It’s kind of hard to imagine now, but it was a really big deal when Netflix started producing original content, that they would release an entire season of a show at once. Sure thanks to TV shows being released on DVD, binge watching was a thing by that point, but this was the first time that the initial distribution of a show was designed for the audience to binge watch the entire thing as quickly as possible. Now, Netflix is once again playing with the release formula for their big summer movie event, the Fear Street trilogy, with the three movies each being released a week apart from one another. This once again adds to the conversation of Netflix blurring the line between what is a TV show and what is a movie. Is fourteen episodes of a TV show released all at once and meant to be watched as quickly as possible just a really long movie? If that’s the case, is three movie sized chapters of a story released a week apart from one another really just three episodes in a television series?
Fear Street 1994, the first Fear Street movie walks the line between yes and no to that question. It’s clearly the first part of a story. Anybody who’s seen the trailer for the second and third Fear Street movies can see how those stories are going to tie into this one. It’s a movie that doesn’t have to worry about dangling plot threads because there’s a guaranteed two more movies to finish telling the story with. However, the way this movie is structured, it does feel like it’s set up to be its own standalone movie. It feels linked to the other stories, but still distinct and separate from the future installments.
Set in 1994 (hence the title of the movie), Fear Street 1994 draws very clear inspiration from slasher films from the 90s, particularly Scream. From an opening sequence that pays homage to the famous Drew Berrymore scene in Scream, this movie sets out re-creating the tone that it would have had, if the book series had been adapted twenty-five years ago. Main character Deena (Kiana Madeira) plays an excellent recreation of a 90s slacker who lives in Shadyside, a town that is nicknamed the “killer capital” of the world thanks to the unusually high number of grisly murders that have happened in the town over the years. Some people believe that the murders are the result of a curse that was placed on the town by the witch Sarah Fier back in 1966, and while Deena doesn’t believe in the curse her brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.) does and spends a lot of time using the new and exciting internet to discuss the witch and the curse in chat rooms.
Rounding out the cast of teenagers trying to make it to the end of the film are Sam (Olivia Scott Welch) who moved from Shadyside to the nearby town of Sunnyvale where far less murder seems to happen, and Simon and Kate (Fred Hechinger and Julia Rehwald) two students from different worlds who bond over a drug selling hustle. When this group disturbs the grave of the witch from the fabled story, the curse comes after the group, bringing with it all of the grisly history of the Shadyside.
So much of what clicks about this movie is it’s very careful recreation of the tone and feel of a slasher movie from the 90s. The mood, the characters, the music, it all works together to recreate the feeling of watching a slasher that you could have discovered on a blockbuster shelf back in the day. It’s not easy to explain what makes a 90s slasher film different from one that was made in the 70s or the 80s, but this movie seems to have figured out the formula and is threading that needle nicely. It’s too hip to it’s own genre to be a Friday the 13th knockoff, but at the same time, this was an era before the onslaught of Scary Movie parodies, and the tropes of the genre could still be played straight for a genuine scare thrill.
The 90s tone and feel are what make the movie a success, but that can’t work two more times. The next two movies are set in 1978 and 1666 respectively, so we’ll have to see where the series goes from here. Things aren’t tied up nice enough that this will be able to stand alone if the next two installments fall flat. However, this is a movie that knows what it’s doing and it will be interesting to see if the next movie can recreate the tone of a 70s slasher movie as well as this one did for the 90s. Not sure what they’re going to do about 1666 though. They weren’t making slasher movies back then.
