Fear Street: 10 Reasons Why the Trilogy Works

It might have seemed like an odd choice to release a trilogy of interconnected horror movies at the height of the summer, and not, say, around Halloween, but Leigh Janiak’s Fear Street trilogy provided a nice spooky distraction during these long hot weeks in lockdown. It was a nice bonus when, what seemed like a goofy referential horror movie in the vein of Scream, soon unfurled into something a lot more ambitious.

Here at Goggler we thoroughly enjoyed this trip down memory lane and beyond, but why did the series work so well? Here are 10 reasons.

(You can hear our thoughts on the individual movies on our weekly podcasts here: Fear Street Part One: 1994, Fear Street Part 2: 1978, Fear Street Part 3: 1666.)

1. Not Just for Kids! – Despite taking its inspiration and title from a series of books by R.L. Stine – who is more commonly associated with horror books for kids/young adults like Goosebumps – Fear Street pulled no punches when it came to memorably grisly on-screen deaths. Despite an overabundance of axes to the face and head, none of us here will look at grocery store bread slicers in the same way ever again. That Fear Street also managed to build rounded, likable characters before offing them in such gruesome ways, only made the kills all the more memorable.

2. You Know the Rules and So Do I – Ever find your self screaming at a horror movie protagonist, not in fear but in frustration, when they do something stupid? Or when something happens that defies everything that came before? Fear Street avoided that feeling, for the most part, leading to a much more enjoyable experience. Like the Scream movies, which the first two films evoke with their horror movie references, Fear Street sets out the rules for its horror pretty quickly and sticks with them. The “monsters” are after one of the friends and track them via their blood. They can be distracted by smearing blood on other things/people, and even after a pretty explosive attempt to get rid of them, it becomes clear they cannot be destroyed by conventional means. While things can feel pretty hopeless at times, there’s still plenty of room for our heroes to come up with clever ways to save their respective asses in ways that felt organic and satisfying.

3. The Monster Mash – The monsters in Fear Street are clearly designed to echo classic slasher movie villains. Skullmask is the spitting image of Ghostface from Scream, The Nightwing Killer models Jason Vorhees’ pre-hockey mask look from from Friday the 13th: Part 2, and Harry “The Milkman” Rooker appears to be a mix of Michael Myers from Halloween and Freddy Kreuger from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Leigh Janiak and her team still managed to come up with a few creepy killers of their own however. Just one encounter with Ruby Lane or the creepy, wooden mask wearing, baseball bat wielding Billy Barker is enough for them to become instantly recognizable and left us wanting to know more about them.

4. The Murder Sounds Better With You – We here at Goggler are probably the perfect target demographic to be swayed by the needle drops in Fear Street Part One: 1994. But the musical choices went far deeper than just a quick hit of nostalgia. The lyrics of almost every song seemed to tie into the story or characters in some meaningful way. Sure the lyrics, “you’re so very special… But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo, what the hell am I doin’ here?” playing over scenes of Deena gazing mournfully at the run down streets of Shadyside, might have been a little on the nose, but just consider just how many “hand” related lyrics popped up in a story about the witch Sarah Fier and her severed hand. (1) “More Human Than Human” – White Zombie (1995): “I am the jigsaw man. I turn the world around with a skeleton hand.” (2) “Thursday” – 99 Tales (1995): “Down down below. On Thursday they’ll come for me. Was riding with the beast that took my hands away.“
   
   It might not seem like much, but we really appreciated the effort that went into all these musical choices. Also, how can we fault any movie series that makes extensive use of “Hey!” by the Pixies and the line, “there must be a demon between us,” when there was an actual devil standing in the way of Deena and Sam’s relationship?

5. Deena & Sam 4EVA – LGBTQIA couples haven’t been too prominent in mainstream horror movies over the years, yet despite the retro setting, Fear Street takes a thoroughly modern approach to its main couple. After a “gotcha” moment when it’s revealed that the “Sam” Deena is pining after is the Sunnyvale cheerleader and not the Jock, Deena and Sam’s relationship is put front and center, but in just the same way that a heterosexual couple would be. Apart from some hostility from Sam’s mother, their relationship is presented as completely normal. This should be the norm, but so often isn’t, so it was thoroughly refreshing to see here.

6. Fear Street: Unplugged – After two movies filled with enjoyable, nostalgia tinged music and references to slasher classics, Fear Street Part 3: 1666 ditches it all to tell a pretty straight, period horror story, and it works! There are no harpsichord cover versions of hits from previous films, or characters making anachronistic references, Leigh Janiak just turns in a horror movie where, despite an actual demonic possession, the true horror is revealed to be the ignorance and fear of your supposed friends and neighbors.

7. Ziggy Played Guitar – We’re sure some people didn’t like this, but in addition to the fun characters and revelations relating to the legend of Sarah Fier, the David Bowie references littered though Fear Street Part 2: 1978 really tickled us. From the nicknames of one of the protagonists, to the two versions of The Man Who Sold The World, and how the song ties into the real villain of the trilogy, this didn’t seem to have any deeper meaning than just being something fun to keep an eye out for.

8. He Said, Foreshadowingly – From the very opening line of, “it’s trash, low brow horror,” another detail we had fun with was the seemingly innocuous lines of dialogue or jibes between characters that later turned out to be oddly prophetic. “Tell anyone about this and your dead,” “You move, you speak, you fucking die,” and the ridiculously specific, “Best case is what? Dead on the mall floor after a double shift, OR MAYBE if you’re really lucky you’re the one carrying the knife,” clued us in that here was a filmmaker that knew what they were doing and was playing with the form. Leigh Janiak knew exactly what she was doing when she had Deena say, “I’ll be right back,” in a movie that features a killer who wouldn’t look out of pace in Scream.

9. The Kids Are All Right – Plenty of horror movies have characters make dumb decisions just to set up a kill or build suspense, but Fear Street managed to achieve the same while avoiding those same stupid decisions. Kate, Simon, Josh, Alice, Cindy, Ziggy, Hannah, and Sarah – some of them might have been doomed by their actions, but no one ran upstairs instead of outside, or stops to fool around when there’s a killer on the loose. Kate and Simon were smart enough to drop off the twins they were babysitting rather than bring them along for a dangerous ride. They were all smart and resourceful in their own ways, never passive, and propelled the story along through their actions rather than just letting things happen to them.

10. Just One More Thing… – Along with the music, across all three movies, Fear Street presented plenty of clues as to what was really going on in Sunnyvale and Shadyside. There was a slight twist in the legend of Sarah Fier in Fear Street Part Three: 1666, but if you were watching closely you might have seen it coming. We had great fun playing detectives in the weeks between each film. Spotting tropes, and references, and digging up possible meanings had us feeling like horror movie Columbos or Randy from Scream, adding yet another layer to our enjoyment of the films.

Did you enjoy Fear Street? Hate it? Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. You can also send us an email via our Contact Us form, or WhatsApp us on The Goggler Hotline on +60125245208.

We’ll be discussing the Fear Street trilogy, and horror movies in general, this Friday, 23 July, from 8PM on Clubhouse as part of the Goggler Pandemic Movie Club. Find more details here.

Fear Street Part One: 1994, Fear Street Part 2: 1978 and Fear Street Part 3: 1666 are all available to stream on Netflix.