Julia Rehwald | Screenlife Reviews

If you found yourself wondering just how Leigh Janiak would possibly manage to finish her Fear Street trilogy without blaring pop music due to the 1666 setting worry not, she still finds a way to sneak it in there in the better-than-expected grand finale. Everything finally comes to a head as we learn the true history of Sarah Fier and her curse before wrapping up our original nineties-set story in a surprisingly emotional, rousing ending that provides a satisfying conclusion to the last three weeks of gore, spooks and speculation.

Now transported back to the days of puritanical settlers in what will become Shadyville, Deena (Kiana Madeira) finds herself inhabiting the body of Sarah Fier, living out her final days leading up to the infamous curse she placed on the village. Janiak slows the breakneck pacing of the first two films down considerably with this section of the film, establishing Sarah as a normal girl whose secret relationship with the preacher’s daughter Hannah Miller (Olivia Scott Welch) threatens to rock the small community to its core. The decision to cast the actors from earlier instalments as members of the village helps to highlight the similarities between Deena and Sarah and the challenges they both face and Madeira is much more likeable in the role of Sarah, free from the baggage of having to play a stereotypical angst-ridden nineties teen and able to build a more sympathetic character.

The central villain of this time period proves to be the creepiest of the bunch, with the possessed preacher Cyrus Miller (Michael Chandler) taking centre stage as he tears the eyeballs out of the village children’s heads. It isn’t as gory as you might expect but the imagery utilised is incredibly unsettling, even if it is almost immediately overshadowed by the townspeople’s terrifyingly prejudiced response, with wild accusations of witchcraft leading to bloody tragedy. Combined with the costuming, production design and excellent score by Marco Beltrami, it makes for a welcome reprieve from the franticness of the nineties and seventies, establishing an ominous and genuinely frightening tone that has seemed absent throughout the series to this point. There’s been killings and gore aplenty, but nothing truly terrifying until now.

A jarring tonal shift marks our return to the nineties, as Deena, now fresh from her visit to the past, must assemble brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.), Camp Nightwing survivor Ziggy (Gillian Jacobs) and mall repairman Martin (Darrell Britt-Gibson) in a final effort to end the curse and defeat the witch at the heart of the terror. This results in a scene that might just be the best in the series to date: an all-out skirmish at the mall against the conjured killers of Shadyville. All the intriguing murderers we’ve heard so much about finally get their chance to shine, from baseball wielding child murderer Billy Barker to the housewife-slaying, milkman murderer Harry Rooker (Kevin Waterman) – and the result is cheesy carnage at its finest.

Even Deena’s return can’t spoil things as there isn’t enough time in the script left for her to be pissy about too much, with the killers hot on the groups heels from the get-go. The return to Shadyville essentially splits the film into two halves and because of this, it feels long, with the slow, measured pacing of the 1666 scenes making you feel like you’ve been watching for far longer than you have. The constant exposition dumps at the mall soon become unbearable, and the slew of corny one-liners feel even more tired than they already would have been, inducing groans instead of the knowing laughs that were intended. Despite the pattern of exposition, action and intentionally bad one-liners essentially repeating until the credits roll, it is a satisfying conclusion nonetheless to everything that has come before and one that pays off on the promise of the varied lineup of killers.

Leigh Janiak sticks the landing with 1666, ending Fear Street on a high note of murder, mayhem and mystery as the curse of Sarah Fier is finally unravelled. Whilst the creepy first half might be quickly forgotten in the madness of the big finale, it is still the best storytelling of the franchise, providing sufficient spooks and much needed backstory that enhance the previous films’ adventures. This is a franchise that will only get better on repeated viewings, with fans able to pick up on various easter eggs and hints, and while it might not have been the most high concept or scariest of horror offerings, Fear Street is proof that Netflix can pull off this kind of experimental, appointment viewing home event scarily well.

Fear Street Part Three: 1666 stars Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, Ashley Zukerman, Benjamin Flores Jr., Julia Rehwald, Fred Hechinger, Matthew Zuk, Michael Chandler, Sadie Sink, Emily Rudd, McCabe Slye, Jeremy Ford & Gillian Jacobs – Streaming on Netflix now.

7/10

The first instalment in Netflix’s new trilogy of horror films Fear Street – based on the lesser-known series of books by R.L. Stine – tells you exactly who the target audience is in the title. Fans of Scream rejoice, you’re going back to the nineties. However what should be a fun romp through the era of grunge and video shops turns into one gnarly rollercoaster as 1994 constantly presents exciting premises or genuinely tense moments, only to have them brought down by one supremely depressing lead performance and a central relationship that is less interesting than the one between Leatherface and his beloved chainsaw.

Director Leigh Janiak goes all in on the period, evoking many beloved 90’s horror classics (and some even older films) in setting up the campily named Shadyside and Sunnyvale, two rival towns on opposite ends of the socio-economic spectrum. Our underdog heroes, naturally, hail from Shadyside, led by heartbroken, permanently pessimistic Deena (Kiana Madeira), a take-no-shit type of final girl who proudly professes her disdain for ex-girlfriend Sam (Olivia Scott Welch) who has defected to Sunnyvale as a result of her parent’s divorce. When the pair run into each other at a vigil for a recently murdered fellow student (Maya Hawke in a brilliant opening scene homage to Drew Barrymore’s Scream role) chaos ensues, culminating in Sam’s accidental desecration of the burial site of the town’s legendary local witch Sarah Fiers.

Now hunted by a who’s who of Shadyside’s famous history of murderers (there’s a reason they call the place Killer Capital USA), Sam, Deena, her brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.) and their friends Kate (Julia Rehwald) and Simon (Fred Hechinger) race to find a fix for the curse placed on Sam. The roster from which Janiak selects her killer is easily the most enticing part of Fear Street as a whole collection of films. While it lacks the whodunnit nature of Scream, the Skull Mask killer does act as a convincing surrogate for Ghost Face, albeit far more willing to get creative, whilst the lumbering, Jason-esque Camp Nightwing killer terrifies with his unstoppable power and fearsome axe.

Outside of them are some truly inspired and creative killers mentioned in the flashbacks through Shadyville’s history whom we don’t get to see at their gory best in this film – from a baseball-bat wielding brat to a deranged slasher milkman – that flesh out the town’s sinister past and provide hints at some, hopefully, gloriously macabre set-pieces going forward.

Judging this film on the potential of future instalments however would be to gloss over the biggest issues, which unfortunately come in the form of the film’s heroes. Rehwald, Hechinger and Flores Jr. all rock solid in their assigned roles, each portraying a classic 90’s horror stereotype from the antisocial serial killer nerd to the dorky wannabe jock of the group; providing welcome humour that is almost always instantly extinguished by Deena and Sam.

Madeira plays Deena as the stereotypical angsty, depressed teen who hates the world around her and seems to get off by ruining everyone else’s good times. It instantly makes her a hard character to latch onto as a protagonist and even once she softens in her journey to save Sam, that snarky attitude comes back in her interactions with everyone else, who we all like a great deal more than Sam. Why Sam is so special is beyond me as the character is more devoid of life than the silent, masked axe-wielding maniac stalking her, monotonically droning on about her problems and never taking any real action to change her situation until everyone commits to risking their lives to save hers.

The film’s big showdown, which should be a hoot given the potential to run wild in the setting of an empty supermarket, turns into an endless groan-fest as we constantly cut away from the tense killer chase scenes to whatever the hell Sam is doing. The single best kill of the film takes place in this finale but you wouldn’t be blamed for forgetting it given how little the film seems to care about the impact of it, instantly cutting back to another episode of Deena and Sam’s boring problems.

To say the final act gets crazy in its campiness would be something of an understatement, with some plot points that are a far too convenient and silly to be believable, but once you’ve accepted a Witch resurrecting murderers, it’s kind of hard to bring up a gripe like this so late in the game. The cliffhanger Janiak leaves you on isn’t as compelling as she thinks given the utter banality of the characters it focuses on (see if you can guess) but it does offer hope that a new setting and time period will allow for some more enjoyable characters to flourish… before being gutted.

The nineties setting, for all its worth, is essentially scrapped after an opening 20 minutes that relies heavily on what I’m calling the Suicide Squad effect; bombarding you with everything from Radiohead’s “Creep” to Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” in a near endless stream of soundtrack. It’s a familiar trapping of films these days to quickly establish a time period without having to write much into the story outside of some clothing or vintage touches like the ancient boxes that used to pass as computers.

After this initial spate of songs you’d be hard pressed to spot something that would be out of place in a film set in present day (especially given the return of baggy ripped jeans) and it becomes clear that Janiak is more interested in borrowing from the stories of 90’s horror than the style or general aesthetic. Not necessarily a bad thing when your biggest inspiration is one of the greatest horror films of all time in Scream.

The opening salvo of Fear Street is a sloppy introduction to the town of Shadyville and its haunted past, with a wasted nineties setting and unlikeable leads detracting from what could have been a fun, campy little slasher film. Decent pacing, solid world building and some interesting little twists and turns will likely keep viewers engaged but 1994 offers the genre very little in the way of genuine surprises. Fear Street might might not be off to a perfect start but I’m ready to head to Camp Nightwing.

Fear Street Part One: 1994 stars Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Julia Rehwald, Fred Hechinger, David W. Thompson, Ashley Zukerman & Maya Hawke – Streaming on Netflix now.

7/10

5/10