Fear Street: 1994 is the first in a three-part trilogy of horror movies set to release over a three-week period to Netflix. With each film being set in a different decade, the goal is to tell a story that explains why this town is plagued by brutal murders. The first in this trilogy is set in the 90s, with each subsequent film going further back in time to explain the backstory to the murders and show off large massacre events within the town history. The second film will be releasing next week, a Friday the 13th throwback as a campground is attacked by an axe murderer wearing a bag over his head.
The most important thing to me about this series going in is that they understand the time period of horror for each film’s setting. It’s difficult to really pinpoint differences when all of cinematic history is available to you at any given time but if you think to the horror cinema following the tragic events of 9/11 it’s clear that an air of hopelessness began to arise as insurmountable odds would end up being just that for lead characters. Lead characters had a much slimmer chance of making it out alive and cinematic iconography changed to be reflective of larger unknown threats. Disaster movies also became huge in this earlier period of the 2000s.
But going back to before tragedy struck and changed what mattered to us as moviegoers, we mostly had horror cinema that focused on disaffected youth who had close to no problems going on outside of their own social circles. A lot of teen horror came after Scream brought the slasher genre back to the forefront and while larger social issues of race and LGBT acceptance mattered to those experiencing them, the very few films we got on those topics stayed of a lower budget similar to an indie production; Specifically with projects like Candyman’s exploration of racism, inequality and the middle-class’ fear of public housing estates.
The 90s then, could mostly be considered a time of fun where the biggest threat to the enjoyment of just being a teenager is the possibility of an individual coming to try and take it from you. Fear wasn’t a larger societal problem that dived deep, Scream isn’t riddled with subtext or real world traumatic imagery, it’s an enjoyable mystery slasher. This is cinema I go back to often because it’s hard to get something that knows how to enjoy itself just as much as it needs scare its audience.
This is all leading up to me saying that I honestly thought that Fear Street: 1994 was fantastic. It takes a lot to keep your project within the styling and feel of the decade you’re trying to represent when the more present reality lingers but this first in the trilogy really understood what it needed to be. Early on the film sets up that this isn’t a kids movie as they show a violent death but the knowledge that the writer of the Fear Street series of books also created the Goosebumps books begins to lull you until a false sense of security as the film goes on, with a final act that suddenly reminds you of the 18 age rating you saw at the start of the movie.
This is a mystery slasher where not an awful lot of slashing happens but when it does, it makes an impact on your emotions. The use of the three-film setup allows more time to make you care for the characters before everything kicks off and bodies begin to drop, making this one of the first slasher films where you might find yourself no longer rooting for the killer to succeed. With well defined characters, an interesting puzzle to solve for survival and a great use of the 90s setting that brings back the feeling of a strong Wes Craven project, I’m looking forward to the future of this series over the coming weeks.
Fear Street: 1994 very much locks itself in to one of three features and because of this, the possibility of it collapsing under its own weight is fully possible as the next two features release. A strong start to a potentially fantastic trilogy gives me hope and with Friday the 13th being the basis for the next in the series, Fear Street: 1978, I’m excited to see if they master the tone of a 70s slasher film. I recommend watching it as this is a real cinematic event with the possibility of hitting it out of the park, there’s a lot of good in here that could potentially turn bad once the series is complete and story intentions are made clear so we will have to wait and see where it goes but for now there’s a lot of promise in this series.
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