The Cinemawala

Okay, peeps, all 3 movies of the ‘Fear Street’ trilogy has been watched on Netflix and the verdict is out. If you’re into the campy, nineties slasher genre of movies like ‘Scream’ (1996) and ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ where blood is spilt like water, eyes are stabbed and poked out of their sockets, the intestines are mercilessly gutted like fish then this trilogy is for you. If you live for gore and macabre is your calling, well what are you waiting for? Grab your popcorns and get in the seat. ‘Fear Street’ is a sure shot win-win for Netflix. I had super fun watching the three films, which are more of a tip of the hat to those nineties B-grade horror movies like ‘Friday The 13th’ or ‘The Witch’. If you’re into those films, you’re gonna love the ‘Fear Street’ trilogy.

Based on teen horror/supernatural novels by R.L Stine, ‘Fear Street’ is the story of two suburban towns – Shadyside and Sunnyvale. As luck would have it, Shadyside, just like it’s named, is a boring town to live in, whereas Sunnyvale is the prosperous one. The demarcation of different societal strata is quite evident in the cities. This slide of luck is attributed to Shadyside’s bloody history of serial killings that keeps happening in the town since its inception. The town’s urban legend blames a local witch’s curse to be the reason behind these serial killings years after years. ‘Fear Street: 1994’ begins another round of grotesque murders in which a local girl Deena, her girlfriend Sharon and her brother get embroiled. The investigation points it towards the witch’s curse and takes the audience sixteen years ago in ‘Fear Street: 1978’ where a fellow camper had hacked eleven kids in a summer camp. While meeting the surviving member of the killing, the group stumble upon key pieces of evidence that goes through the murderous history of the town, all the way back to ‘Fear Street: 1666’. Why the town is cursed? What was the deal that was made with the devil? The past becomes the prologue as the centuries-old secret of the two towns come tumbling out of the closet.

Murder mysteries can be extremely fun to watch, provided there is enough meat in the material. ‘Fear Street’ builds the whole premise based on an urban legend and as the viewer, you buy into it, remain invested until it throws a spanner into your expectations with the first film. The second film takes you through another sequence of murderous carnage while spinning the tale into multitudes. It’s the third act, which allows the viewer to join the pieces of this elaborate jigsaw that threatens the very existence of human life. The best part of the trilogy is, that, it begins with an urban legend and eventually goes on to explain how these legends are born or for that matter, are made. Each of these films in a delicate, subtle manner try to draw attention towards the form of evil that exists among people. Human nature, in its rawest form, has always been savage. It always detests the ones who turn out to be different. It despises those who turn out to be the square pegs in the round holes. So it acts against them. It could be the bullying of children deemed to be nerds in school or for that matter, labelling free-thinking women as witches. And that’s the form of evil, that can have far-reaching consequences, spanning years of horror.

I started watching these films expecting a group of hormone raging teenagers going crazy about murdering people, with bashed heads, hacked off faces and slit necks oozing pints of blood out of them. By the time I finished watching them, I had a very different experience. Director-writer Leigh Janick serves up a delicious horror adventure that also explores the horrors that haunt the marginalised. The nineties nostalgia drenched in neon, the seventies scare fest and the witches of the yore – every frame of ‘Fear Street’ has entertainment stamped on it.

All three films of the trilogy i.e. ‘Fear Street:1994’, ‘Fear Street:1978’ and ‘Fear Street:1666’ are now streaming on Netflix worldwide. The films are rated Adult for extreme violence, gore and sexual content.

The Cinemawala Rating: 3/5