sidney with his life throughout the series and remains considerably closer to her than Gale, who Sidney gradually warms up to. Their friendship is so close that Sidney even risks her own life in a bid to save him in the third film, and states her belief in the effectiveness of his protection when they talk over the phone in the fifth film.
  • Plucky Girl: Considering everything she's gone through.
  • Pragmatic Hero: She's the one who brings a gun to a knife fight. Sidney has become something of a "Professional Survivor" over the years and is constantly armed from the third film onwards. In the fifth film, she literally opts to shoot first when scanning doors at Stu's old house, and hangs up on the killer when they try their Motive Rant over the phone.
    Dewey: Do you have a gun?
    Sidney: I'm Sidney fucking Prescott. Of course I have a gun.
  • Properly Paranoid: Being a four-time Final Girl means that, by the fifth film, Sidney now owns a gun, as she tells Dewey when he calls, seemingly surprised he'd even need to ask.
  • Put on a Bus: VI is the first film in the series where Sidney is completely absent. After the latest round of Ghostface killings begin in New York, and without the unfortunate loss of one of her fellow survivors this time around, Sidney opts to stay out of it and look after her family instead.
  • Rage Breaking Point: After three films worth of dealing with serial killers actively tormenting her, killing her friends, and blaming her for their own actions, she loses it when the latest Ghostface goes off in a self-pitying Motive Rant casting himself as the victim. As she angrily points out, she's beyond sick of Ghostfaces blaming her for their crimes and tells him to take responsibility before beating him with a metal candlestick.
  • Rebuilt Pedestal: She is understandably upset upon learning that her mother was not the person she thought she was, but comes to terms with her actions and believes that, in spite of them all, she did her best raising her.
  • Red Baron: By Scream 4, she has gained the moniker "Angel of Death", because she tends to invite death and destruction everywhere she goes.
  • Refusal of the Call: In the fifth film, upon hearing of the new Ghostface murder spree, she outright tells Dewey she has no intention of stepping foot in Woodsboro again. That is, until Dewey is killed.
  • Retired Badass: Seems to have become one as of Scream VI, as instead of getting involved in the newest set of killings she instead takes her family somewhere safe - which everyone agrees she deserves.
  • Sanity Slippage: Through her half-brother's movie tricks, she apparently undergoes this in the third film, having visions of her dead mother coming for her. It doesn't work, though.
  • The Scapegoat: Every Ghostface with a motive for their killings finds some way to blame her for how fucked up and psychopathic they are, naturally seeing murder for revenge as the ideal solution. By the third time this happens, Sidney has completely had it and lividly calls them out on their bullshit. The exception is the fifth film, where the killers don't blame Sidney for their problems (and in fact, admire her in their own twisted way) but nonetheless want to kill her because they think that her survival would conflict with their plan of "rebooting" the Stab franchise.
  • Seen It All: Twenty-five years coping with nine different Ghostfaces have deadened Sidney's reactions to whichever new copycat pops up. Exemplified in the fifth film's obligatory climactic battle against the killers, where Sidney flat-out refuses to entertain the new Ghostface in their game, hanging up their threatening call and preemptively shooting every door she sees, as she knows well that they tend to ambush her from there. Compare her reaction with Sam's when Richie and Amber reveal themselves to be the killers and start ranting about their motives; while Sam is horrified, Sid's reaction amounts to "yeah, heard it all, seen it all, move along."
  • Sex Signals Death: Subverted in the first film; she's the only named character in the franchise to have sex and live to tell about it, until Scream (2022) introduced Sam Carpenter.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: She suffers from PTSD as a result of her having to suffer through the Ghostfaces' killing sprees and their constant betrayals. It's at its worst in the third film, where her trust issues have resulted in her becoming a recluse and hiding from the world rather than risk being hurt again.
  • She's Back!: After her run-in with Mickey and Ms. Loomis leaves all of her friends and peers from college and (thanks to Stu and Billy) high school dead, Sidney is left broken and scared. At the beginning of the third movie she's seen hiding out in a secluded house, scared of even the prospect of a copycat killer coming after her or anyone she might become close to, a timid shadow of who she was. She has many security measures and even uses a fake name when working at a call center. She only comes out of hiding when she gets a call from Roman and realizes she's no more safe there than she is anywhere else, so she meets Dewey in Hollywood. When Roman forces her to come to the "third act" scene and reveals himself expositing his Evil Plan and childish Motive Rant, Sidney snaps back to her no-bullshit badass self by not only telling Ghostface he's full of shit but fighting him off and beating him like she did the others.
  • She Who Fights Monsters: While Sidney has managed to survive five occasions of attacks, there are some scenes that make you wonder whether or not she might end up as a killer, or no different from one.
    • In the first film, she temporarily dons the Ghostface costume and uses the voice changer to trick Billy and Stu, leading them to their deaths.
    • In the third film, this was a part of Ghostface's plan, as Ghostface wanted to pin the murders on her.
    • It's averted by the fourth and especially the fifth films as Sidney has slowly managed to piece her life back together despite her various traumas. Ghostface even lampshades in the sixth film how ridiculous it would have been for Sidney to ever become a killer.
  • Shipper on Deck: She is supportive of the relationship between Dewey and Gale, even asking the former about her during a conversation in the fourth film.
  • Shut Up, Hannibal!:
    • In the third movie, when Ghostface reveals himself to be Roman, Sidney's half-brother, she cuts him off in the middle of his Motive Rant, declaring that she's tired of all the bullshit that the killers she has encountered have told her, and says that all of the reasons she has heard are just pathetic excuses that the killers use to hide the fact that they kill people simply because they enjoy doing it. This leads to a rather large Villainous Breakdown.
      Sidney: God, why don't you stop your whining and get on with it? I've heard this shit before! Do you know why you kill people, Roman? Do you? BECAUSE YOU CHOOSE TO! There is no one else to blame! Why don't you take some fucking responsibility?!
      Roman: *livid* FUCK YOU!!!
      Sidney: FUCK YOU!!!
    • The fifth film has a more literal and hilarious version of this trope: Sidney getting a taunting call from Ghostface while she's hunting him down, only for Sid to tell him “I’m bored” and hang up on him.
  • Sibling Rivalry: A murderous one with Roman, who is jealous of her for being accepted by their mother who shut him out "into the cold forever".
  • Sole Survivor: Of the family she was born into. By the end of the fourth film, all of the known members of her family are dead. Her mom and aunt were murdered, her dad passed away, and she had to kill her brother and cousin as they were psychotic serial killers. Luckily, she's built a family of her own by the fifth film.
  • Supporting Protagonist: Dewey and Gale are more active than her in the third film, but she's still the main character. Additionally, Sidney takes this role in the fifth film, which focuses on Sam Carpenter.
  • Sympathetic Murderer: She deliberately kills most of the killers, even though in the case of Billy and Mickey they were already defenseless, and it was unnecessary. However, considering the paranoia they make her endure, can you blame her?
  • Taught by Experience: Her ability to combat Ghostface increases over the series. She goes from struggling to defeat Billy and Stu (and requiring the help of Gale) in the original film to defeating Roman alone in the third.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Tomboy to Tatum's Girly Girl in the first movie and Hallie's Girly Girl in the second one.
  • Tomboyish Name: A name befitting any respectable Final Girl. While "Sidney" did become popular as a girl's name in the early '90s (especially in the alternate spelling "Sydney"), for most people of Sidney's generation it would be known mainly as a boy's name. Even so, many girls with this name often spell it as Sydney.
  • Took a Level in Badass: There weren't any doubts about her badassery in the first two movies, but she really cranks it up by the third.
    Sidney: (walks in on Ghostface and starts unloading her gun into him) It's your turn to scream, asshole!
  • Took a Level in Cynic: After everything she goes through, Sidney becomes increasingly jaded and stoic as time goes on. She still makes efforts to move on with her life and never loses her general compassion, but she's clearly been Conditioned to Accept Horror.
  • Trauma Conga Line:
    • Sidney's traumas begin with the brutal rape and murder of her mother. The following year, she finds out the murder was committed by her boyfriend and his best friend, who then proceeded with a killing spree that left most of her high school friends dead, including her best friend. Two years later, Sid becomes the target of a copycat killer and a vengeful mother who finish off what's left of her high school social circle and kill all of the new friends she made in college including her new boyfriend. This leaves her an empty shell, hiding out and trusting nobody. However, she's not even safe then as only another two years of isolation pass when her long-lost Child by Rape Green-Eyed Monster half-brother tracked her down and tried to frame her for his own killing spree in order to usurp her stardom. To put a cherry on top, it was this brother that orchestrated the murder of her mother. However, she manages to beat all of these killers, and with the mastermind gone, she seems able to start her life anew without looking over her shoulder. Except no, because a decade later another killing spree starts in her hometown topping all of those that came before it. The killer? Her psychotic jealous cousin and her flunky. And this time the killer almost gets her. Sid manages to kill the little psycho, but two things are made clear: she has no family left and this is very likely to happen again. And it does another decade later when she's built a family of her own. Even as she tries to stay out of it, she's lured back to Woodsboro when her longtime friend and fellow survivor is killed. She helps take those people down, but History Repeats is a statistical likelihood at this point.
  • True Blue Femininity: She wears a blue shirt and jacket in the final act of the original film.
  • Undying Loyalty: To Dewey and, gradually, Gale. She will risk her life for theirs. Roman uses this to his advantage when he lures her with the two as his captives.
  • Unlikely Hero:
    • In the original film, it's doubtful either Billy or Stu thought the traumatized daughter of Billy's first victim (and the latter's girlfriend) would be the one to end their killing spree.
    • Subverted in the fourth and fifth films, where Jill, Amber, and Richie all expect her involvement.
  • Villain Killer:
    • Of the protagonists, she has the highest villain kill count, taking out Stu Macher, Billy Loomis, Mickey Altieri (with Gale's help), and Jill Roberts. It's enough that she's lampshading this tendency in the third and fourth films.
    • The fifth film sees her actively giving Gale "the honor" of killing Amber, as she openly gloated about her murder of Dewey, though Tara is ultimately the one who shoots Amber dead.
  • Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: A pretty justified one at least. In each film she appears in she has a vastly different career or career goal in mind; in the first film she's merely a high school student with no specific interests outlined, but in the second she's in college majoring in acting and seems to want to be an actress. However, in the third film she's gotten a job working as a phone operator for a woman's helpline, and working anonymously under an assumed name. During the fourth film she's now become a successful self-help writer who's embraced her fame, but only to help others, while in the fifth film, her job is unstated, but she's now living anonymously with her husband and kids. Unlike a lot of cases, it makes sense she'd keep changing her life as she's trying to escape the traumas of her past and generally, the events of the film render any hope of continuing her then-current career path fruitless.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: Every time she seems to have settled into a peaceful life, she will inevitably get dragged into another Ghostface terror all over again. Even hiding herself in a cottage doesn't work, as Roman somehow manages to find her. Downplayed with the fifth movie; even though she has to suffer the loss of Dewey, she's also achieved a happy ending of sorts by this time, having a husband and kids to go back home to.
  • You Killed My Father: In the original film, her desire to kill her boyfriend Billy comes from discovering that he murdered her mother the previous year.
  • Zen Survivor: What she becomes after surviving the horrors of the Scream movies, especially after the events of the second movie. Poor girl needs to catch a break.

    Gale Weathers 

Gale Riley (née Weathers)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/4ad7a97609ae2bc05bbc258e6fbf41dd.png
"Hey, you'd better check your conscience at the door, sweetie. I'm not here to be loved."

Played By: Courteney Cox

Dubbed By: Yuko Sasaki (Japanese), Céline Monsarrat (European French), Pilar Rubiella (European Spanish, Scream (1996)), Concha García Valero (European Spanish, Scream 2 and Scream 3), Victoria Angulo (European Spanish, Scream 4), María Moscardó (European Spanish, Scream (2022) and Scream VI)

Appearances: Scream (1996) | Scream 2 | Scream 3 | Scream 4 | Scream (2022) | Scream VI | Scream 7

"People treat me like I'm the anti-Christ of television journalism."

A reporter who, in the first film, is fighting to prove that Cotton Weary did not commit the murder that he was put on death row for, and returns to Woodsboro for the one-year anniversary and to cover the new string of murders. Come the sequel, she's written a book about the Woodsboro murders, which has been adapted into a film, and comes to Windsor College to cover yet another killing spree. Has a rather abrasive personality.


  • Abusive Parents: She offhandedly mentions that her parents were horrible people in VI after Tara tells her about her relationship with her parents, following Sam's discovery of the truth about her biological father. Thus, it's possible that her Jerkass behavior was the result of a bad upbringing.
  • Accidental Hero: Gale turns up in Sidney's hospital room shortly after Jill incapacitates Dewey while trying to kill Sidney, presumably just to see if her friend is well. Gale stalling Jill as Sidney grabs a defibrillator gives the latter enough time to shock her, which shifts the fight out of Jill's favor.
  • The Ace: When it comes to detective work, there's nobody in the entire franchise capable of comparing to her. She is able to correctly deduce that Cotton is innocent, comes close to solving the mystery in the second film, gathers all the information needed about Sidney's mom in the third film, and catches the killer in the fourth movie out on an inconsistency. In the sixth movie, the killer outright acknowledges that Gale found the shrine way before the group was supposed to. Gale herself is more than aware of her success rate, throwing it in the faces of any cop who tries to block her investigation.
  • Action Girl: Gale is just as ruthless in a fight as she is in her tactics as a journalist, and many Ghostfaces have learned that the hard way. She manages to get the drop on Billy and Stu with a gun during the first film's finale (although she's quickly tricked and knocked out by the former), kills Mickey in a joint kill with Sidney during 2, brutally beats up and shoots down Amber in revenge for Dewey's murder in 5, and manages to put up one hell of a fight against Ghostface when she is attacked midway through 6.
  • Aesop Amnesia: In every single movie (except 4), Gale learns her lesson not to exploit Sidney's trauma and play into the fame-hungry Ghostfaces. She then has to do it all over again. This is especially clear in VI when she made a point in 5 not to write about the murders in Scream 5, only to reveal that she did it after all in VI.
  • Age-Gap Romance:
    • There's a seven year age difference between her and Dewey, who is 25 when they first meet, while Gale is around 32.
    • In VI, she's shown to be dating a man named Brooks, who is clearly quite a bit younger than her. Although the character's exact age isn't specified, there's a 22-year age gap between the actors.
  • Agonizing Stomach Wound: Suffers this in the sixth movie, but manages to just barely survive thanks to the paramedics arriving shortly after.
  • All for Nothing: In both the third and fourth films, Gale surrenders to Roman and Jill when they have Dewey incapacitated and at their mercy to prevent either of them from murdering him, only for Dewey to die years later by another Ghostface in the fifth film.
  • Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: A dark-haired woman and sort of an Ice Queen.
  • Amicable Exes: With Dewey in the fifth film. They have not talked for years ever since he decided to move back to Woodsboro, leaving Gale to pursue her career in New York, but the two still share a warm reunion upon meeting again.
  • And Starring: As one of the legacy survivors, she gets this billing in both the fifth and sixth films.
  • Anti-Hero: Gale eventually becomes a loyal friend to Sidney and has saved the day more than once, but she's also a cutthroat journalist with questionable ethics and a borderline addiction to fame, qualities that cause her no end of problems in her personal life and make her difficult to like even for those closest to her.
  • Arch-Enemy:
    • To Amber Freeman, the Ghostface who killed Dewey in the fifth film. Amber also tries to kill her and mocks Dewey's death in front of her, and Gale tries to burn Amber in an unsuccessful attempt to end her life. No other Ghostface has left a lasting impact as the one that caused Dewey's absence from Gale's life.
    • On a lighter note, during the third movie Gale has a very humorous rivalry with Jennifer Jolie, the eccentric actress who plays her in the Stab movies, as she despises not only Jolie's portrayal of her, but also her clear romantic intentions with Dewey and her equally abrasive personality. As the movie goes on, they learn to somewhat tolerate each other and even seem to bond when they begin to investigate the case, and Gale is genuinely horrified when Jennifer's killed by Roman.
  • Asshole Victim: Gale downplays and subverts the traditional use of this trope in horror movies. In the first film, she's a cutthroat fame-chasing prick lacking in any real redeeming qualities outside of being a genuinely competent investigator, an unlikable character archetype that is meant to be killed in horror movies. She not only survives, but undergoes character development, becoming a staple in the franchise. Sidney does deck her a couple of times, though.
  • The Atoner: After Randy is killed, Gale admits to Dewey that she feels really bad (a rarity for her) and resolves to catch the killer solely to stop the murders.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: In Scream 4, after Dewey tells her about Jill wanting to write a book with her and making a remark about their matching scars, Gale asks how she knew where her scar was located, and this gets Dewey to realize Jill was her attacker.
  • Battle Couple: While married, Gale and Dewey work together (after some initial tension) against the Ghostfaces in the fourth film, with both contributing to Jill's last effort to kill Sidney failing.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: In both Scream 2 and Scream 3, Gale and Dewey meet again on bad terms, with much snarking and insults being volleyed back and forth, but their attraction to one another remains very evident, and they end both movies by getting back together.
  • Berserk Button: Threatening or insulting Dewey or her career, as demonstrated when she threatens Rebecca Walters in 4. As of the fifth movie any mention of Dewey's death by the killers is likely to reveal the more dangerous side of Gale. This is best seen both times where Amber tries to gloat about killing him: on both occasions Gale wastes no time taking a swing at her, the second time pushing Amber towards the stove.
  • Big Damn Heroes: A downplayed example, but Gale showing up to take the gun while Billy and Stu corner Sidney in the kitchen qualifies, even if it doesn't work out exactly as she planned. Even with it failing, it still gave Sidney an opportunity to turn the tides on the killers.
  • Big Damn Reunion:
    • In Scream 2, after getting punched by Sidney for ambushing her with an interview with Cotton, she stops in place when she notices Dewey standing close by and is visibly surprised to see him, following him around as he chastises her both for messing with Sidney and her description of him in her book.
    • In the fifth film, following Dewey's death, Gale and Sidney share a long hug that sees the two express condolences and concern for each other.
  • Big Good: Gale becomes this in the sequels, particularly the third, fifth, and sixth films. In the third film, although having insulted her earlier, Jennifer values her knowledge of Ghostface enough to stick with her as a means of not getting killed. Although Sam doesn't hold her in any high regard, Sidney teams up with her to get Ghostface out of revenge for Dewey's death, and the two come to the closest of anyone to killing Richie and Amber until Sam and Tara do. By the sixth film, as the only member of the original trio featured, she has the most experience of any of its protagonists and can fend off Ghostface by herself.
  • Big "SHUT UP!": Gale and Dewey deliver one to Jennifer in Scream 3 as the latter calls for them to follow Milton and adds that her version of Gale would be more aggressive and suspect everybody.
  • Borrowed Catchphrase: She borrows Sidney's in the fifth film, telling the killer "Fuck you!" before taking them out.
  • Brainy Brunette: A dark-haired, intelligent, clever, and driven woman.
  • Break the Haughty: At the start of Scream 2, Gale is still the same fame-seeking, moral-lacking journalist seeking to get attention for herself. She also wrote a book that did not describe Dewey in the best light. After Randy is killed by Ghostface, Gale confesses to Dewey that she feels really bad, even admitting she never feels bad about anything, and even apologizes to him for her earlier descriptions of him in her book. By the end of the film, Gale abandons chasing another headline to chase after the injured Dewey and accompany him to the hospital.
  • Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: She and Dewey share a kiss at the end of the first film, but are not together in the second, thanks to Dewey's disgust at Gale using the killings as an excuse to advance her career. After they reconcile, they start dating, but are broken up again by Scream 3 because Gale has not changed her ways. When she promises to do so, Dewey proposes to her. In Scream 4, they have been married for a decade, but their relationship is strained because of Gale's frustrations with being forced to become a Housewife in Woodsboro. While their experiences with the fourth Ghostface terror are implied to reconcile them, the fifth film reveals that they divorced a couple of years after the events of Scream 4, but are thankfully on good terms and happy to reunite.
  • Brutal Honesty: She can be pretty rude and insensitive even on a good day.
  • Cartwright Curse: Both her ex-husband (in 5) and boyfriend (in VI) die at the hands of Ghostface.
  • Cassandra Truth: Before Billy and Stu were exposed as the killers, Gale was the only one who believed Cotton Weary was innocent.
  • Celebrity Paradox: The second movie mentions two of Courteney Cox's Friends co-stars: Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer (who played Dewey in the first two films of the fictional Stab franchise).
  • Combination Attack:
    • In Scream 2, Gale and Sidney both shoot at Mickey when he springs up to reveal he's still alive.
    • A lesser example in Scream 4, but Gale provides the distraction for Sidney to electrocute Jill.
    • In the fifth film, Sidney and Gale take turns between harming Amber and restraining her so the other can land a hit.
  • Conflict Ball: As detailed under Aesop Amnesia, Gale nonstop irritates and alienates everyone around her with her fame-seeking nature. She then repeatedly learns (and then ignores) not to do that.
  • Contralto of Strength: Downplayed. She is frequently presented as an anti-hero figure — not a bad person at her core, but abrasive, fame-hungry, and selfish. The other heroic characters, like Sidney, Sam, and Tara, even punch her in the face. She also has a noticeably lower, smokier voice than the main protagonist Sidney's and later, Sam's.
  • Creative Sterility: In Scream 4, Gale attempts a fiction writing career after decades of writing true crime books, only to find she has absolutely no idea what to write about. As it turns out, Gale uses much of her creativity writing books about real-life murder sprees.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: While it doesn't kill Amber, Gale completely intended to burn her to death as revenge for killing Dewey.
  • Damsel in Distress:
    • After mistaking Cotton for the killer in Scream 2, Gale runs into Mrs. Loomis (the actual killer) and is held at gunpoint by her when she takes her to Sidney's location.
    • After all of the Stab 3 cast members are murdered and Dewey is knocked unconscious by Ghostface in Scream 3, Gale and Dewey are used as a bait by Ghostface to lure Sidney to Milton's home.
    • She is held at gunpoint by Jill in the final battle of Scream 4, though unlike her previous Ghostface experience, she actually manages to turn the tables on Jill by stalling her until Sidney can shock her.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Gale is quite snarky when push comes to shove. Most of her interactions with Jennifer Jolie in the third film, for example, are good examples of her snark at work.
  • Defiant to the End: Narrowly averted in VI, where the killer stabs Gale with a glass shard and then attempts to stab her in the face. Gale's last words would have been a defiant, "Fuck you!", but luckily Sam and Tara arrive to stop the killer from finishing the job.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Her Character Development over the course of the series.
  • Determinator: In her career, she always gets her story through any means necessary. In terms of survival, she will use her wits and strengths in order to survive. This results in Gale being the only six-time Ghostface survivor in the series.
  • Deuteragonist: She isn't as important as Sidney, but she plays a major role, particularly in the sequels, where she gets more screentime and significant character development. She's also the only character besides Ghostface himself to appear in every installment of the franchise.
  • Didn't See That Coming: In Scream 4, she installs cameras at a party to catch Ghostface lurking around, and expects to sit in her car as they capture footage of the killer. Instead, she watches as her cameras begin getting covered one-by-one by an off-screen Ghostface.
  • Did You Think I Can't Feel?: Gale is generally able to emotionally disconnect to do her job. However, when Tara and Sam bring up Dewey while mad at her, Gale stops in her tracks.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: In every film, Gale plays some role in defeating Ghostface and lives to see another day.
  • Enemy Mine: A rare heroic example, as she teams up with Sidney to stop both Billy and Stu.
  • Everyone Has Standards:
    • In Scream 2, a reporter insinuates that Dewey is responsible for the new Ghostface killings. Gale, clearly outraged that anyone could even make such a claim, says that Dewey is a good guy "unlike some of us".
    • After Randy's murder in the second film, Gale's motives shift from reporting on the killings to making sure they stop.
  • Final Girl: Played with. Gale is not only an unexpected additional final girl, but her bossy and ruthless attitude, as well as her shamelessness in seducing Dewey to get information, make her an antithesis to everything that a traditional final girl stands for.
  • Fire-Forged Friends:
    • She and Sidney initially have a very, very rocky relationship. This changes over the course of the films.
    • She initially despises Jennifer, but begins to bond with her after they begin investigating the Stab 3 murders.
  • Foil:
    • To Dewey Riley. Both are young adults several years older than the teenage characters who want to see the murderer caught and are nominally on the side of good. Dewey wants the killer stopped solely to prevent innocent lives from being lost, while Gale mostly wants the killer caught to get the scoop over other reporters and increase her celebrity status. While Dewey both personally wants to and professionally is trying to protect Sidney and has been on good terms with the latter prior to the start of the film, Gale personally is neutral to and professionally antagonistic to Sidney and was disparaging of the latter before the start of the film.
    • To the fourth film's Ghostface, Jill Roberts; Jill, like Gale, seeks fame and is willing to cross moral and ethical boundaries to get it, even at the expense of others. However, while Jill is a cold-blooded sociopath who is willing to lie and murder to get the fame she craves, Gale, for all her faults, is no killer, and even at her worst, she's generally honest (if insensitive) and cares about others, unlike Jill, who scoffs at the notion of having friends and would rather have fans.
  • Genre Savvy: Progressively grows into this as the series goes on.
  • Glory Seeker: Gale's desire for fame and fortune is a major driving force in her life, and she's unafraid to step on some toes to get them. This quality is both a boon and a detriment in Gale's life; while it fuels her boundless determination, it also pushes her to make ethically questionable decisions that alienate her loved ones and causes her to repeat her mistakes that have already cost her dearly.
  • Good Cop/Bad Cop: Gale repeatedly forms this dynamic with other characters with her always playing the role of bad cop. Her good cop partners have included Dewey, Sidney, and Jennifer.
  • Good Is Not Nice: Despite her abrasive personality, she's one of the good guys.
  • Good Is Not Soft: Put a gun in her hand, and she'll take Ghostface down in a heartbeat. The killers from the first two movies find that out the hard way, as does Amber in the fifth movie.
  • Heel Realization: After Randy is killed in Scream 2, Gale realizes that she let a desire for fame and fortune get the better of her, and she becomes much more serious about wanting to put a stop to Ghostface because it's the right thing to do, not because she hopes to get rich and famous.
  • Heroic Second Wind: In the original, after she fails to shoot Billy and he knocks her out, she regains consciousness just in time to shoot him as he's about to stab Sidney.
  • Holding the Floor: As Jill points a gun at her, Gale requests that she get a final word and stalls her long enough for Sidney to get a defibrillator ready to electrocute her.
  • Honorary True Companion: Despite some rough patches in her relationship with them, especially Sam, the Core Four accept Gale as a fellow survivor and a part of "the same fucked up family" (as fellow survivor Kirby puts it).
  • Housewife: In Scream 4, it is revealed that after Gale married Dewey, she quit journalism to move in with him to Woodsboro. She could not settle in as a writer with no news to report, however, and became stuck as a housewife as a result.
  • If It Bleeds, It Leads: At first, she's hot on the trail of any tragedy so she can milk it for ratings. She gets better. By the fifth film, she's come to regret writing about the Woodsboro murders, feeling the consequences weren't worth the money she got in return.
  • Ignored Expert: She believes herself to be this in Scream 4, as despite helping to solve the Ghostface murders three times by this point, she still was not sought for counsel or aid in the investigation.
  • I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Seems to feel this way regarding the death of Dewey, even blaming herself for all the killing sprees that have ever happened.
  • Immoral Journalist: Downplayed; Gale doesn't do anything strictly illegal, but her methods include surveilling and harassing teenagers, ambush journalism, exploiting the trauma of her fellow survivors, and sensationalizing the various Ghostface murder sprees for the sake of fortune and fame, all with little regard for the privacy or mental health of others. Is it any wonder why she gets sucker-punched on three separate occasions?
  • Improbable Weapon User: In the sixth film, Gale uses a frying pan, several flower pots, a barbecue grill, a glass table, and a phone receiver to not only dodge Ghostface’s attacks but to find Ghostface herself.
  • Intergenerational Friendship:
    • Gale tries to invoke this with Charlie and Robbie as the three work together to get clues on the new killer in Scream 4, but she becomes dissatisfied with the pair having more interest in Sidney than her and keeping the location of their party secret.
    • Seems to have developed this with the other Woodsboro survivors, partly due to shared experience.
  • Intrepid Reporter: In the first movie, she goes to great lengths to get a good story. In fact, she has been called a "Lois Lane".
  • It's All About Me: Gale's biggest flaw is her persistent desire for fame; in the first film, despite trying to get Cotton Weary off death row, she's mostly interested in getting famous. While she does get better in subsequent films, she never quite loses a bit of self-absorption, and it costs her a lot of goodwill with her friends and allies; she keeps writing books on the Ghostface killings even after the subsequent film adaptations inspire copycats, and even after the fifth film, where she intended to deny the killers' desire for fame by writing about Dewey instead, she eventually gave in to temptation and wrote a book about the killings anyway, damaging her friendship with the Carpenter sisters. Gale isn't a bad person, but she does have a bad habit of falling back into old, selfish patterns no matter how many times she comes off worse for it.
  • It's All My Fault: By the time of the fifth movie, she's come to blame herself for the repeated Ghostface killings, feeling that if she hadn't written about the tragedies in Woodsboro, they never would've become famous enough to get copycats. Sidney disagrees, laying the blame at the feet of the killers and no one else. Even so, at the end of the movie, Gale makes a conscious choice to not write about Amber and Richie, denying them any fame or legacy in death. Instead, she decides to write about Dewey. This sadly becomes an Ignored Epiphany by the time of the sixth movie, though she still does hold a level of guilt for profiting off the murders and is clearly bothered when Ghostface calls her out on it.
  • It's Personal with the Dragon: Amber, the fifth film's accomplice Ghostface, is the one who murdered Dewey, earning Gale's very personal hatred. Sidney even intends to give Gale "the honors" of killing Amber, even though it's Tara who ends up finishing her off (though not for lack of trying on Gale's part).
  • Jerkass Ball: Downplayed in the sixth film, where it is revealed that Gale wrote a book about the requel murders, for which she is called out on by the Carpenter sisters. However, Gale remains involved in the investigation, is visibly affected by Tara’s assessment of her, and does have a nice heart-to-heart with Sam later in the film.
  • Jerkass Has a Point:
    • Even when she's at her worst in the first Scream, she's still ultimately right that Cotton Weary was innocent.
    • Her less-than-flattering portrayal of Dewey in her book isn't particularly inaccurate.
    • Gale's frustrations at Dewey not allowing her to help with the investigation in the fourth film are also completely justified. Not only has she been a major factor in the resolution of the past three killing sprees, she's also a very likely target.
    • Her description of Sam as being unstable also isn't exactly inaccurate, even if it only worsens Sam's already tainted reputation.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's rather insensitive towards Sidney in the first movie, but gets better in the sequels. She also ditched Dewey between Scream and Scream 2, but is shown to regret it.
    • While her ambition as a journalist often leads to her acting insensitively - most notably writing an entire book about how Sidney was wrong about Cotton and then harassing her after she's attacked - it's made clear as the series continues that she truly wants to help the targets of any of the Ghostface murders. Notably, the majority of Ghostfaces have a more personal vendetta against Sidney or Sam, and there are several instances where she would have been safe had she simply stayed away from the action. Instead, she willingly puts herself in the firing line, both to get a scoop and to help discover the truth. She's also willing to forego her career at times, most notably in the second film, where, despite having a firsthand account of the latest stabbings, she abandons a news report mid-filming to accompany Dewey to the hospital when she realizes he's alive.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: In the first film. Most notably highlighted when she explains her motive to prove Cotton Weary's innocence: largely to get good publicity and sell her book. She's right that Cotton's innocent, but that doesn't make her agenda any less self-serving.
    Gale: If I'm right about this, I could save a man's life. Do you know what that could do for my book sales?
  • Jumped at the Call: She loves mysteries, and is ecstatic to uncover the identities of whichever new Ghostfaces crop up, unlike Dewey and Sidney. That is, until the fifth film sees her estranged husband fall victim to the newest incarnation of Ghostface.
  • Just in Time:
    • Billy has Sidney pinned to the ground and is just about to bring the knife down when Gale suddenly appears and shoots him.
    • A downplayed example, but she shows up just in time to distract Jill from killing Sidney in the fourth movie.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: Gale often comes into the crosshairs of Ghostface and complies with the killer to ensure her own safety, someone else's, or as part of a plan that can possibly save her. In Scream 2, Mrs. Loomis begins holding her at gunpoint after she incorrectly assumes Cotton is the killer, and Gale goes along with this until after both Mrs. Loomis and her accomplice Mickey are defeated by Sidney and Cotton. In 3, after Dewey is subdued by Roman and she comes to his aid, Gale surrenders to the killer and allows herself to be tied up, clearly also out of concern for Dewey. In 4, she goes along with Jill's order for her to stand up as the latter holds a gun, although in this case it was to give Sidney enough time to give Jill a Sneak Attack.
  • Lady in Red: Downplayed: Gale wears plenty of colors; however, she spends the climax of the original film in a red outfit which contrasts with fellow, more traditional, Final Girl Sidney, who is in blue.
  • Lying to Protect Your Feelings: In Scream VI, after she has been stabbed to the brink of death by Ghostface and saved by the Carpenters, believing it might be her final words before passing out from blood loss, she says "Tell Sidney, he didn't get me...", so Sidney doesn't have to mourn yet another friend killed by Ghostface. Thankfully, she ends up surviving her wounds.
  • Made of Iron: Over the course of the series, Gale has survived several concussions and gunshot wounds, as well as a van crash and multiple stab wounds. Cotton lampshades this in the second movie by saying Gale has "more lives than a cat."
  • Manipulative Bitch: She is prone in the earlier movies to twisting the facts and misleading people to suit her own needs.
  • Mean Boss: Is quite mean towards Kenny and Joel, who don't appreciate her attitude towards them.
  • Misery Trigger: Mentioning Dewey's death is enough to almost reduce her to tears while on the phone with Ghostface in the sixth film.
  • Mistaken for Murderer: After Mickey introduces Sidney to his accomplice, Gale first walks out, and this momentarily leads Sidney to believe he's talking about her before Nancy Loomis (Mickey's actual accomplice) comes behind her.
  • Murder Is the Best Solution: Come the fifth movie, both Gale and Sidney immediately jump to this, having lived through enough Ghostface attacks to know that the killers never stop until they're dead.
  • My Greatest Failure: Dewey's death is this, by the time of Scream VI. During her fight with the Carpenter sisters, Sam invokes Dewey when calling her out on how she handled the media attention of the last Woodsboro attacks. The killer also uses this wound against her when he attacks her later in the movie, citing her inability to help him or comfort him in his last moments.
  • Mysterious Past: Unlike Sidney or the Carpenter sisters, very little is known about Gale's past outside of her having shitty parents.
  • Never Got to Say Goodbye: To Dewey, her last interaction with him is an argument the two have that ends with Gale telling him that he's many things, but not a coward. She arrives at the hospital seeing Dewey being rolled out on a stretcher once again, but this time he's dead.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!:
    • If Gale hadn't written books on the Ghostface killings, the killers would have died in obscurity and the Ghostface identity would have been forgotten after the first movie. Thanks to Gale, Billy and Stu continued inspiring new killers decades after their deaths, with several Ghostfaces explicitly out to attain the same level of fame that Billy and Stu got because of Gale's sensationalist journalism. On the same note, by making Sidney famous through her reporting, Gale inadvertently incites Roman and Jill, both of whom crave Sidney's level of notoriety, to embark on their own spree of Ghostface killings.
    • Describing Sam as "unstable" in her book about Richie and Amber's killings just made it easier for the next Ghostfaces, Detective Bailey and his children, to sully Sam's reputation.
  • Non-Protagonist Resolver: Tries to be this in the first movie, and would've been had she not left the safety on. That being said, when Gale regains the gun (and takes off the safety), she does shoot Billy when he tries to stab Sidney. This allows Sidney to gain the upper hand again and finish him off for good.
  • No Sympathy: She acted this way to Sidney (who had just lost her mother) in the year leading up to the original film, as she did multiple stories about her that included calling her a liar during the trial that saw Cotton Weary convicted for Maureen's murder.
  • Not Quite Dead:
    • In Scream 2, Mickey's gun goes off after he is shot by Mrs. Loomis, and a bullet strikes Gale in the stomach before she falls. She is only revealed to have survived the injury after Cotton and Sidney have defeated Mrs. Loomis.
    • In Scream VI, Gale seemingly succumbs to her wounds while Sam and Tara watch, but once the paramedics arrive, they find a weak pulse, and Danny later confirms that Gale is recovering in the hospital.
  • Not Too Dead to Save the Day: Seemingly dies when she crashes her van only to suddenly show up and take the gun while Billy and Stu are distracted. She pulls this a second time when she gets back up and shoots Billy properly.
  • Official Couple: With Dewey at the end of the third film.
  • Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: Gale is older than every Ghostface except Nancy Loomis and Wayne Bailey, the latter of whom is about the same age.
  • The One That Got Away: After their divorce between the fourth and fifth films, Dewey still clearly loves and pines after Gale, though his death puts an end to any hopes of their romance rekindling. Gale's somber response to Tara bringing Dewey up in Scream VI strongly implies that her regrets about losing him run just as deep.
  • Only a Flesh Wound: In the second movie, Gale gets shot and seemingly killed by Mickey prior to the final fight with Mrs. Loomis. After Mrs. Loomis has been taken care of, Gale suddenly emerges and reveals that the bullet only bounced off her ribs.
  • Opposites Attract: The assertive, fame-seeking Gale is drawn to the passive, down-to-earth Dewey.
  • Out of Focus: In the post-Wes Craven Scream films, Gale tends to not have as much screentime, having one scene with Dewey before the latter's death in the fifth film, and playing a role in the movie's climax, and then having three lengthy scenes in the sixth film.
  • Pet the Dog: Prior to Character Development, her interactions with Dewey show she's not all bad, even if she doesn't exactly write a flattering portrayal of him in her book.
  • Pitbull Dates Puppy: The Pitbull in her relationship with Dewey.
  • Plucky Girl: Gale is willing to risk danger to herself for her ambitions, and is confident about things working out for her.
  • Politically Incorrect Hero: In the first film, she body shames Kenny by taking a number of shots at his weight, and in the sixth film, it's mentioned that when she wrote a book about the events of the fifth film, she described Sam, who struggles with mental illness, as "unstable".
  • Punny Name: Though it's quite subtle.
    Gale (to Dewey): Gale Weathers, right? Makes me sound like a meteorologist or something.
  • Relationship Revolving Door: With Dewey. She shares flirtation and a kiss with him in the first film. They date in between the second and third movies, though have broken up by the start of Scream 3. Dewey proposes to Gale at the end of that movie, and the two are married at the start of the fourth (though clearly on shaky ground). By the fifth, they have divorced and sadly never get the chance to reconcile their relationship, as Dewey is killed before they can truly make up.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: In the fifth film, after Dewey is killed, Gale is understandably determined to kill the new Ghostface, as It's Personal now for her. When they manage to corner Amber, Sidney gives Gale the chance to finish her off by burning her alive.
  • Running Gag: Her getting punched in the face by people (usually Sidney) that she pisses off. In the third film, this is turned on its head when she punches Jennifer, the actress playing her in Stab 3. In the fourth film, she threatens to punch Rebecca when she nags at her. In the fifth film, Gale punches out Amber when the latter gloats over her murder of Dewey. The sixth film has Gale, now Genre Savvy, managing to dodge a punch by Sam, only to get socked in the jaw by Tara.
  • Self-Deprecation: Gale herself has recognized how cutthroat she is a few times. In a particularly memorable moment in Scream 2, she stops a reporter from pestering Dewey, saying that he is a good man unlike "some of us."
  • The Smart Girl: She's an incredibly intelligent investigator who provides a role as the de facto detective of the series. She also has exceptionally good intuition. Chances are, if Gale has a hunch about something, she's right.
    Ghostface: It was always all about poor, sweet Sidney sucking up all the oxygen. What did that leave you to be?
    Gale: The brains and the sex appeal.
  • Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Gale's philosophy of journalism, as she spells out in the third film, is that one has to be willing to be hated in order to get the story and the fame, but this attitude is repeatedly shown costing Gale in her on-again, off-again relationship with Dewey and damaging her friendships with other survivors, something that Gale often privately shows regret for, even if she never quite stops letting it happen. In Scream 3, Dewey describes Gale as "a lost and lonely little girl" deep down, a remark that Gale objects to just a little too strongly.
  • Spanner in the Works:
    • In the first film, had Stu made sure Gale was dead when she crashed the news van, his and Billy's plan probably would've gone off without a hitch.
    • In the fourth film, Gale arrives in Sidney's ICU room and is able to distract Jill long enough for Sidney to sneak up and knock her out via defibrillator.
    • In Scream VI, Bailey mentions that he always planned on revealing the shrine to Sam at some point so he could trap her there. However, he was surprised by how good a journalist Gale was, and that she was able to discover its existence completely on her own. Downplayed example as he seems genuinely impressed, rather than annoyed.
  • Stunned Silence: The reaction she and Jennifer have when finding out from Angelina that she slept with Milton to get a role in Stab 3.
  • Suddenly Shouting: To her cameraman in the first film.
    Gale: Look, Kenny, I know you're about fifty pounds overweight, but when I say hurry, please interpret that as MOVE YOUR FAT TUB OF LARD ASS, NOW!
  • Suggestive Collision: In the original film, Gale and Dewey are narrowly run over and end up falling to the ground in a position where Dewey is on top of Gale. It doesn't take long after for the duo to share their first kiss.
  • Survivor Guilt: By the fifth film she tries to blame herself for all the killing sprees.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Gale tends to attract this dynamic everywhere she goes.
    • This is her initial dynamic with Dewey when they team up to stop the killers in Scream 2 and Scream 3. In the former film, it's due to her writing a book where she described him in a non-flattering way, and in the latter film, their strained interactions are due to their off-screen break-up.
    • She also has this with Jennifer in Scream 3, having previously assaulted the latter but teaming up with her nonetheless when Jennifer decides to stick with her and proves useful in gathering information.
    • With Judy Hicks in 4. They can barely stand to be in the same room as each other, and the fact that Judy has an obvious crush on Dewey doesn't help either.
    • With Kirby in VI. Gale makes it clear she doesn't respect Kirby as an FBI agent, viewing her as a "child" due to her memories of her from when they lived in Woodsboro. Downplayed with the Carpenter sisters, as they get along fine after an initially frosty first reunion.
  • Third Party Stops Attack: In the original where she shoots Billy as he's about to stab Sidney
  • Took a Level in Badass: While Gale has always been an Action Girl in the Craven films, the Radio Silence movies give her more direct confrontations with Ghostface. In VI, she almost kills the much younger Quinn (who just killed Gale's larger, muscular boyfriend) by herself.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: In VI. While she's not as big of a bitch as she was in the first film, she does break her promises to Sam and shows some inconsideration to her. This is perhaps the meanest thing she has done to someone in a long time. Thankfully she does get better by the end of the film.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: She was a major bitch in the first film, but slowly warms up to others as the series continues. Her kinder side does show more after she meets sweet and loyal Nice Guy Dewey.
  • True Companions: With Sidney and Dewey. Even when she and the latter are no longer romantically involved, she still holds his well-being in high regard.
  • Tsundere: Type A. Gale is initially portrayed as a Jerkass Intrepid Reporter who steps over people’s boundaries and emotions in order to get a good story. Gradually, she shows that she does have a Hidden Heart of Gold, revealing that she does have standards when it comes to journalism and concerns about the people she loves (or even barely tolerates) when they become targeted by the killer. While her ambition is still an important aspect of her character, Gale shows time and time again that taking down Ghostface is her main priority.
  • The Unfought: She is this to Richie in the fifth film (given that she only plays a role in fighting and defeating Amber), and Bailey and Ethan in VI (ironically, the only killer she encounters in-costume without ever meeting them in person is Quinn).
  • Unlikely Hero: In the original film, Gale is a fame-seeking reporter only attending the Macher house party to catch the killer as a means of raising her profile, which makes her integral role in stopping Billy and Stu all the more surprising.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Given Gale's reputation as a sensationalist news reporter, her publications are very often accused of this.
    • Before the events of the first film, she wrote news stories that vouched for the innocence of Cotton Weary and accused Sidney of falsely identifying her mother's killer. Gale doesn't genuinely believe in Cotton's innocence; instead, Gale felt that saving Cotton's life would make for a great story, which would in turn earn her greater publicity and profit. It is later revealed that she is Right for the Wrong Reasons.
    • Before the events of the second film, she writes a book about the Woodsboro murders and gets many details wrong, at least if one takes into account the Stab movie, which is based on her book. At one point, she admits to Joel that she exaggerated the death of Kenny in her book.
    • The sixth film reveals that she wrote a book about the requel murders in Woodsboro, where she apparently described Sam as "unstable".
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
    • Gale was really chasing fame when she wrote about the Woodsboro murders. She didn't know she’d be creating a legacy of copycat killers, and deeply regrets the consequences.
    • In the fifth film, had she not called Dewey at what turned out to be the worst possible time, Dewey would've ended Ghostface's killing spree right then and there. Instead, Dewey was distracted just long enough for Ghostface to lunge and end him right then and there. In the following film, the killer taunts her with this knowledge, which visibly affects the otherwise steely Gale.
  • Villain Killer: She helps Sidney kill Mickey in Scream 2. In the fifth film, she is given the "honor" of shooting Amber as revenge for her murder of Dewey, though Tara is ultimately the one to shoot her dead.
  • Will Not Be a Victim: After Ghostface stabs her with a glass shard in VI, Gale's last words to Sam before passing into unconsciousness are to let Sidney know "he never got me". While this can be seen as Gale not wanting Sidney to risk her life trying to avenge yet another fallen friend, it can alternately be seen as Gale wanting Sidney to know she went out fighting and didn't die a helpless victim. Fortunately, Gale survives.
  • Writer's Block: In Scream 4, years of living as a housewife have sapped away her creativity, as she finds herself unable to write any good material. Her decision to go undercover to investigate Ghostface's identity is partly so she can gain her journalistic spirit back.

    Dewey Riley 

Dwight "Dewey" Riley

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dewey_scream1.png
"One generation's tragedy is the next one's joke."

Played By: David Arquette

Dubbed By: Mitsuru Miyamoto (Japanese), Luis Espinosa (European Spanish, Scream (1996) through Scream 3), José Javier Serrano (European Spanish, Scream 4 and Scream (2022))

Appearances: Scream (1996) | Scream 2 | Scream 3 | Scream 4 | Scream (2022) | Scream VInote | Scream 7

"How do you know that my dimwitted inexperience isn't merely a subtle form of manipulation, used to lower people's expectations, thereby enhancing my ability to effectively maneuver within any given situation?"

Woodsboro's deputy sheriff, Dewey is always on the case when a new Ghostface killer comes out of the woodwork, partly due to the loss of his little sister Tatum to the first Ghostface, and partly out of his sense of family with Sidney, Gale, and Randy.


  • Action Survivor: Dewey might be the poster child for this trope. He is uncannily lucky, enduring horrible stabbings and beatdowns over the course of five movies. It really shows in the fifth, where he is exhausted and suffering from chronic pains. He always lives to fight another day until finally biting it in the fifth.
  • Affectionate Nickname: Dewey tends to refer to Sidney as "Sid".
  • All for Nothing: It's revealed that, in-between the fourth and fifth film, Dewey and Gale moved to New York when Gale was offered a new career opportunity. However, Dewey couldn't handle life in the big city and moved back to Woodsboro in the middle of the night without saying goodbye to Gale to resume his career. However, he was eventually asked to step down as sheriff, and fell to alcoholism to cope. When he sees Gale again in the fifth movie, he is clearly bitter and ashamed that he gave up his future with Gale for essentially no reason.
  • Always Second Best:
    • In the fourth and fifth movies, Dewey comes the closest to defeating Ghostface before being taken out or sidelined so that Sidney can save the day.
    • Averted in Scream 3, as after Sidney seemingly kills Roman, he suddenly gets up for one last attack before Dewey shoots him in the head, killing him.
  • Ambiguously Absent Parent: Although both of his parents are mentioned in the original film, neither is seen or mentioned by Dewey in the sequels.
  • Amicable Exes: With Gale in the third and fifth films. In the third film, despite being upset that she left him to continue her career, he tells her that he liked her, and Jennifer even comments that he sounds as though he's still in love with her when hearing the way he speaks of her. In their sole scene together in the fifth film, Dewey compliments Gale on her appearance, and Gale says she came to Woodsboro mostly out of concern for him.
  • And Starring: David Arquette shares the "with" credit alongside Courteney Cox in 5.
  • Authority in Name Only: This is how Tatum treats him in the original film, openly defying his orders to stay back and even asserting the janitor as being his superior. On a secondary level, it also is how he is treated by the killers, who do not seem too afraid of his presence at Stu's home.
  • Beard of Sorrow: In the fifth film, Dewey has traded in his mustache for a full beard, and he is easily at the lowest point in his life, suffering from pain, having lost his job, and separated from Gale.
  • Being Watched: In Scream 2, Gale and Dewey watch her cameraman's footage before the screen starts changing to show recordings by Ghostface, and the pair realize they are now being watched by the killer.
  • Berserk Button: He hates any mentions of his younger sister's death.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: He frequently is the target of taunts from his co-policemen, family, and friends, but when they are threatened, he is the first to help.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Literally towards Tatum, metaphorically towards Sidney. He threatens to personally kill Ghostface in 3 when Ghostface attempts to hurt Sidney. He ultimately does.
  • Big Damn Reunion: Dewey and Sidney have one at the start of Scream 2, where the latter happily runs up to and hugs him before they share a conversation where they catch up.
  • Big Good: He is this in the fifth film, as he receives the most focus of the original trio and is personally sought by Sam for help as she wants to know how to protect her sister and herself.
  • Big "SHUT UP!": He and Gale deliver one to Jennifer in Scream 3 as the latter calls for them to follow Milton and adds that her version of Gale would be more aggressive and suspect everybody.
  • Birds of a Feather: With Sidney. Both survived the first Ghostface murder spree and lost Tatum in the process, drawing them closer to each other. They both act as a Morality Chain for Gale, with both Dewey and Sidney reprimanding her for her fame-seeking ways while also teaming up with her to stop subsequent killing sprees.
  • Blatant Lies: Dewey, having been retired for years as sheriff by the time of the fifth film, tells Sidney that things in the sheriff's business are fine when she asks about his job.
  • Bookworm: Dewey is able to recite lines from both Gale's book in Scream 2 and Sidney's book in Scream 4 in order to demonstrate his frustrations with the former and provide the latter with reassurances that they will be okay.
  • Breakout Character: Dewey was originally supposed to die in the first film, but positive reception to the character by test audiences convinced Wes Craven to use an additional scene of him surviving in the finished film. He's even implied to be this in-universe, with Ghostface describing him as the "fan favorite" of the Stab series when speaking with Gale over the phone in VI.
  • Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: He and Gale share a kiss at the end of the first film, but are not together in the second, thanks to Dewey's disgust at Gale using the killings as an excuse to advance her career. After they reconcile, they start dating, but are broken up again by Scream 3 because Gale has not changed her ways. When she promises to do so, Dewey proposes to her. In Scream 4, they have been married for a decade, but their relationship is strained because of Gale's frustrations at being forced to become a housewife in Woodsboro. Their experiences with the fourth Ghostface terror are implied to reconcile them, but it's revealed in the fifth film that it didn't last. Though Dewey freely admits that the fault for their breakup lies with him.
  • Broken Pedestal: In Scream 2, he is livid at Gale for using her experiences as a survivor to advance her career, throwing her friends under the bus along the way.
  • Butt-Monkey: He gets the shit beaten out of him by Ghostface in each movie, although he survives four of them. Also counts as Iron Butt-Monkey.
  • The Cavalry Arrives Late: Happens a lot.
    • In Scream 2, Dewey and Gale only find Randy, who they notice has gone missing during their search for the killer, after he has already been killed by Mrs. Loomis.
    • In Scream 3, as Ghostface is attacking Jennifer behind a mirror that makes it hard for him to hear her, Dewey shoots at the glass to free her and only succeeds in getting her out of there right after Ghostface delivers the fatal blow.
    • In Scream 4, Dewey arrives after both Kirby and Sidney have been stabbed to the point of unconsciousness, Jill is heavily injured, and the rest are dead. Ironically enough, given that Charlie failed to kill Kirby and Jill only heavily injured Sidney, his late arrival arguably saves both of their lives, as Jill is ultimately defeated by the combined efforts of Sidney, Dewey, Gale, and Judy at the hospital.
  • Celibate Hero: It is heavily implied he became this in-between the fourth and fifth films, after his romance with Gale has been over for quite some time. Now living alone, he is not seen being romantically interested in any other women, a far cry from his flirtations with Gale, Jennifer, and Judy in previous installments.
  • Changed My Mind, Kid: After a conversation with Sidney where she tells him that she's glad whoever the killer is after has him to defend them, Dewey decides to "temporarily assist" Sam and Richie in their investigation.
  • Character Death: After surviving the four Wes Craven-directed films, Dewey dies in the fifth film.
  • Chick Magnet: Gale becomes attracted to him during the original film, Jennifer Jolie (who portrays Gale in Stab 3) flirts with him in Scream 3, and Deputy Judy Hicks shows some interest in him in Scream 4.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: No matter what happens, Dewey will always strive to help people and do the right thing, even if it is detrimental to his own well-being. In the fifth movie, he even tries to turn down helping Sam, reasoning that he is too old and weary to fight another Ghostface, but after Sidney tells him that Sam is lucky to have Dewey protecting her, he straps on his gun to go help out. Gale also lampshades this trait after Dewey dies saving Tara, telling Sam, "That's what he did. He helped people."
    Gale: You are a lot of things, Dewey, but you are not a coward.
  • Clueless Deputy: Dewey is one of the series' bravest and most well-meaning characters. He's also not especially bright a lot of the time, though he does grow more Genre Savvy as the films progress.
    • Gale lampshades this in her book by comparing Dewey to the trope's most well-known example:
    Dewey: "Deputy Dewey filled the room with his Barney Fife-ish presence..."
  • The Confidant: Dewey is this to Sidney from Scream 2 onward, as the two often discuss the current events of each film and their feelings on the matter.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Dewey is killed by getting his chest and back slit open vertically with two hunting knives before laying in a pool of his own blood.
  • Death by Genre Savviness: How he dies in the fifth movie. He knew that Ghostface was probably wearing body armor and still alive despite getting shot, so while the other characters fled, he stayed behind to finish the killer off with a headshot. Ghostface takes this opportunity to play possum and exploit a momentary distraction to kill him before he can get the shot off.
  • Death by Irony: An attempt to ensure Ghostface's death causes his own.
  • A Death in the Limelight: Dewey gets the most focus of the original trio in the fifth film and true to form, dies during it, with Sidney and Gale being motivated by his death to team up with Sam against Ghostface.
  • Defensive Failure: In Scream 3, Dewey tries to shoot Ghostface as the latter moves to attack Gale, but is out of ammo and instead knocked unconscious by the killer.
  • Dented Iron: By the fifth film, Dewey's borderline ridiculous capacity for taking hits has worn off. Now he's fifty years old, and a lifetime of being stabbed, shot, and beaten has given him permanent nerve damage, a limp, and it's implied he suffers from chronic pain. It doesn't stop Dewey from being a badass, though, and he almost ends Ghostface's rampage himself, but sadly his luck finally runs out, and he dies for real about halfway through the movie.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Before the events of the fifth film, Dewey's response to moving to New York with Gale was to end their years-long relationship and return to Woodsboro alone, where his personal issues affect his performance so much that he's asked to step down as sheriff and retreats to a sedentary life where he mostly keeps to himself. It takes Sam coming to him for help, and Sidney indirectly reminding him of how protective he can be, for him to resume his heroism.
  • Didn't See That Coming:
    • While he doesn't scream like Gale does, Dewey is noticeably horrified when the pair stumble across Randy's corpse in Scream 2, having just seen the latter before he separated from them to search for the killer.
    • In the fourth film, he gets blindsided by Jill's bedpan attack and spends the rest of the showdown laying unconscious on the floor.
  • Dies Wide Open: Amber even says she was the last thing Dewey saw before he died.
  • Distressed Dude: Happens twice.
    • In the third film, Dewey and Gale are held hostage by Ghostface to lure Sidney to his location.
    • In the fourth film, Dewey is knocked unconscious by Jill, who places a gun to his head and threatens to shoot him if Judy doesn't give her gun to her.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: In the first film, Dewey mentions how the town doesn't take him seriously as a deputy because of his youth. Tatum doesn't respect him when he is in uniform, and his fellow deputies laugh at his humiliation.
  • Dying Alone: Dewey dies in an empty hospital as Ghostface watches.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: At the end of the original trilogy, after facing and helping to defeat multiple Ghostfaces and showing a consistent dedication to Gale, the latter agrees to his marriage proposal. Sadly becomes a Happy Ending Override by the time of Scream 5.
  • Embarrassing Nickname: His real name is "Dwight", with "Dewey" being a childhood nickname he got stuck with. By the time Scream 2 rolls around, he makes a point of being called "Dwight" by Gale - it doesn't take, though. In Scream 3, Stone repeatedly calls him "Dew-drop."
  • Establishing Character Moment: In the original film, Dewey is first seen when the officers ask Sidney questions after Casey's death, with Dewey telling her to refer to him as a deputy while he calls her "Sid". The scene establishes the familiarity of the pair, and Dewey's lack of respect from the Woodsboro teens.
  • Excellent Judge of Character:
    • In the second film, Dewey refuses to believe that Gale is one of the killers when Randy suggests her. Not only is he correct, but Gale plays a pivotal role in the defeat of the Ghostfaces on the campus just as she did with Billy and Stu.
    • In the fifth film, when visited by Sam and her boyfriend Richie, he warns Sam to not trust the love interest. Dewey specifically mentions they seem sweet, caring, and supportive of the hero until they try to kill them in the third act and casts doubts on Richie. Richie later reveals himself as one of the Ghostfaces to Sam.
  • Experienced Protagonist: From the second film onward, Dewey is aware of the Ghostface killers and tends to do things that are aligned with solving the mystery. He even consults Randy in the second film on who the killer could be.
  • Expert Consultant: Dewey, a person with first-hand experience with Ghostface murders, is hired as a consultant on the set of Stab 3, a film based on the Ghostface murders.
  • A Father to His Men: Downplayed, but in Scream 4, after Gale insults Judy's lemon squares, Dewey immediately assures the latter that they taste good. After initially being upset at Hoss and Perkins for not protecting Jill's mother from the killer, he is visibly moved when Judy informs him that the pair were found dead as well.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: With Randy Meeks. While they were never antagonistic to each other, they did not interact much in the original film. After surviving the murder spree of that movie, the second film finds them friendly enough to talk with each other alone and know personal things about the other, as Randy makes references to Dewey's attraction to Gale and Randy confesses his unrequited romantic interest in Sidney to Dewey.
  • Foil:
    • Scream (1996):
      • To Gale Weathers. Both are young adults several years older than the teenage characters, who want to see the murderer caught and are nominally on the side of good. Dewey wants the killer stopped solely to prevent innocent lives from being lost, while Gale mostly wants the killer caught to get the scoop over other reporters and increase her celebrity status. While Dewey both personally wants to and professionally is trying to protect Sidney and has been on good terms with the latter prior to the start of the film, Gale personally is neutral to and professionally antagonistic to Sidney and was disparaging of the latter before the start of the film.
    • Scream 2:
      • To Randy Meeks. The two share commonalities of being young men who survived the first Ghostface spree and care about Sidney while also being among the few who she fully trusts. While Randy is a student at the same university as Sidney, Dewey is only visiting to keep her safe in light of a new killer surfacing. Randy has seemingly healed entirely from the first Ghostface spree, but Dewey has a severed nerve that visibly shows in his limp. Although the pair are both attacked by Mrs. Loomis as Ghostface, Dewey survives his wounds, while Randy dies.
    • Scream 3:
      • To Jennifer Jolie. Both are involved with the making of Stab 3 and have views of Gale that lean toward being negative. But while Jennifer is only related to the Woodsboro murder spree through playing Gale, Dewey was actually there. Dewey works with Gale because he likes being with her, while Jennifer chooses to stick with her out of a belief that the killer will target the real Gale instead of the actress portraying her. While Jennifer has had affairs with men such as Roman to further her career, Dewey has only advanced in his through hard work and been consistently dedicated to a relationship with Gale.
      • To Roman. Both are young men working on the Stab 3 film who have some romantic interest in Jennifer. Dewey, though unrelated to Sidney, bonded with her over their shared loss of Tatum and experiences together, while Roman, related to Sidney as her half-brother, never met Sidney and grew to resent her due to her being allowed the acceptance of the mother who rejected him. Dewey goes out of his way to keep Sidney safe and is one of the few that was trusted to know where she was hiding, while Roman is trying to kill her and found out where she was through other means. Finally, while Dewey is trying to protect people from the killer, Roman is the killer.
    • Scream 4:
      • To Jill Roberts. Both are life-long Woodsboro residents connected to Sidney and the newest killing spree. Dewey achieved notoriety through his selfless acts of helping defeat multiple Ghostfaces, while Jill wants to achieve notoriety through appearing to have survived a killing spree, even through she is actually the killer. While Jill attacks Gale, feigns concern for her well-being, and wants to write a book with her, Dewey protects Gale, is actually concerned about her well-being, and has no interest in being involved with her writings. Dewey is unrelated to Sidney, but tries his hardest to protect her, while Jill is related to her and tries her hardest to kill her.
    • Scream (2022):
      • To Sam Carpenter. Both have a past with Sheriff Judy Hicks and want to stop the newest killing spree. Sam was a law-breaker in her youth, while Dewey has always followed the rules and even formerly served as an officer. Sam has never experienced a Ghostface killing spree, while Dewey is an Experienced Protagonist who has been through four of them. Dewey distrusts Richie from the moment he meets him and is correct to suspect him as one of the killers, while Sam believes she can trust him and incorrectly thinks he is on her side until he stabs her. Sam never met Billy Loomis despite being related to him, while Dewey knew him and is not related to him. The real-life version of Billy tried to kill Dewey, while the hallucination of Billy tries to help Sam.
      • To Tara Carpenter. Both have injures from Ghostface that have left them in either severe pain or hospitalized for a time. While Dewey's injuries generally came at the end of each prior film, Tara is attacked at the start of the movie and is injured throughout the whole film. Dewey was generally only attacked by Ghostface when getting in the way of a killing spree with another intended target, while Tara was attacked in her home and specifically targeted. Although Tara is attacked by Ghostface again, she survives the film, while Dewey dies during the movie following an effort to kill Ghostface. Dewey is killed by Amber after trying to shoot her, while Tara kills Amber by shooting her.
  • Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Dewey is the Responsible Sibling to Tatum's Foolish Sibling in the original film. Dewey is serious about his job as a deputy and protective toward Sidney, while Tatum openly mocks his authority and is attentive to Sidney as a friend. Dewey respects the law and even tells Tatum that she cannot be at the scene of a crime after Sidney is first attacked by Ghostface, while Tatum brushes him off.
  • Friend on the Force: Dewey is this to Sidney, who he knew before the events of the original film (as she was the best friend of his sister) and is even assigned to protect during the movie. Throughout the series, he's the most recurring help she gets in taking down Ghostfaces.
  • Good Hair, Evil Hair: Dewey sports a heroic cop mustache for most of the movies.
  • Go Out with a Smile: The last thing he sees before dying is a photo of Gale as she calls him on his phone. Even though Gale's call indirectly got him killed, Dewey smiles warmly, thinking about the woman he still cared about until the very end.
  • Gutted Like a Fish: Suffers from this fate in the fifth film after the new Ghostface gets the drop on him. Interestingly enough, the film shies away from showing heavier Gorn, though it’s clearly what's happening onscreen.
  • Handicapped Badass: Dewey has a severed nerve from his injury in the original film that carries over to Scream 2 where he walks with a limp, but it doesn't stop him from being one of the first responders to any Ghostface attack and one of the few who can survive their assaults.
  • Happily Married: With Gale in Scream 4. While there is some friction due to Dewey not wanting to involve Gale in police business and Deputy Judy Hicks flirting with Dewey, the latter is just as in love wit her as he was in the previous film and rushes to her aid after she's attacked by Ghostface.
  • Happy Ending Override: The fourth film, the last directed by Wes Craven, ends with an injured Dewey having survived the latest killing spree while retaining his marriage to Gale and his position as sheriff. In the fifth film, Dewey has lost both his marriage and position in the years since, and ultimately loses his life to one of the new killers.
  • The Hermit: Implied. In the fifth film, Dewey lives alone after choosing to end his relationship with Gale, and his demeanor toward Sam and Richie hints that he is not used to getting visited by others.
  • The Hero Dies: One of the principal protagonists of the original four Wes Craven-directed films, and arguably the one with the most character development in both the third and fifth films, and he dies before the climax of the fifth film. The first five Scream films chronicle his journey from a naive deputy oblivious to the terrors of Ghostface to a married sheriff, and then to a retired, but Experienced Protagonist ready to help those in need even when it's no longer his job.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: In the fifth film, despite having time to leave the hospital floor with Sam, Tara, and Richie and knowing the possibility of Ghostface killing him, Dewey chooses to stay in order to finish off Ghostface. This results in his death, though ultimately he did manage to save Tara... who ends up being the one to finish off Dewey's murderer, Amber.
  • Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Dewey is this to the sheriff in the original film, as he stays close to Sidney (per the sheriff's orders), and all of his actions are directed toward keeping her safe until he is knocked unconscious. Even though Sidney ultimately saved herself, Dewey still was of more help to her than any other member of law enforcement in the film.
  • Idiot Ball: Dewey, after years of surviving Ghostface attacks that usually saw multiple casualties from the victims being targeted when they were alone, decides to confront the seemingly unconscious killer by himself and, while pointing his gun at Ghostface, stands close enough for the killer to strike him.
  • Ignored Expert: In Scream (2022), he correctly identifies Richie as one of the killers within minutes of meeting him, on the basis that you should never trust a Love Interest when Ghostface is around. Unfortunately, Sam doesn't listen.
  • Instantly Proven Wrong: In Scream 4, amid the new Ghostface murder spree, Dewey declares that he and his officers have everything under control right before the bloody corpse of the recently-deceased Rebecca falls from the garage.
  • Joke Item: His gun becomes this in the original film when Ghostface calls his home to taunt Sydney and he rushes to the room with his pistol, which is comically completely useless in this scenario.
  • Jumped at the Call: In the original film, Dewey does everything he can to make sure Sidney is safe from Ghostface, even comically rushing to a phone with a gun in a belated attempt to answer the killer and sticking to her even more when assigned to protect her by the Woodsboro sheriff.
  • Just in Time: Just as Ghostface is about to kill Tara in the fifth film, Dewey and Sam arrive on an elevator and Dewey shoots at Ghostface, causing the killer to rush away.
  • Lame Comeback: In the second film, when Gale calls Dewey a "bonehead" after he mentions they were all involved with Woodsboro, he hesitates before calling her a "phonehead" after her phone rings.
  • Legendary in the Sequel: He goes from being a little-known deputy in the original film to gradually becoming famed for his role in the Ghostface murders that are portrayed in the Stab films note . His survival skills and heroism become so distinguished that Sam and Richie visit him at his home to get his help on the matter.
  • Leitmotif: "Dewey's Theme". It was originally used as the theme for Broken Arrow before being repurposed by composer Marco Beltrami for Scream 2. The tune makes a welcome return when Dewey comes out of retirement to help Sam and Richie in 5, and again when Gale indirectly mentions Dewey while consoling Sam in VI.
  • Like Brother and Sister: He has this dynamic with Sidney, the latter even describing him as her surrogate big brother in the second film after their reunion.
  • The Lost Lenore: Both at the end of Scream (2022) and in Scream VI, Gale is shown to be deeply affected by Dewey's murder at Amber's hands — to the point that when she's confronting Amber directly, Sidney passes Gale the gun to try to finish her off on behalf of Dewey too. In the sixth film, not only does Ghostface taunt Gale about Dewey over the phone, she chose to write about the previous killings to avoid writing about Dewey, still has the picture of the two of them together right next to her gun safe, moved on with a Red Shirt to further avoid her grief for Dewey, and is clearly feeling the guilt when Sam and Tara call her out for dishonoring his memory too.
  • Made of Iron: Stabbed in the back in the first film, stabbed multiple times in the second one, beaten almost to death with a bedpan in the fourth one... and still alive. His luck finally runs out, however, in the fifth film, where getting stabbed with two knives at once and gutted seems to do the trick.
  • Make Sure He's Dead: In the fifth film, he goes back to the unconscious Ghostface with the intent of ensuring the killer is deceased.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Invoked, as during their first encounter in Scream 2, when he chides her for her description of him in her book, Dewey asks Gale how she knows his "dim-witted inexperience isn't merely a subtle form of manipulation used to lower people's expectations, thereby enhancing my ability to effectively maneuver within any given situation?"
  • Mentor Occupational Hazard: Falls victim to the Han Solo treatment in 5, as the experienced legacy character who gets the most focus of the original Power Trio and dies a tragic death partway through the film while helping the younger heroes.
  • Meta Guy: Dewey becomes this in the fifth movie and informs Richie and Sam the rules of surviving a Stab movie.
  • Missed Him by That Much: In the second movie, Dewey comes close to meeting Debbie Salt face-to-face multiple times, notably in the aftermath of Cici's death and his meeting with Chief Hartley. If Dewey got a good look at Salt's face, he would have recognized her as Billy's mother and thus figure out one Ghostface's identity.
  • Mistaken for Murderer: After Dewey notes the time discrepancies between Ghostface's arrival and Derek's, the latter notes that Dewey got there too late and only after Derek was attacked, implying that Dewey himself might be the killer. They both turn out to be wrong about each other.
  • Never Got to Say Goodbye:
    • In the original film, the last time Dewey sees Tatum is when he arrives at Stu's house with Gale, and is seemingly only made aware that she died after surviving his own near-death experience.
    • With Judy. The two had a great-working relationship (as depicted in the fourth film) and Judy even succeeded Dewey as sheriff. When she dies in the fifth film, Dewey comes to the scene of her murder.
  • Nice Guy: Dewey is a good-natured guy who lives to help others.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Dewey dies by Ghostface after making the selfless decision to go with Sam to the hospital to help her protect her sister Tara from Ghostface.
  • No-Nonsense Nemesis: Dewey usually does not waste time trying to take out a Ghostface. In the original film, an armed Dewey heads to Stu's home with a gun and is only defeated by a sneak attack from Billy. In 2, after Ghostface attacks Sidney, Dewey rushes to her aid and goes to chase the killer down before realizing Ghostface has already left. In 3, Dewey tries shooting Roman over and over until finally killing him with a shot to the head.
  • Not Quite Dead: This is his fate in both the original and 2. In the first film, he appears deceased when he is stabbed in the back, and the second sees him attacked in the same way. Both times, he clings to life long enough to be taken by an ambulance for a recovery.
  • Odd Friendship: With Randy Meeks in Scream 2. The soft-spoken deputy has little in common with the boisterous, movie-obsessed student.
  • Official Couple: With Gale Weathers, in-between the second and third films and Scream 4.
  • Offscreen Breakup: With Gale between Scream 2 and Scream 3. They get back together by the end of the third film. They then divorce a few years before the events of the fifth film.
  • Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: Most of the Ghostface killers are younger than Dewey. Dewey, 25 in the original film, is older than the teen killers Billy and Stu, and is older than every killer in the sequels except for Roman (who is about the same age) and Mrs. Loomis.
  • Older Than They Look: In the original film, Gale is surprised by him being a deputy due to his youthful appearance.
  • Once per Episode: Dewey tends to get assaulted in some way that leaves him incapacitated and either assumed dead or at the mercy of the killer. He gets stabbed in the back in the original, struck in the back and left to bleed out in the second film, falls down a staircase after being hit in the forehead with a knife in the third film, and knocked unconscious by repeated blows to the head with a pan in the fourth film.
  • One Last Job: In the fifth film, Dewey is retired and only becomes involved in solving the new Ghostface murders after having a change of heart following a conversation with Sidney, even telling Sam that he is assisting her only temporarily. True to this trope, he dies later on in the movie.
  • Opposites Attract: In the original film, Dewey and Gale could not be more different from each other. Dewey is a little-known, law-abiding deputy who just wants to be more respected per his job title and make sure that Sidney is okay. Gale is a well-known reporter who will do anything to further her career and is more interested in getting a scoop than saving anybody. They are connected through trying to solve the Ghostface murders (albeit for very different reasons) and both having some level of moral compass that aids Sidney in the final act.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: Implied. In 3, Dewey shoots Roman over and over in unsuccessful attempts to finish him off so that he can no longer terrorize Sidney, seemingly having no problem littering his body with bullets for killing the various actors from the Stab film and only stopping when he realizes it is not hurting Roman thanks to the latter's bulletproof vest.
  • Pitbull Dates Puppy: The Puppy in his relationship with the abrasive and temperamental Gale. This is lampshaded by Judy in a deleted scene, when she says that everyone has a dark side except Dewey, which is why he had to marry one.
  • Plot Armor: Dewey arguably suffers the most punishment of the three principal characters throughout the series, constantly getting the crap beaten out of him by each new killer, but he always survives to fight another day. Sadly, though, this is subverted in the fifth film, when his armor finally evaporates and he dies fighting Ghostface.
  • Positive Friend Influence: Dewey is this to Gale throughout Scream 2. Their first scene together has him criticizing her for her book and fame-seeking ways in general. While the two are united in wanting to catch Ghostface, his influence brings out her compassion toward others, as she even apologizes to Dewey later on. This also leads to the furthering of their romance, and her decision to be with Dewey as he is being taken by an ambulance instead of reporting on the killing spree solidifies his impact on her.
  • Posthumous Character: As explained in details below, his death in the fifth film is brought up in the climax. He is also mentioned and appears in photos in Scream VI.
  • Present Absence: Despite being deceased, Dewey has a heavy presence during the showdown at Stu's house in the climax of the fifth film, as he is mentioned by Richie, Amber, and Gale. The former pair make gleeful references to his murder, with Amber even relishing the thought of killing both members of the Riley couple as she attacks Gale, and Gale mentions him when refusing to spare Amber's life.
  • The Promise: After Gale is attacked by Ghostface in Scream 4, the former gets Dewey to promise her that he will catch Ghostface. Not only is he the only person who deduces who the killer is without them revealing their self, he plays an important role in stopping them from killing Sidney thanks to moving the latter from Kirby's house and to the hospital.
  • Properly Paranoid: As someone who personally witnessed several Ghostface sprees, Dewey is very wary of all possibilities and consults Randy in the second film about various potential killers.
  • Rage Breaking Point: Subverted. When it appears that Dewey is getting angry at Jennifer's bodyguard for rudely mentioning his sister's death during a call between the pair, it turns out to be Ghostface impersonating him before he kills the latter.
  • Really Dead Montage: After Dewey is killed, we get a Dies Wide Open shot of him. Then we see his body being taken out of the hospital in a bodybag by coroners, while Gale screams and cries and tries to run towards him, only to be held back, with no dialogue and everything in slow-mo. All of this hammers into the audience that this time, Dewey isn't going to miraculously pull through like he did in the other movies — he really isn't coming back.
  • The Redeemer: While Gale was never a villain, Dewey's relationship with her brought out her more positive qualities of volunteering to help solve the Ghostface murders to prevent innocent people from getting harmed instead of trying to make herself more famous from her involvement.
  • Red Is Heroic: Wears a red shirt for a large chunk of Scream 3.
  • Refusal of the Call: When Sam tells him to help her solve the mystery of the newest Ghostface, Dewey initially declines on the grounds of his injuries from surviving previous murder sprees.
  • Sacrificial Lion: His death in the fifth film serves to show that not even the original trio are safe this time.
  • Save the Villain: Dewey unintentionally does this when he comes to Kirby's house and takes the very-wounded Jill and Sidney to the hospital, as he was not aware that Jill was the killer at the time.
  • Secret-Keeper: He's the only major character in Scream 3 to know where Sidney is before Ghostface draws her out of hiding.
  • Senseless Sacrifice: While Tara ultimately survives the ordeal, Richie and Amber never intended on killing her as they were using her to get Sam closer to them, and Amber did not intend to kill Richie as he was the other killer, meaning that Dewey arguably could have not intervened and the same result would have occurred.
  • The Sheriff: He's been promoted to this in the fourth film.
  • Shipper on Deck: He seems to be supportive of the relationship between Sidney and her husband Mark, asking how the latter is during his phone call with Sidney in the fifth film.
  • Sibling Team: While they do not face the killers together, Dewey and Tatum work for the same purpose of being supportive toward Sidney. They mutually support having her stay with them in her dad's absence and accompany her to Stu's home.
  • Single-Target Sexuality: While he has flirtations with Jennifer and Judy, Gale is the only woman he has ever loved, and his strong affection for her persists even during the periods where they are not together.
  • Staircase Tumble: Dewey has one in Scream 3 after being hit in the head by the butt of a knife, which renders him unconscious and allows for Ghostface to use Gale and him as bait to lure Sidney.
  • Suggestive Collision: In the original film, Dewey and Gale are narrowly run over and end up falling to the ground in a position where Dewey is on top of Gale. It doesn't take long after for the duo to share their first kiss.
  • Take Up My Sword:
    • Following his retirement, Judy Hicks succeeds him as the Woodsboro sheriff.
    • After his death, Sidney and Gale become involved in helping Sam confront Ghostface and save her sister.
  • Targeted to Hurt the Hero: After Roman subdues Dewey in 3, he keeps him (and Gale) captive at his home and threatens Sidney with their demise if she does not come. Roman can be heard hitting someone during his call to Sidney, and Gale calls out Dewey's name, implying that it was Dewey who was struck.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
    • With Gale initially in Scream 2, as he is mad at the latter for both her description of him in her latest book and for trying to get Sidney to do an interview with Cotton, even admitting that he had misjudged her. The pair's relationship gradually improves as Gale's motive changes to just wanting to catch the killer.
    • To a lesser extent with Cotton in the same film, as Dewey speaks negatively of Cotton while the latter never expresses an opinion on him. Ironically, Cotton finds the critically-injured Dewey after his attack by Ghostface and saves his life.
    • With Steven Stone in Scream 3, as both are in charge of protecting Jennifer due to Stone being her personal bodyguard and Dewey being a regular cop. Stone looks down on Dewey and even suggests the latter take orders from him.
  • Tempting Fate: In the original Scream, Dewey says "I'll be right back" , a big no-no according to Randy's rules. This is played with in that Dewey says this while in a police station full of cops, meaning he is completely safe, at least in the police station.
  • Throw the Dog a Bone: For all of his troubles, including his near-death injuries and general mistreatment, the original four Wes Craven-directed Scream films always gave him a conclusion of surviving and an arc of gradually moving up from a lowly deputy with a budding romantic interest in Gale to a married sheriff.
  • Together in Death: Billy invokes this as he prepares to shoot the unconscious Gale, who fell on Dewey (also unconscious but thought dead), only to be interrupted by Stu alerting him that Sidney has fled.
  • Took a Level in Badass: In Scream 4, he's much sharper and competent at his job than ever before, and correctly deduces that Sidney's cousin Jill is the Ghostface killer after she makes a small comment about Gale's injury that no one else would've known about unless they were present or inflicted it themselves.
  • Tragic Hero: Dewey starts off as a normal deputy who joined the force for the sake of protecting innocent people and just happens to be the brother of the best friend of the girl whose mother was murdered the previous year. His desire to help innocent people, including Sidney, but extending to others that are targeted by Ghostface, results in him sustaining multiple injuries and enduring years of physical pain until he retires. Even in his retirement, he still cannot fully get away from wanting to help others, including those who he just met (such as Sam and Tara), leading to his trip with Sam to the hospital that ends with his demise.
  • Two First Names: "Dewey" and "Riley" can both be used as first names.
  • Two Girls and a Guy: The guy in this dynamic with Sidney and Gale that starts with Scream 2 but fully-materializes in the third film as the trio face off against Ghostface together in the climax. This is also his dynamic with Tara and Sam at the hospital against Amber as Ghostface, and Richie, who Sam and Tara would later discover was the other killer.
  • Undying Loyalty: To Sidney. Even when he gets used as a bait by Roman to lure Sidney to the former, Dewey tells her not to come.
  • The Unfought: As Billy was the one who stabbed Dewey in the back when he entered Stu's house and Stu hung up the phone before Dewey could answer with his gun, Dewey does not have an encounter with Stu as Ghostface.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In 4, Dewey realizes that Jill is the killer and rushes to Sidney's room to help her. Jill, hiding from him, sneak attacks Dewey with a pan until he falls unconscious. This allows her to both arm herself with his gun and use him as leverage to get Judy and Gale to comply with her requests.
  • Villain Killer:
    • Kills Roman Bridger after listening to Sidney's advice to aim for his head in Scream 3.
    • Subverted in the fifth film. He tries to kill Amber with a gunshot, but is struck when distracted by his phone and killed instead.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: On the receiving end of this from Jennifer in Scream 3, as she chides him for not protecting her when she has housed him before assaulting him.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: During his sole encounter with Ghostface in the fifth film, the killer pushes him up against a wall before Dewey does the same in return and then spins Ghostface to the ground. Fitting since David Arquette is also a professional wrestler as well as an actor.

Alternative Title(s): Scream Sidney Prescott, Scream Gale Weathers, Scream Dewey Riley

Top