Whereas R.L. Stine's Goosebumps books ease younger readers into the world of horror by focusing on stories about preteens battling scary, yet, silly monsters, the horror icon's Fear Street novels center on teenagers unraveling far more violent murder mysteries that may or may not involve the paranormal. The first in a trilogy of films based on Stine's best-sellers, Netflix's Fear Street: Part 1 - 1994 is faithful to the spirit of its source material, serving up a delectably R-rated blend of slasher gore, supernatural mayhem and teenage angst.
Set in 1994, the movie opens one night at a B. Dalton bookstore in Shadyside Mall. An employee named Heather commends a customer for purchasing what hardcore Stine fans will recognize as "The Wrong Number," the fourth novel in the original run of Fear Street books. "It's trash," the woman sniffs disapprovingly. "Low-brow horror. It's for my stepdaughter," she adds, prompting Heather to flip her off behind her back. This on-the-nose exchange works on multiple levels, from signaling the film's self-awareness to defending the women who grew up devouring Stine's pulpy horror literature.
At first, Fear Street: Part 1 - 1994 recalls Stranger Things -- from its period backdrop to the way it needle-drops vintage hits and even casts Stranger Things' Maya Hawke as Heather. Unlike Netflix's popular 1980s pastiche, however, the movie isn't nostalgic for a bygone era. Instead, co-writer/director Leigh Janiak (who's married to Stranger Things co-creator Ross Duffer, as it were) uses the horror tropes in Stine's Fear Street novels to shine a light on the underlying darkness of the '90s, all while incorporating adorkable references to the decade's pop culture, fashion trends and AOL chat rooms. If anything, the film argues Stine's "low-brow" books not only offer teenagers a helpful outlet but also teach them valuable lessons on how to cope with daily struggles.
Life is especially treacherous for people growing up in Shadyside, a place beset by disturbingly random murders as far back as anyone alive can remember. As a result, the town continues to languish, even as the neighboring city of Sunnyvale flourishes. The locals blame this on a witch's curse from hundreds of years ago. Obviously, no one believes it's actually true... that is, not until a group of teenagers inadvertently unleash the witch's curse and find themselves being hunted by a pack of undead killers, who, back when they were still alive, likewise found themselves on the witch's bad side.
Fear Street: Part 1 - 1994 wholeheartedly embraces the tone of Stine's Fear Street novels. It delivers a delicious blend of "low-brow" thrills and marvelously bloody kills, all infused with the slasher genre's prerequisite teenage horniness and splattered with bold neon colors. Along the way, it works in a handful of amusing homages for horror enthusiasts to appreciate, from its Scream-style prologue to a cheekily ham-fisted nod to The Shining. Storywise, admittedly, the movie's carefully planted twists and turns are less inspired because they're drawn from the same bag of tricks Stine has been reusing in his books for several decades.
Despite its kitschy vibe, Fear Street: Part 1 - 1994 feels modern in the way it approaches class differences, portraying Sunnyvale as a town full of affluent jerks who don't care about Shadyside's problems. Similarly, the police in Shadyside are depicted as being useless and more focused on locking up Martin (Darrell Britt-Gibson), a local Black graffiti artist, than stopping the town's murders -- save for Nick (Ashley Zukerman), the one cop who begins to realize Shadyside's troubles extend beyond an ancient curse. Although the social commentary comes across too much like an afterthought, it's there for those who prefer a little depth to their scares.
The film's cast is also more inclusive than Stine's '90s Fear Street novels. Kiana Madeira stars as Deena, a biracial queer teenager whose strained relationship with her well-to-do white ex-girlfriend Samantha (Olivia Welch), who moved to Sunnyvale after her mother and father's divorce, serves as the movie's emotional core. They're faced with the classic teen dilemma of trying to avoid becoming their unloving parents, which only makes their star-crossed romance more compelling. Moreover, it's a correction to slasher films of the past, with Fear Street: Part 1 - 1994 becoming the latest mainstream horror movie to inject welcomed queerness into the genre.
Benjamin Flores Jr. shines alongside Madeira and Welch as Deena's younger brother Josh, a sweet if shy Black nerd who plays a pivotal role in uncovering the truth behind Shadyside's history of violence. Yet, as fully rounded as those three are, co-leads Kate (Julia Rehwald) and Simon (Fred Hechinger) are more or less the standard popular high school cheerleader and her weird, extroverted friend. They're both pleasantly messy heroes in their own right but are let down by the film's too-late attempt to paint them in richer shades.
All in all, though, Fear Street: Part 1 - 1994 is such an unabashedly affectionate ode to R.L. Stine's shlocky horror novels that it's easy to overlook its flaws. What's more, the next two Fear Street movies promise to tackle different horror sub-genres with the same relish Part 1 - 1994 applies to slasher conventions. Hopefully, that means the fun's just getting started.
Directed and co-written by Leigh Janiak, the Fear Street trilogy stars Sadie Sink, Kiana Madeira, Olivia Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Darrell Britt-Gibson, Ashley Zuckerman, Fred Hechinger, Julia Rehwald, Jeremy Ford and Gillian Jacobs. Part 1: 1994 begins streaming July 2, followed by Part 2: 1978 on July 9 and Part 3: 1666 on July 16.
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