Fear Street

 

This post contains spoilers for all three Fear Street movies, Fear Street 1994 (2021), Fear Street 1978 (2021), and Fear Street 1666 (2021). Read at your own peril. 

Netflix has just dropped a slasher trilogy based on the Fear Street books by R.L.Stine, and I was here for it, of course. Long time readers of this blog will know that I have a taste for horror. Body horror and gore generally doesn’t get to me, so Fear Street wasn’t scary for me at all, just enjoyable. 

Fear Street plays out like your classic slasher films, such as Scream (1996) or The Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). There’s a masked killer who goes on a killing spree. Just like the classic slasher films come before it, in Fear Street, there is no escape. What’s interesting about this instant film franchise is that you know there will be an overarching story that will take you through the three films. You can also watch all three films at your leisure right there on Netflix. 

I think the films really use their three-part structure to their advantage. Concepts introduced in the first and second films paid off in the last instalment. Characters' stories were interlinked or they even made reappearances throughout the three instalments. 

Fear Street also takes us back in time with each new instalment. Our base timeline is 1994. Throughout the series, we will return to our characters in 1994 as they uncover the mystery of the curse affecting their town of Shadyside. The second instalment takes us to a summer camp in 1978, and our last instalment is the origin story of the curse, which takes place in the settlement of Union in 1666. 

But what is this curse? Well, the answer is convoluted, hence the three movies needed to resolve the mystery. All three movies take place in the same location, in 1994 and 1978, the film is set in Shadyside, an unfortunate town that frequently suffers from mass murders every few years. 

The story is always eerily similar, one of the town’s residents, often a teen but not always, inexplicably goes on a rampage killing various town citizens. The latest of these mass killings was the work of Ryan Torres, who we see kill one of his own friends in the mall at the beginning of the film. As the film unfolds, we learn that the killers can’t distinguish their loved ones amongst their victims. They kill indiscriminately.  

The other thing you need to know is that Shadyside has a nearby rival town, called Sunnyvale. Sunnyvale is as fortunate as Shadyside is unfortunate. Its people are well to do and always trump Shadyside in any competition. The tensions between these two towns form the narrative structure of these three films. In the first film, we see the Shadysiders are literally out for blood against Sunnyvale after yet another spree of mass killings in the mall. 

 

So, we have our classic rivalry between the two towns, we have mysterious mass killings, but there’s something else that makes Fear Street special. Surprise queer content. 

The queer love story in Fear Street isn’t just throw in to placate viewers hungry for diversity.  It’s not a subplot but rather it’s the main force of the plot. Fear Street doesn’t take its sweet time to introduce the queer love story either (I’m looking at you the Haunting of Bly Manor). We learn about Deena and Sam right from the jump. 

Deena is our lead character in Fear Street 1994. We follow her to a memorial service for the latest victims of Shadyside’s mass killings. Sam seems to have hooked up with a Sunnyvaler in the interim between her break-up with Deena and this memorial service. At first, we could be made to think that this arse grabbing brute is Deena’s former beau, but it’s soon revealed that it was Sam that Deena was moony-eyed over. 

We later learn that Sam is the daughter of conservative parents. She is fiercely closeted at the top of our trilogy. This theme will continue throughout the three films, but by the end, the trilogy will make a stand against using gays and women as scapegoats in the face of evil. 

Our villain, ultimately, is a cishet straight white man after all. But we will get to that. 

Fear Street 1994 was a good introduction to the fucked up world of Shadyside. I did feel a little thrown in the deep end. The number of characters and storylines being thrown at me felt overwhelming. 

As the viewer, you are quickly expected to get on board with our rag-tag team fighting against an unknown force of evil. We have Deena and Sam, local drug dealers Simon and Kate, underdog hero and brother to Deena, Josh. We learn that every former mass killer is immortal and can be used by an unknown evil force repeatedly to wreak havoc on Shadyside. Our gang tries to take them down.

It’s all a pretty messy scenario, Sam finds the bones of the long-dead Sarah Fier and bleeds on them. Now all the killers past and present are out for Sam’s blood. It’s not immediately apparent why Sam must die, but later it unfolds that anyone who has seen the truth of Sarah Fier’s death must die along with that knowledge.

The malevolent force is protecting an arrangement that goes back centuries. All who know the truth must die, and that has always been the case with one exception. Our team learned that there was once a survivor by the name of C Berman. They try and fail to contact Berman to stop being tracked by the Shadyside killers. 

With the limited knowledge given to them, our Shadysiders are led to believe that all the evil happenings are the work of the long-dead Sarah Fier. A young woman who was hanged on the tree that still lives in the middle of the mall. 

Anyway, the 1994 instalment goes off with a bang. I don’t know why I thought our team would all survive but they didn’t. Maybe I have watched too much of Stranger Things, a show that has many parallels with Fear Street, including a shared cast. But no, our heroes must suffer. This is a horror film after all. And we lose Kate and Simon in quick succession. Kate has a particularly gory death with her head being inserted into some kind of meat grinder. 

There’s some storyline where Sam is temporarily killed so the killers will stop tracking them. It seems to work and Sam is brought back to life by Deena in a typical movie magic fashion. The team tried to enlist the help of the police, in particular the town sheriff, Nick Goode, but they were useless. Their only hope is C Berman, who may have not come to their rescue but she does give a delayed response to Deena. Sam has at this point been taken over by the evil and tries to kill Deena and our downsized team of heroes have no choice but to enlist the help of C Berman. 

This leads us on to Fear Street 1978. This time it’s C Berman’s story. In the summer of 1978, she was at a summer camp called Camp Nightwing with both Sunnyvalers and Shadysiders. We follow the two Berman sisters, Cindy and Ziggy, during the infamous scenes of murder at the camp in 1978. The murderer this time is none other than Cindy’s boyfriend, Johnny. 

I think the second instalment was when the trilogy really started to draw me in. It’s fun to watch the 1970s setting. Netflix originals may not be entirely historically accurate, but their period pieces are certainly fun. Camp Nightwing is full of eccentric characters, who in typical ‘70s fashion participate in drug-taking and meaningless sex. Cindy’s cohorts are really going for it in all-out free love glory. Cindy on the other hand is not. Cindy is the uptight camp counsellor and her sister Ziggy is her rebellious counterpart. 

I did enjoy the previous film, but in all the action I felt the character development was lacking. Maybe I just have a soft spot for stories about sisters, but Cindy and Ziggy got me. Their father abandoned them and their mother was an alcoholic, driving a wedge between the two girls. In response to her life being in chaos, Cindy decided to seek control of her life. She is a typical type-A perfectionist. Ziggy has decided no one gives a fuck about her so she shouldn’t give a fuck about anything else. But on the night of the annual “colour war” between the rival towns, the Berman sisters will be forced to team up against evil. 

Fear Street 1978 also helps to unfold more of the story about Sarah Fier. We learn towards the end of the film that Sarah Fier's corpse must be reunited with her severed hand. Her hand was mysteriously separated from her body. Once body and hand are united, the curse will ostensibly end. With the help of a former friend, Alice, Cindy is given the hand. But just like in the previous instalment, Ziggy bleeds on Sarah’s hand and learns the truth of Sarah’s life and all the former killers are out for her blood. 

I liked the film's penchant for unlikely heroes and Ziggy was my favourite character. The first film brought us Josh, your typical too smart for his own good nerd. Josh has the ability to get you free snacks at the vending machine and is an expert in all things Shadyside murders. The backbone of the film franchise is these sets of unlikely sibling duos with Deena and Josh and Cindy and Ziggy. 

But Ziggy was a highlight because she is just so watchable, both as a kid and an adult. In the first instalment, I didn’t feel like I knew the characters, but Ziggy felt instantly familiar. She’s the embodiment of teenage angst with thinly veiled vulnerability. I think it’s in part that some of the best actresses were cast to play this role. 

Fleshed out characters are integral to a captivating story. We need to care for our victims to be invested in their danger. The stakes don’t feel high if we aren’t rooting for our heroes. 

Ziggy and her downsized team of Cindy and her former friend Alice learn that Sarah’s body must be reunited with her hand to stop the curse. But the body can’t be found. Ziggy and her sister are attacked by the Shadyside killers of the past, only for Ziggy to be brought back to life by the son of the sheriff, Nick Goode. Nick has spent the film trying to break down Ziggy’s walls, but once Ziggy reveals the truth to Nick, in an act of betrayal he doesn’t tell anyone else. He simply pins the murders to the sole killer, Johnny. 

Setting plays a significant role in these films. I thought a sense of place was played really well throughout the three instalments. In 1994, the setting of Sarah Fier’s death was developed into a mall, in 1978, it’s the campsite, and in 1666, it’s the settlement of Union, from which the town of Shadyside originated. The significance of this location effectively laced the three instalments together. The site is replete with horrifying happenings throughout the history of the town. 

In Fear Street 1978, a flash-forward sees Deena reuniting Sarah’s hand and body. This act reveals the truth about Sarah Fier’s murder. This leads us to the origin story of the curse on Shadyside with the final instalment, Fear Street 1666. Of course, not all is as it seems. 

In Fear Street 1666 the cast of the previous two films takes on the personas of the residents of Union in 1666. Once Deena has reunited Sarah's hand with her body, she embodies Sarah and lives her story leading up to her untimely demise. Fear Street 1666 has a strong resemblance to the film, The Witch (2015), which is right up my alley. The setting is rife with religious fundamentalists and accusations of sin. 

Basically, Sarah and her friends are planning a romp at nightfall. But because young people can’t ever have any fun at any point in history, especially in 1666, the youths land themselves in some trouble. 

Sarah, and another villager Hannah, mirror Deena and Sam from the previous films. But the stakes from their historic counterparts are much higher. They end up having a cheeky make out at the party and are seen by a mysterious figure. The next morning, rumours fly, which puts our protagonists in grave danger. This is the era of witch hunting, after all. 

Food starts to spoil, the villages’ water supply is contaminated by the corpse of Sarah’s dog. On top of that, Hannah’s dad, the town’s pastor or what have you (no, I refuse to look up his specific title, idc) is acting like a total weirdo. 

Later on, Hannah’s dad locks all the children in the village in the local church, kills them all in a gruesome way and forces their corpses to listen to a sermon. This throws the town into a panic and a search for someone to blame. And I mean, have I made the case that Sarah is royally fucked over yet not or do I need to reiterate. Sarah is the ultimate fall guy, or more importantly girl, of this narrative.  Basically, someone has let in the devil. The village pins it on Hannah and Sarah. Sarah takes the fall to save Hannah. Our town’s curse is born. 

But it’s not Sarah who let in the devil. Sarah is the stand-in for the ultimate scapegoat. The real evil is actually Goode. I must admit that the line “Goode is evil,” made me chuckle. The villain is none other than Nick Goode, the town sheriff in 1994. Along with every firstborn son before him, leading right back to Solomon Goode in 1666. The Goodes have been inviting evil into the town for centuries. Was it a surprise that the ultra-privileged white man was a devil worshipper? It shouldn’t have been. But yea, I didn’t see it coming. 

Nick definitely seemed to know a lot more than he should. We see Nick as the useless sheriff in Fear Street 1994, and then as a romantic interest to Ziggy in Fear Street 1978. In retrospect, in the second instalment, Nick is far too calm for the circumstances. He also encourages the other camp counsellor to round up the campers and leave the campsite on a bus with seemingly little knowledge of the serial killer on a rampage. 

But Nick is a special kind of evil, as a youth, he reluctantly carries over his family legacy. To uphold his privilege, the well-being of others must be sacrificed. In this way, he makes for a great villain. Even the first Goode, Solomon, seems genuinely good. He allows Sarah to take refuge in his home, but like Nick to Ziggy, Sarah is an exception to Solomon. And even though he takes a liking to Sarah, they still end up in a violent confrontation that results in Sarah losing her hand.

We learn that the Goodes choose their victims at random, every few years a new name is added to the list and the devil thrives on their blood and the blood of their victims. When the name of a citizen is added to the walls of the Goode’s altar to the devil, they are stripped of their humanity. They seek out their prey in their pure id, hungry for their blood. 

Sarah is an easy target. Her name is passed down through time as something to be feared. Her only crime was existing as a self-sufficient woman and a gay. I think the ultimate message is that history is unfair to marginalised people. Sarah reminds me of the witches we maintain through repeating the same lies throughout millennia, from word of mouth one to another. 

We are all complicit in painting the pictures of women as villains and overriding their humanity. History brings us many fallen, degraded women. Society has never been kind to women, and to gays. 

The best media contains a grain of truth. It reflects back our reality in creative ways. It can make them palatable, it can make them unbearable. Fear Street may be a complicated series of films with regards to its plot, but it’s built on a fairly simple premise. The premise is that those who get to appreciate luxury can only do so with the suffering of others. Nick must maintain power by letting those less fortunate than him take the fall. What’s worse is that Sheriff Goode maintains that the suffering of others is ultimately out of his control. He justifies his evil by characterising it as inevitable. As the world burns around us, those in power behave as if they too are powerless to stop it. 

Alright well, I’m sorry that this is a bunch of garbled rubbish. But in my defence, I’m stuck in isolation and after a week of my own company, my brain is mush. Also, I’m very out of practice. Suffice to say, I enjoyed these films. I went in expecting to be entertained but left them with a lot to think about. There’s also something to be said for its unique platform, the shrine to nostalgia that is Netflix. It was awesome to watch these films one after the other, the previous instalment fresh in my head. 

Anyway, if you watched this film and enjoyed it, please let me know. Wherever you are, I hope you're warm and safe from mindless killers. I also hope you’re not surrounded by creepy stuffed goats. Thanks for reading.