10 Horror Movie Sequels That Were Just Too Cruel

The fifth Scream film made a concerted effort to dispense with the perceived pattern of safety which the franchise had fallen into. Namely, that the O.G. trio of heroes - Sidney (Neve Campbell), Dewey (David Arquette), and Gale (Courteney Cox) - were basically untouchable.

But the sequel goes much further than that, as in the span of around 15 minutes in the middle of the movie, three of its most innocent and/or likeable characters get brutally killed off.

First, there's Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton), the adorable Sheriff introduced in the fourth movie, who is killed in broad daylight while racing to check on her son Wes (Dylan Minnette). Speaking of whom, mere minutes later Ghostface heads inside and kills Wes, stabbing him through the throat and watching him bleed out.

And the grim pièce de résistance? Dewey himself, the series' beloved veteran cop, gets fatally gutted when he (rather foolishly) heads back inside the hospital to finish off Ghostface.

Dewey's death in particular proved hugely divisive among the fanbase, for though Scream 2022 certainly didn't pull its punches, this trilogy of mean-spirited kills transcended slasher movie fun to leave many fans genuinely bummed out.