The Fear Street Trilogy – Netflix’s latest tales of terror

Slasher movies have been seeing a bit of a drought recently. Occasionally, something like Wolf Creek or some tribute to a slasher film will come along, but it appears audiences just don’t care about teenagers being chased by a crazy individual in a hockey mask anymore. But they were an integral part of the film diet for many growing up in the 90’s and 80’s, with the bright neon and the bloody silliness searing into the minds of everyone who watched them. And for the past month, Netflix has decided to tap into those glowing memories with a new horror franchise – Fear Street, based off R.L. Stine’s books of the same name.

I’ve seen glowing reviews for these films everywhere on Letterboxd, from people who grew up on the campy slashers of the 90’s and 80’s. I was not raised with said films, so I’m not as connected to this formula as director Leigh Janiak probably hoped I would. I’m less a fan of fun, cool, violent horrors, and more so one of darker, actually scary, intense horror experiences (like comparing the silly horror Resident Evil 8 with the gruesome horror of Resident Evil 7.) So perhaps that’s why although I enjoyed these films, I didn’t quite love them.

Fear Street comes in three films, each about 2 hours long, and set in 1994, 1978 and 1666 respectively. They focus on the history of violent killings in Shadyside, a town which neighbours the baby boomer paradise Sunnyvale, and which is subsequently dark, cynical and absolutely soaked in neon. I’m going to go through each movie, one at a time, and give my thoughts on all of them, as they differ surprisingly significantly between features.

1994

If I were to sum up the 1994 instalment quickly and neatly, I’d say it was “Stranger Things, but loving its time period a lot more.” That’s an easy comparison to Stranger Things, with both having colourful neon cinematography, a strong focus on violent horror and conspiracy, a ton of 80’s genre tropes and a main cast composed of youths.

What I mean by “loving its time period a lot more” is that 1994 has built a lot of its dialogue and character moments on 90’s references and pop culture, with the exact copying of certain genre tropes (such as the opening being a tribute to Scream) and 90’s music blasting often completely randomly at certain points. If you didn’t grow up in the 90’s, so much of it is going to either go over your head and annoy you, or perhaps even distract from the actual character development on screen.

Here’s a common misconception about Stranger Things that 1994 doesn’t get – until its 3rd season, the show isn’t entirely built on 80’s genre tropes and references, but is much more of a character piece, focusing on the relationships between the leads rather than taking deviations to randomly reference its era. The subtle nods to 80’s neon and noise aren’t annoying in Stranger Things because they’re infrequent and used cleverly, but 1994 piles them on endlessly until it gets absolutely aggravating.

Because of that and some other factors, 1994 didn’t quite gel with me until the second half, when all was set up and the chase began. This is partially because 1994 makes the strange decision to make all of its lead characters completely unlikable for the first act, throwing barbs and jabs at one another in ways that people having regular conversations just wouldn’t do. When that second part rolls around and these people actually start opening up, it’s a breath of fresh air because it’s like “finally, can these people just react normally for 5 seconds?”

It feels like a dramatically different film at that point, genuinely emotional and full of good character stuff while focusing on actual tension instead of world-building and violence. If the first half is a low-rent pink-coloured Scream, then the tighter, more coherent second half is It Follows.

Another key point to mention, which I feel is the best part of the film, is that seemingly every set in this movie is absolutely awash with colour – the purples and blues of the local mall, the low greens of the school, the vivid reds of the blood and the woods surrounding the area, all framed beautifully with this centred viewpoint that draws the viewer in. Undeniably, 1994 is a great-looking movie, and by just looking at it, you feel like you’re watching a young adult graphic novel in its vivid descriptions and crushing environments, just as R.L. Stine put it on his original pages.

In this sense, Jeniak and her cinematographer feel like they’ve worked somewhat separately to the nod-and-wink writers. The love for the source material and the time period which Jeniak has is frequently offset by the computational view of the era by the writers, who had “90’s-reference” and “pointless 90’s drama” bound to the tilde key on their typewriters. I never quite found the firm ground between them to fully enjoy 1994.

1978

As I mentioned in the intro, I’m more of a lover of the darker side of horror than I am the fun side of horror, which is why I think that 1978 is the best film in the Fear Street trilogy. 1978 puts in more character work and interesting ideas while cranking down the period obsession, leaving an experience more organic and actually intense.

Set in a Friday the 13th-esque summer camp, 1978 sets up more like the typical slasher movie – a big bunch of teenage supervisors, an urban legend, sexual tensions, all that jazz. What sets it above that bar somewhat is the far better work done for characters – from the start, they’re interesting, loud and feel far more relatable, as they don’t spout references every 5 minutes. This makes the shift to the more dramatic tone in the film far more effective, as we care more for the children under attack before they actually come under attack.

Another reason that 1978 feels better as an experience than 1994 is that it begins to weave the stories of the two films together in a way which feels surprisingly organic, framing the events in 1978 within the context of a story in 1994’s timeline. We know the outcome, but we don’t know all of the answers, and we pay more attention as we feel the desire to cut off those lingering ideas from the previous film, as well as observing if the new, better characters make it out alive. World-building is also far better in this film than 1994, as we see a far more coherent idea of the class and subtler indications of the divide between Shadyside and Sunnyvale, and better setup of the twists that come in 1666.

What made me like this movie more than the previous may also be the reason that people dislike this one more – it’s faster, meaner, somewhat more brutal, not afraid to go after the young. It pushes past the limitations of what the previous film set-up – here, it feels more like no-one is safe, where the grumbling axe-man will kill you whether you’re a baby or a pensioner. Some will feel it goes too far, but I personally was more invested in it than 1994.

More importantly, 1978 is a general improvement in tension – using old-school tricks in combination with likeable characters makes the viewing experience harrowing, as you don’t want these characters to be hacked to pieces and you dread it whenever the axe-man comes. 1994 didn’t feel tense until the final 30 minutes, but 1978 from the get-go sets up troubles with our knowledge from the previous film and a great opening act. Unfortunately, some of this tension was undermined by the very excessive gore, which was Love, Death and Robots-egregious at points.

1978 got me all fired up for the third installment, 1666. Would it be a mystery drama a la The Crucible, or a more horrific experience which I’d been hoping for, or another slash-and-hack fest? Well…it was all three.

1666

I just want to predicate this part by saying that the Australian Ratings Board has been very weird in relation to the sex scenes in these films. In 1994, they ranked it as having “strong sex scenes”, even though there was no nudity and I’d seen many more films with far more explicit sex that was rated M, and I can only assume it was rated so as the conservative Ratings Board apparently found the lesbian nature of the scene “too adult”.

Then when 1666 rolled around and a more explicit version of said consensual sex scene played out, the ratings board didn’t mention sex scenes, but “strong sexual violence” for an earlier scene. So now I’m confused (unless consensual cunnilingus is now serious sexual assault – shit).

Anyway, not relevant to quality. I found 1666 to be a reasonable conclusion to the trilogy, with an unexpected payoff and good moments scattered throughout. It was never particularly impactful, but I enjoyed it, for what it’s worth.

The first half of 1666 plays out entirely in this Puritan Village that eventually becomes the two towns of Sunnyvale and Shadyside. This setting was used reasonably well, playing heavily on tropes established by The Crucible of Christian hysteria and accusations of impropriety and all of that stuff. Exposition was fast, world-building was neat, but weirdly the production design did not work for me – I just felt the exterior areas looked too much like a movie set, without the wide shots or the density of architecture to feel like a lived-in space.

This first act was pretty good, tying up many plot threads in satisfying ways while also providing the trilogy’s one truly horrific moment (beforehand, it was only tension in an amusement park kind of way). It was a solid mix throughout, before we got to the second half.

Set back in 1994, the second half drops the horror atmospherics for a violent action showdown in a mall, which just isn’t as satisfying. The combination of the tonal change and the return to the reference-heavy, 90’s-addicted original style (including a monologue on the bloody Konami Code – yes we all know what that is, get back to demon killing) killed the momentum of the film for me, and while there were some great moments in the final act, the film just wasn’t that good.

Perhaps most disappointing for me was the ending, which suggested a more dark comedic crackle that was about to slip in, but instead immediately forgot that and didn’t quite tie up all of the plot threads that I wanted solved. Maybe I had certain expectations that couldn’t be met, I don’t know. But I just didn’t like it that much.

Fear Street overall was not as good as I’d hoped it would be. But I’ve seen everybody else absolutely gushing for this movie online, with one Letterboxd review by Jay calling it “queer horror in a evildeadian strangerthingsist riverdalistic screamian wescravenist cobainian kind of way” and getting 3,063 upvotes for it. Looking at all of those things they listed, I understand why I didn’t quite vibe with this film – I’ve only seen Stranger Things, and none of the others, so I’m nowhere near as immersed in this 90’s popular culture as this film clearly wanted me to be.

Perhaps your mileage may vary depending on your affection for the era, but I personally did not enjoy these films a lot. They were not bad films, but they’re not for me.

Fear Street gets a B-.