The premise: A group of misfit teens from the wrong side of town find themselves trying to survive a bloody night that has ties to a decades spanning town mystery. This NOT your PG-13 Goosebumps.
Before I launch into what I liked and what I didn’t about this film, a massive shout out to R. L. Stine, the monolith powerhouse of child and preteen horror speculative fiction. His career spans decades. There are generations of kiddos like me who picked up one of his books of neon slime and angry-faced dolls and were scared. Yet we couldn’t put his books down. They were collector items. They spawned a whole genre (and copycats) for children in need of a bit of fright and bravery. While I’m more familiar with R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps, I was always aware that Fear Street was the adult/teen and elevated version of Goosebumps unleashed.
So it’s about time Fear Street gets some attention.
What I LOVED: Fear Street is pure slasher film nostalgia. Nothing brings me more joy than hooded figures chasing teens in the night with some maiming object. It’s a formula that works. It’s the one thing all teenagers (and those that love them) fear: dying young. So literal death is chasing our teen protagonists everywhere. Add pep rallies. Neon colors, teens home alone without adult supervision, and cheesy music, and that’s your teenage slasher in a nut shell.
As nostalgic as it was, I also loved how subversion the film felt. Keen viewers would notice these subtle (granted maybe a bit exploitative and cliched) take on our characters. Just when I thought I saw where the plot was going, Fear Street added a twist and turn that I honestly didn’t see coming. Though the characters tend to be one dimensional (and honestly what do you expect from a slasher flick), they were witty and incredibly likeable. Over the top sometimes, and I repeat, this is what made the 90s Slashers so great. The Stoners. The geeks. The antisocial misfits. The creepy and feckless police officers. It’s all there and it’s just fun to watch. It even got a bit a jump out of me.
What I Didn’t Like: The world building is a bit rushed (montage much?) and disjointed. A lot was happening and the slow build up to the action could’ve been crafted a bit more cleverly. Before I knew this was an anthology series, it had all the makings of one. A stand alone film would’ve done just fine and cut out alot of the fat that weighed Part One 1994 down.
What kills me is that I see that Fear Street was trying to say something. It was trying to speak to a woke message about labels and their consequences. Part One introduced use to two towns stuck in a cycle of warring with each other that is literally killing them. Part One tries to explore the root cause of this cycle and why the poor kids always get the short end of the stick. Unfortunately without the full anthology or world building, the message just didn’t work. I hope the rest of the series picks up on that theme otherwise it’s a waste.
The teens in the 90s weren’t just scared of dying young. They were surviving and scared to death of not being seen for who they were. I wished a bit more of that came out of this film.
Verdict: Fear Street Part One: 1994 has its flaws, but its was still a joy to watch. It’s streaming now on Netflix. Like your favorite Saturday morning cartoon, the series unfolds weekly throughout the month and I will keep watching it and bring you my black POV.
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While you’re here, do you know that I’ve been writing a Black Horror Webseries? The citizens of Astro City survive the best way they know how. Politicians try to keep things in check, and pastors peddle hope. Black tinted cars dish out death. Ghosts and legends come alive. Just another day in the AC.
Astro City reads like a TV script. Start from the beginning or pick up where I left of. New “episodes” drop every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 8pm , until the season finale.
#whokilledshaunice?
Stay Ghoulish.