‘Scream 5’ Has a Deleted Scene That Reverses the Franchise’s Biggest Kill Yet

In every Scream, Ghostface dies, whether it’s one, two, or three people behind the mask. However, the franchise has had issues with killing off its protagonists. Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) had a shocking death early in Scream 2. Outside of that, it’s mostly minor characters who meet their demise, while Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), and Dewey Riley (David Arquette) somehow find a way to make it through. That came to an end with 2022’s Scream, where Dewey is brutally killed. The decision was controversial, with many fans thinking he should have survived. That uneasiness was shared by the studio, which asked directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett to film a scene that showed Dewey still alive.

Dewey Is Stabbed to Death by Ghostface in ‘Scream 5’

Killing off an iconic character in a horror film is always a risky choice. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has died twice in the Halloween movies, only for the franchise to hit reset and bring her back. Sidney, Gale, and Dewey have a showdown with Ghostface in each movie, and although they receive their share of wounds, the trio lives to see another day. Dewey’s fate has messed with audiences more than once. In the original Scream, he was stabbed in the spine and seemingly killed, only for an end scene to show him alive in an ambulance. He’s attacked again in Scream 2 in an even more violent fashion, but yet again, he couldn’t be kept down. In 2022’s Scream, his luck finally ran out.

When we meet Dewey in Scream 5, he’s retired from the police department and living alone, having divorced Gale, who moved away to New York for her career, while he stays behind in Woodsboro. When a new Ghostface appears, the first thing he does is call Sidney and tell her to stay away. He sends Gale a quick text, too, although he would love to do so much more. It’s then that he looks at a photo of the pair on his wall from better days. Struck by the enduring love and wanting to protect her, Dewey decides to get up and fight. He gets his gun and goes out to help the new victims of Ghostface.

Then Scream 5 goes for it. After a heartbreaking in-person final conversation between Dewey and Gale, the former ends up at the hospital where Tara (Jenna Ortega) is recovering from an attack. When Ghostface appears, Dewey is ready, shooting several shots into the killer’s torso. But because this is a slasher, the antagonist can’t go down that easily. Ghostface rises and stabs Dewey. This has happened twice before, yet never like this. Dewey takes a knife to the back and gut, ripping him open with a wound no one can come back from. Dewey Riley is dead.

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett Filmed a Scene Where Dewey Lives

If you hated this choice, you weren’t alone. Even Spyglass got nervous that James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick‘s script may have gone too far. To protect themselves, in case they changed their mind, the studio asked the directors to film an alternate scene which would reveal that Dewey had somehow survived. Radio Silence weren’t fans of the request, so they made sure to do it as badly as possible.

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In an interview with Variety, Tyler Gillett said, “We very begrudgingly got one shot that you could put some voiceover over, like, ‘He woke up from surgery, he’s gonna be fine. With no intention of ever fucking using it.” Co-director Matt Bettinelli-Olpin added, “Just to describe the shot, it was an over-the-shoulder from behind Gale and Sid of a doctor’s legs. It was absolutely not really a usable shot. Shot is very generous.”

Someone Important Had To Die in ‘Scream 5’

David Arquette as Dewey in the Scream 2022 trailer.Image via Paramount

In an interview with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, the directors and executive producer Chad Villella explained why they kept Dewey dead and resisted the temptation to have him survive an attack for a third time. Villella called the script twist the “right choice” because “it would be the only thing that would bring Sidney back to Woodsboro.” Villella is right. Dewey had already called Sidney and told her to stay away. She’s going to listen because she not only has herself, but her family to protect. As awful as it would be to hear that Ghostface is back in Woodsboro, she’s no longer going to risk herself for those she doesn’t know. It can only be the death of Dewey and their close emotional connection to make her return logical.

Villella said, “He’s a beloved character in movie history, one of the most beloved, and I think that exact reason is why it had to be Dewey in this one.” A criticism of the Scream movies is that they don’t take a risk and kill anyone significant. That’s shown even in Scream 5 and Scream 6, with the new core four able to survive any attack. Remember in Scream 6 when Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding) was stabbed by several Ghostfaces, only to be shown alive? It made the killer look weak and stripped away the tension and realism. Matt Bettinelli spoke about Casey Becker’s (Drew Barrymore) shocking death at the beginning of Scream in comparison to Dewey’s fate. “I think that we all forget that that is what was so compelling about the opening of the first movie, that it hurts and you don’t like that feeling and that it, at the same time, completely has you hooked in.”

Horror isn’t supposed to thrive on nostalgia and make us feel good. It’s meant to be horrific and scary. Good guys have to die. Bad guys have to be threatening. Scream 5 knew what the goal was and went for it. Letting Dewey live would have only said that they were forever beholden to the past.

2022’s Scream is available to stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.

Release Date

January 14, 2022

Runtime

114 minutes

Director

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett

Writers

Guy Busick, James Vanderbilt

Producers

James Vanderbilt, William Sherak