Fear Street Part One: 1994
Platform: Netflix
Director: Leigh Janiak
Release Year: 2021
Watch Date: July 3, 2021
My Rating: 8.2
I feel the need to reiterate that these movie reviews contain spoilers….especially since this movie was released on Netflix yesterday. The way scary movies go, it was pretty good. I’m glad that I know it is part of a trilogy though, because I have a LOT of unanswered questions, which I will list later.
The story starts with a mall massacre where Skull Face was the killer. Flash to Deena and her brother Josh having a morning argument, Josh saying that the Witch has caused someone to kill again, and the duo heading off to High School (this is important for some cringe to come). Deena has some interesting friends (annoying side characters) by way of a slacker named Simon and a pill dealer named Kate. Spoiler, as is the way of annoying side characters Simon gets axed and Kate gets her head through a slicer (totally unnecessary way to kill her off…..).
So from here the basic story goes like this: Rivalry HS football game between Sunnyvale and Shadyside ends in a fight at a candle light vigil, some Sunnyvale kids (including Samantha, Deena’s ex-girlfriend) chase after the Shadyside bus but get in an accident, Samantha accidentally disturbs convicted witch Sarah Fier’s bones with her blood, Samantha sees the witch, the three most recent killers come after the group, the group figures out that the killers are after Samantha, the group goes to the High School to try to get rid of the ghosts, there is some cringy making out and self touching (*), they blow up the ghosts only to find them reconstituting, the group figures out that C. Berman also saw the witch and ended up living by first dying, the group goes to the grocery store to kill Samantha and bring her back to life, Deena tries to call C. Berman, Simon and Kate are killed, Samantha dies, the ghosts disappear, Simon and Kate are blamed for all of the dead bodies, C. Berman calls Deena and says that it will never be over, Samantha is possessed by the witch and tries to kill Deena, Deena ties up Samantha and goes to get Josh to figure out what to do,.
That’s it, to be continued. Up next is (part two) 1978’s story about the camp massacre. I’m excited to see where the story goes and how many of my questions get answered. Part 2 airs on July 9.
*I don’t normally mind sex scenes in movies, although they are usually unnecessary……but I always find it cringe when movies and tv shows depict sexual behaviors among teenagers….it feels a little bit child pornographyish and makes me uncomfortable. Making out…..great. It’s the groping and hands down the pants (either their partner’s pants or their own pants) that makes it cringy.
Word of advice: if you need to administer an epipen on someone…do NOT do it the way Deena was. You grab it from the middle (don’t touch either end) and slam it down, preferably on the person’s thigh. The impact action activates the needle. Don’t put it gently over their heart and press the top…..that is dangerous.
Questions:
Why is Sunnyvale a perfect town, where Shadyside is a murder town….something seems awfully shady about that. Did you see what I did there (mwahahahaha….no one thinks I’m funnier than I do).
Is Sarah Fier really the one doing all of this? I question whether she was really a witch or if there is really another witch behind this. So often women were accused of being witches when they weren’t actually…..case in point, The Crucible.
How does the witch pick her victims? Samantha’s blood disturbs the bones of Sarah Fier when she gets out of the car, which triggers her being hunted by the long dead killers…..but that seems off. Did C. Berman also find Sarah’s bones? Did all of the other killers over the years? And what about the preacher in 1666?
All of the killers do something different to kill their victims…..which is interesting and seems a little off kilter for a possession. We see Skull Mask who is reminiscent of Tate in American Horror Story (knifes his victims), Ruby who is a little Sweeney Toddish (uses a straight razor), and the Camp killer who looks like the killer from The Town that Dreaded Sundown (wields an axe). There was also a killer who drowned victims, a kid who it looked like beat his victims with a blunt object, and the preacher from 1666 who killed children and cut out their eyes.
Why is the Sheriff so unbelieving, but then he goes to someone’s house (presumably C. Berman) with a note “It’s happening again”?
How did Samantha go from the ghosts trying to kill her to the next killer? Why didn’t that happen to C. Berman?
I will probably watch the whole series again once I have seen all three episodes so I can pick up whatever I missed the first time.
Photo Credit: imdb.com
