Review: Fear Street Part One: 1994 (2021)

Fear Street Part One: 1994 embodies many of the core interests of contemporary streaming entertainment. It’s stylized, self-aware, has a dense storyworld mythology, and is endlessly nostalgic in its approach to genre and storytelling. It’s aimed at teenage viewers, but draws all its reference points from films that were made before its target viewers were born. It’s progressive in its characterizations and storytelling, but downright grisly in its violence. In short, Fear Street Part One: 1994 is a successor to Stranger Things and other popular geek properties that mine references to past pop-culture artifacts to fuel nostalgia. It’s an effective slasher film, but without any definitively original element in its filmmaking.

As the name suggests, Leigh Janiak’s Fear Street Part One: 1994 is the first part of a horror trilogy (all directed by Janiak) based on a series of teen horror novels by Goosebumps author, R. L. Stine. The plot revolves around several teenagers—pragmatic Deena (Kiana Madeira), her closeted girlfriend, Samantha (Olivia Scott Welch), nerdy little brother, Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.), and party animal friends Kate (Julia Rehwald) and Simon (Fred Hechinger)—living in Shadyside, “the murder capital of the United States,” who have to deal with a masked killer brutally slaying kids around town and undo the curse of a 17th-century witch, Sarah Fier (pronounced like “fear”), which drives the town’s inhabitants insane.

Much of the film is highly referential. It starts with a homage to Wes Craven’s Scream, with a girl, played by Maya Hawke, getting a mysterious call as she closes down the bookstore at the mall. There’s no one on the other end and eventually, someone in a creepy skull mask shows up and chases her throughout the mall and murders her with a butcher knife. Janiak knows she’s copying the famous opening of Scream, where Drew Barrymore, the biggest star in the film, is dispatched within 10 minutes. Hawke, who is a Stranger Things alum, is the biggest name of the young stars here and follows in Barrymore’s footsteps by being memorably dispatched within the opening moments.

This opening is instructive because the rest of the film that follows is constantly gesturing at its influences, source material, or generic expectations. It’s a knowing film, but it’s not snarky and doesn’t use the knowingness to poke fun at the genre or excuse itself from delivering the necessary thrills. Instead, like Stranger Things or CW’s Riverdale, it uses its knowing approach to stay on the same wavelength as its ideal viewer, revelling in its homages, such as the opening sequence, needle drops of favourite songs from the period, like Radiohead’s “Creep,” or stylistic expectations of contemporary horror cinema, such as its neon-lit, widescreen cinematography and synth-heavy score.

But where Stranger Things takes its storytelling cue from Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter films, Fear Street uses the paperback novel logic of R. L. Stine to fuel the storytelling here. So there is a cool score and trendy needle drops and references to 1990s slasher films, but there is also the logic of a horror novel for teens, with discoveries of hidden documents and ancient curses, and a quest-style structure as the characters piece together the mystery.

The film also has an element of Stephen King in how it invests in its characters, building up their motivations and spending time on their relationships, especially the romance between Deena, who is out, and Samantha, who hides their relationship from her mom. The performers are pretty good across the board, so you’re invested in who lives and dies more than in a normal slasher flick.

The synthesis between throwback and adaptation works surprisingly well, even if there’s something a bit startling about a book based on R. L. Stine featuring so much swearing, sex, and violence. And make no mistake, the film does get gruesome. Unlike something like Stranger Things, Fear Street Part One: 1994 doesn’t pull punches with its depictions of violence. Characters are stabbed and dismembered. Axes smash into teenage skulls and wrists are slit with artery bursts of blood spraying the screen. There’s even a particularly grisly and memorable killing by bread slicer. Other moments are flush with drugs and booze, and there are even a few hookups throughout, although these scenes are played more for emotional catharsis than cheap thrills.

The best thing about Fear Street Part One: 1994 playing on streaming is that its target audience can actually watch it without getting hassled by ushers at a movie theatre or having to ask parents to buy tickets ahead of time. We all know that teenagers always watched R-rated movies in the past, either on late-night TV or by sneaking into theatres showing them or simply begging a parent or older sibling to rent them on VHS, but most big release teenage horror films (or teenage films in general) of the past couple decades seem to self-censor in order to avoid an R-rating and actually allow its target audience to see the film in theatres. Fear Street is made for teens, but without any barriers in access, and, thus, no watering down of its on screen content.

But therein lies the film’s limitations. It’s surface-deep in its references and a bit twee in its emotions, which is appropriate for a film aimed at teenagers who get the references, but don’t really care about originality. I’m glad teenagers nowadays have a new release like this to watch on a Saturday night with some friends, but I doubt any future horror films will be referencing Fear Street Part One: 1994 in 20 years time.

6 out of 10

Fear Street Part One: 1994 (2021, USA)

Directed by Leigh Janiak; written by Phil Graziadei and Leigh Janiak, based on a story by Kyle Killen, Phil Graziadei, and Leigh Janiak, based on Fear Street by R. L. Stine; starring Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Julia Rehwald, Fred Hechinger, Ashley Zukerman, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Maya Hawke, Jordana Spiro, Jordyn DiNatale.

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