"Fear Street: 1994" a fun, stylish, bloody R-rated valentine to '90s horror

Fear Street: 1994 (2021)

It’s exciting when a film comes along and it feels singularly designed for you. Any ‘90s kid that frequented Waldenbooks will remember “Fear Street,” the YA horror series by R.L. Stine — it was pre-“Goosebumps” for the big kids. While those Jack Black-headlining “Goosebumps” movies were gateway-horror diversions for middle-schoolers, “Fear Street: 1994” is, as it should be, a stylish, bloody R-rated valentine to ‘90s horror. Leigh Janiak (who made her debut in horror with 2014’s creepy, haunting “Honeymoon”) directs this first chapter (and the next two) in a back-to-back-to-back, released-weekly trilogy, inspired by Stine’s stories and broken into three different time periods. While it may be a placeholder for a sprawling, fuller story with an entire witchy lore, this is an auspicious start that more than delivers on its own terms. “Fear Street: 1994”—and the entire “Fear Street” saga itself—feels like an event destined to play like gangbusters at slumber parties. 


Like Stine’s own series, writer-director Janiak and co-writer Phil Graziadei set their film—and the whole trilogy—in the fictional Ohio town of Shadyside, which has been cursed and dubbed “Killer Capital, USA.” It’s the kind of town where only bad things happen, history continues to repeat itself, and the parents to these kids never seem to be home (even though one character’s father is said to be a drunk). As is everyone in Shadyside, Deena (Kiana Madeira) is an outsider, albeit with friends, not even fitting in the high school marching band. She’s just broken up with Sam (Olivia Scott Welch), a still-closeted cheerleader who has recently moved to the affluent Sunnyvale, Shadyside’s longtime rival, so she has a real chip on her shoulder. After a string of local murders, where good people just snap and turn into murderers, Deena’s conspiracy theorist younger brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.) believes their town’s dark past dates back to a curse by 17th-century witch Sarah Fier. Can Deena, Sam, Josh, and others stop these killings, or will they have to turn to an adult survivor (Gillian Jacobs) who’s still stuck in Shadyside?


A teen slasher movie with a supernatural bent, “Fear Street: 1994” hits the ground running with a memorable, neon-soaked pre-credit sequence that pays homage to 1996’s formative “Scream.” Heather, played by an instantly likable Maya Hawke—a generational actor just like Drew Barrymore whom you want to see live beyond the first scene—is just closing up shop at the B. Dalton’s bookstore (the shelves packed with Robert Lawrence “lowbrow horror” paperbacks) in the Shadyside Mall before meeting her maker. From the skull mask and black robe of the killer, to the slow-motion chase, to both films sharing a Marco Beltrami music score, director Janiak is overt about her influences but still lets her film play by its own rules (for one, the killer is actually unmasked to the audience in the opening). There’s even a little borrowing from “Halloween” during phone calls between babysitting friends.


All of them looking like actual teens, the ensemble is full of fresh faces with natural talent, led by Kiana Madeira as the headstrong yet passionate Deena. Madeira has a hardness she brings to Deena, but she is never inaccessible and quite the opposite, selling every struggle of being a lesbian in small-town 1994. There’s a universality to not only her personal queer experience but, as written and acted by Olivia Scott Welch, Sam’s challenges of fearlessly being her authentic self as well. Newcomer Julia Rehwald is a scene-stealing favorite as Deena’s side eye-ready friend Kate, a resourceful, drug-dealing valedictorian who’s in just about every school club, and Fred Hechinger (2020’s “The Woman in the Window”) makes for an endearing goofball as Kate’s best friend Simon.


Janiak and her entire production team have clearly done their homework, affectionately creating a lost era. A period-specific soundtrack, including the likes of but not limited to Nine Inch Nails, Garbage, Bush, Sophie B. Hawkins, and Radiohead, also comes fast and furious like a ‘90s mixtape with unlimited skips. In case one thinks all of “Fear Street” will just be a tame, pandering nostalgia machine, think again. It cares about its characters, but it also does not go easy on them. Even in a grocery store-set showdown that doesn’t go down as one expects, there’s an unforgettable, wildly gnarly use of a bread slicer, made more shocking by who gets turned into Wonder Bread. With an engaging mystery, characters we actually care about, and brutally fun set-pieces, “Fear Street: 1994” plays like a wicked delight for slasher fans. It not only finds the sweet spot between classic and fresh, film and TV streaming (a cutting-edge strategy) that promises more to come with a cliff-hanger but also palpable danger and a vital sense of fun without being mean-spirited. Those who have grown up loving horror won’t want to miss it. Until next week!


Grade: B +


Netflix is releasing “Fear Street: 1994” (105 min.) to stream on July 2, 2021. 

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