With the Conjuring trilogy coming to a close this year, it was going to be only a matter of time before Blumhouse or a streaming service would step in and offer up the next threequel. Well, Netflix not only beat everyone to the front of the line, but they decided to release all 3 films in 3 weeks. Beat that, DisneyPlus! This first Fear Street sets the stage for what the trilogy is going to be as we begin the homage fest the Netflix algorithm decided we all need.
After a 1994 mall killing spree, we are transported to the town of Shadyside Ohio, apparently the murder capital of the United States. In that town resides Deena (Kiana Madeira) and her brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.), as well as Deena’s best friends Simon (Fred Hechinger) and Kate (Julia Rehwald). Shadyside has a rivalry with Sunnyvale, the rich neighboring town. Heating up that rivalry is Sam (Olivia Scott Welch), Deena’s ex girlfriend who just moved there. This escalating tension leads to the rival high schoolers prank warring each other until strange murders start popping up for unexplained reasons, leaving it up to these 5 to figure out what the hell’s going on before the murder capital claims more victims.
It’s pretty clear after watching Part I that Fear Street is going for homages to the various eras of horror movies. 1990s horror is probably best defined by Scream, Wes Craven’s self aware horror masterpiece. The opening scene is a straight up Wes plagiarism. Josh would be your Jamie Kennedy substitute, putting all the pieces together about the mystery going on while explaining the rules of the various phenomena. As a result, Deena, Kate, Sam, and Simon each have more agency than your average horror movie scream queen, choosing to participate in the resolution than it being forced upon them. This allows them to rise above the archetypes they’re normally supposed to fill – the sexy sidekick, the scream queen, the resourceful inventor – and become something more specific and more interesting. Kate and Simon for example are flipped: Kate is an inventor badass, and Simon is the motivating mimbo, mostly wife beatering his way through the movie. Also, like in Scream, who/what the killer is changes scene to scene, keeping you guessing for a long time (but unfortunately lacking Scream’s amazing twist on the reveal).
Telling a 1990s horror movie through a 2021 lens gives writer/director Leigh Janiak a chance to modernize the tale with a little contemporary self awareness. Our main romance is an LGBT multiracial love story, for example. Setting the movie in the 90s allows the director to fully fling the movie’s soundtrack and backdrop into the era: expect a lot of Radiohead, AIM, and multi-colored mall settings. There’s also some Netflix mandated franchise building thrown in as we learn the history of Shadyside’s murdery past and how it terrorizes the present. Most importantly, Janiak keeps the story twisting and turning with his killer reveals enough to keep you engaged, while in the background like a good director he’s developing his characters so, by the end, if the ultimate reveal doesn’t work for you, at least you have people you’re invested in and rooting for; I found myself surprised at how emotionally moved I was during the climax, as Fear Street’s characters had slowly won me over and made me excited for our travel back in time to 1978’s harrowing tale.
Of course Fear Street Part 1’s 1994 based Scream Homage helps us understand the rules of this new Netflix horror franchise we are about to embark upon. With the rules set, here’s hoping the 1980s camp slasher movie is going to be at least as fun as the first Fear Street. There is one thing the Netflix Algorithm got wrong: the title of this should be “The Shadyside Murders”; “Fear Street” feels like Ted Sarandos got his tendrils a little too deep into Netflix’s moviemaking code.