Dewey Riley

Dewey is a deputy and the older brother of Tatum, Sidney's best friend. He's the one who arrests Billy after the first attack. On the night of the party, he watches Stu's house with Gale and finds the hidden car of Sidney's father. He takes a knife in the back but survives, leaving by ambulance at dawn. Nobody in Woodsboro took Dewey very seriously. After that night, Sidney trusts him like almost no one else.

Still limping, Dewey heads to Windsor to protect Sidney and runs into Gale, who mocked him in her book. Bit by bit they patch things up. Ghostface stabs him again, and everyone thinks he's dead. In the end he turns up alive, and Gale climbs into the ambulance with him.

Dewey works as a consultant on the Stab 3 set and dates Jennifer, the actress playing Gale. When the killings reach the set, he teams up with the real Gale again. Nobody there knows the case better than he does. Dewey fires the final shot into Roman. Then he asks Gale to marry him.

Fifteen years later, Dewey is Woodsboro's sheriff and Gale's husband. He tries to keep his wife off the case and leads a team that keeps getting killed, with deputy Judy Hicks among the few left standing. With Gale, he realizes Jill knew something that never made the news and races to save Sidney.

Retired, divorced from Gale and living in a trailer, Dewey gets a visit from Sam Carpenter. He warns Sidney and Gale and gets back in the game to protect the sisters. At the Meeks twins' house he reunites with Martha, Randy's sister, and listens to Mindy lay out the rules of the new game. At the hospital, he saves Tara and Sam from Ghostface. When he tries to make sure the killer is dead, he's stabbed and dies.

Years later, the Pine Grove killer records a message for Sidney and swaps faces with technology: he becomes Nancy Loomis, then Roman Bridger and finally Dewey. It's the only way Dewey appears in the film. For Sidney and Gale, seeing that face again is part of the killer's cruel game.

David Arquette plays Dewey in the first five films. In Scream 7, Dewey shows up only as a fake face used by the killer.