Terror Trilogy

And I thought living on Elm Street was bad. (Unmarked Spoilers)

Ah, R. L. Stine. Growing up, I loved Goosebumps. It was the first series I got into reading on my own, as opposed to Captain Underpants and the Magic Shop, which got read to me. I never read Fear Street, though. From what I understand, and I may be wrong, the series was essentially Goosebumps, only aimed at older teenagers. So I am excited to dig into something that is brand new for me.

Fear Street Part One: 1994 concerns Shadyside, the worst place to live. Sarah Fiers (Elizabeth Scopel) has cursed the whole town after a deal with the devil. She possesses residents and makes them go on brutal killing sprees in revenge for hanging her. Besides that, Shadyside is embroiled in a rivalry with Sunnyvale, the much more prosperous neighboring town. 

One night, cheerleader Sam Fraser (Olivia Scott Welch) accidentally disturbs Sarah’s grave, causing the latter to send all of her slashers after Sam. Now Sam’s only hope lies in her ex-girlfriend Deena Johnson (Kiana Madeira). In addition to Deena’s friends Simon Kalivoda (Fred Hechinger), an unfunny comic relief character. Kate (Julia Rehwald), a high school drug dealer. And Deena’s brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.), who is a nerd, thus a fountain of exposition. 

I didn’t care for this movie. It’s basically if Riverdale didn’t have the CW’s restrictions on language and violence. What was I expecting given that, as I said, this was always a series aimed at teenagers? I don’t know, something that felt a little less juvenile given the R rating. Okay, so I suppose that is on my dumb a*s for making assumptions, but there’s still plenty about this movie not to like.

The biggest is that I found myself uttering the eight deadly words. I don’t care what happens to these people. The only characters I liked were Heather (Maya Hawke), who gets killed first, and Josh. I would not have cared if everyone else died. Even though the movie clearly expects me to care about the people who did die. Oh, Kate was an underachiever with bright prospects, and Simon was a guy who’d been supporting his family alone since he was 15. That is sad. However, it would have been a lot sadder if we could have seen a little more of that.

The best thing that I can say about this film is that it’s a nice piece of ’90s nostalgia. I spotted multiple references to some of the best films of the decade. One character ends up needing an adrenaline shot like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. After getting blown up, the killers reassemble themselves like the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. And befitting a slasher movie, there are multiple references to Scream. 

The slasher with the most screen time is Skull Mask (David W. Thompson), who wears a white mask, hood, and cloak ensemble highly reminiscent of Ghostface, as is his body language and movement. The very first kill in this movie is highly similar to Drew Barrymore’s death, including the part where the killer’s mask gets ripped off. 

The other killers consist of the Camp Nightwing Killer, who has this whole Hillbilly Jason from Friday the 13th Part Two vibe. There’s also Ruby Lane (Jordyn DiNatale), who, according to Simon, is hot and sexy. No, she’s not. I mean, the actress is aesthetically pleasing to the eye, but her introduction is singing a creepy song on the side of a deserted street. That’s not alluring like, say, Lorraine Massey (Lia Beldam, Billie Gibson) stepping out of the Room 237 shower. And sticking Ruby’s a*s right in front of the camera later on isn’t going to convince me otherwise.

The only other part of this movie that I liked is when Kate gets killed by a bread slicer. It is so cool but so gross, but so cool. This movie needed more stuff like that. In addition to genuine scares, because this movie is not scary. Most of the jumpscare are people greeting others in an unnecessarily creepy way or a killer rushing in front of the camera. Both of which are kind of cute before they end up getting run into the ground.

The film ends with a massive cliffhanger consisting of Sam getting possessed. So, ‘To Be Continued…’ into the past? This is such a weird format for a trilogy. Nevertheless, let’s see how the next two installments go.

The framing device of Fear Street Part Two: 1978 Is C. Berman (Gillian Jacobs) telling Deena and Josh how she survived the Camp Nightwing massacre. Going back in time, we’re introduced to Cindy Berman (Emily Rudd), a counselor who has final girl written all over her. We also meet Cindy’s younger sister Ziggy (Sadie Sink), who’s kind of b***h, but in a loveable way. 

I must say, I really enjoyed this movie. Everyone is way more likable than the characters in the last film. Plus, while it deals with many of the same themes and ideas as Part One, but in a way that feels much less juvenile. So tone-wise, it’s much closer to what I was initially expecting. Though I think that comes down to the casting of the respective films.

On the whole, the acting in this movie was much better. There comes a scene in Part Two where Ziggy calls Cindy out for ditching her by pretending to be Sunnyvale and how everything is s**t because they’re from Shadyside. It’s very similar to a scene in the previous installment where Deena does the same to Sam. The difference is that I thought Deena sounded whiny while with Ziggy, you get the sense that she’s been wronged. 

Towards the middle, I found myself getting a little antsy as there came the point where I was like, ‘all this character building has been good, but now it’s time to get to the bloodshed.’ Yes, yes, I am incapable of going one review without saying something negative. In my defense, it’s not like anything’s perfect.

While we’re at it, let’s talk about the ending. While the film had led us to believe that C. was a future Cindy, she’s actually a future Ziggy, whose real name is Christine. I figured out there was going to be a plot twist about 20 minutes in when I noticed that C. said, “a week later, my sister was dead,” not “my sister Ziggy was dead.” This reflects poorly on the writers because while I enjoy acting like a know-it-all, I am not smart enough to figure out a genuinely well-crafted mystery.

Another reason for my change in attitude between installments is that I think I hate the ’90s. It’s not surprising, really, since the ’90s was a low point for the genre. The much-beloved heyday of the ’80s was over, and slasher movies only survived by riding on the coattails of Scream. Not that it stopped movies like Urban Legends (NSFW) and The Faculty, which isn’t a slasher, but still a Scream-knockoff, from being enjoyable.

This thought occurred to me while listening to the soundtrack of this movie. “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and “Love Will Keep Us Together.” I love those songs. I cannot name a single piece of music that got played in the last movie. Though given that the name of C.’s dog is Major Tom, you’d think they play “Space Oddity” instead of “The Man Who Sold the World,” but that could have been what the original plan was.

This movie doesn’t have quite as many shoutouts to the pop culture of its decade as its predecessor. However, the ones it does include are sweet. My favorite line in the film is Nick (Ted Sutherland), the future Sheriff Goode (Ashley Zukerman), saying that he hears that Stephen King’s new book is supposed to be really good.

The series format is starting to make more sense as Part Two furthers the mythology of the series way more than I was expecting them to. With C.’s help, Deena is able to find Sarah’s hand, which she had cut off as part of her pact with Satan. Then, while returning it to Sarah’s grave to break the curse, Deena seems to get sent back in time as Sarah herself, setting up the events of the next movie.

In Fear Street Part Three: 1666, the true story of Sarah Fiers is revealed. She was once a resident of the Colony, which was Shadyside and Sunnyvale before they split into the haves and have nots. Like Deena, she too was in love with another woman, Hannah Miller (Welch). When disaster and ill omens strike the settlement, the torches and pitchforks start busting out, searching for a scapegoat. And when everyone thinks you’re a witch already, why not become one?

Except in the previous films, flies were used to herald someone becoming possessed. Here we see them swirling Pastor Miller (Michael Chandler), our original Shadyside slasher, long before Sarah makes any sort of deal with the devil. Something or someone else is at play here, and if it’s not Sarah, then who is it? 

Solomon Goode (Zuckerman), ancestor of Sheriff Goode, that’s who. He was the one who made a deal with the devil where he names someone to be possessed in exchange for prosperity, with each subset member of the Goode family continuing the sacrifice. That’s why Sunnyvale has been so wealthy. The slashers weren’t going after Sam in Part One for disturbing Sarah’s grave. They went after her because Sarah was trying to show Sam the truth.

This is a plot twist that I didn’t see coming, despite all the foreshadowing. Once you learn what really happened, several of the lines Solomon says earlier in the movie take on a whole different meaning. Through flashbacks, we also realize that a lot of what Nick says in Part Two does as well. As I said, I’m not too good when it comes to well-crafted mysteries.

I didn’t particularly care for Madeira’s performance in Part One, but I thought her performance here was pretty good. I guess 1666 peasant is more her wheelhouse than a 1994 teenager. Or maybe she benefits from how Part Two and Three tell a much better story than the one that was in the first film.

Much like the Dark Knight trilogy, each installment of Fear Street is so different from one another. Part One is a ’90s slasher movie, Part Two is a summer camp movie from the ’70s and ’80s and a slasher movie, and Part Three is a period piece in the vein of The VVitch. It doesn’t even become a slasher movie until about 2/3rds of the way through.

With the sheriff and numerous slashers after them, Deena and Josh stage a final showdown at the mall with the help of C. and Martin (Darrell Britt-Gibson), a mall janitor who showed up very briefly all the way back in Part One. I, for one, was worried about Martin because he was a non-black lead going up against violent killers. But he survives, as does Deena, Josh, and Sam, despite all of them being black and/or gay. Nice, very nice. 

Part Three was a satisfying ending to the trilogy. It also got me invested in the characters’ fates, something that I had been worried about. Partly because I didn’t want C. and Josh to die, but also because I wanted to see Sheriff Goode taken down. More importantly, the film managed to wrap everything up nicely.

I’m so glad that I stuck with this series because Part Two and Three are way better than Part One. And two out of three isn’t bad in my book. The series also ends with a blatant sequel setup, so it’ll be curious to see how the franchise continues, if it does. Would it be a standalone film or yet another trilogy?