Should You Take A Trip Down To Fear Street? (The Latest Netflx Horror Trilogy)

Slasher Summer is still going strong on Nick Nack Goes To The Movies, and while I didn't know how good or how bad the R.L. Stine adaptation was going to be, I knew I would end up talking about it on this podcast one way or another.  Scream-like 90's horror, slasher summer camp, and...the third movie.  After seeing that first one I was hooked for my weekly slasher movie.  So if you have not yet taken the weekly forays down to Fear Street, you can binge through all three parts spanning multiple decades in one day or one weekend on Netflix.  So what are you waiting for, go do that and come on back down to get my takes on all three parts and some surprisingly challenging rankings for a list consisting of just 3 movie.  And when you are done there the fun never ends, check the show and yours truly out on social at either @NickNackMovies or NickNack_IC on Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram, and Letterboxd!

Transcript

Nick Nack Goes to the Movies Pod S2E28

-Intro/Jingle

-It is Nick Nack Goes To The Movies, your pop culture pitstop that takes you through all things horror and super heroes.  Well, with the next super hero movie not coming out till August and our next Marvel entry falling into the Fall, you know what we gotta do after our MCU deep dive conclusion episode wrapping with Black Widow.  I didn’t intend to do this episode, but Netflix drew me in with something special and right up my alley, or in this case, maybe I should say street.  That is right, I am talking about the just wrapped Fear Street Trilogy.  I wasn’t at all into horror when I was a kid, this may be as recent as only 2-3 years out.  So I did not do any reading or R.L. Stine as a kid, but thankfully TV and Movie adaptations are here to save the day.  That being said, I know some books are better, the one Hobbit book blows the three seeming rubbish trilogy.  But enough about cold LOTR takes, instead let’s get lost in the summer of scares and get ready for a spooky sandwich, triple stuffed and loaded with cheese!  Also spoilers a plenty, so be ready for all that.

-Fear Street Part One: 1994

-So to begin, these movies are not going to be known for having the most name brand actors, don’t go into these thinking there is that, at all.  But like we have said before, there is something fun about getting lost in the story and the world and not the actors.  But for Netflix and Stranger Things fans, part 1 does something super similar to the first Scream film with Drew Barrymore.  Maya Hawke, who Stranger Things fans will recognize as Steve’s sailor dressed co-worker Robin, is that first girl who may be the lead but instead is pretty quickly killed off, there are a ton of references overall to the time period and the genre as a whole not only in this movie but the entire trilogy.

-Anything with phones and scares will make you think of Scream in the same way that Netflix things with some scares and malls will remind you of Stranger Things.

-Also, my take on horror the second time through still rings true, immediately watching part 1 and seeing a mall gate that doesn’t close and the connection to part 3 for something so innocuous, is very good.

-Honestly, an abandoned mall is an awesome backdrop for a masked killer chase scene, and like many reviewers said when part 1 came out, this movie had no business going this hard, and honestly the scares, the gore, and a bit of the cheese of a 90’s slasher was exactly what the doctor ordered.  Even the music by Marco Beltrami, the master of suspense and the scream soundtracks, it just hits different in the best kind of way.  

-We needed something spooky to get us through the wait period of October 15th and the latest Halloween film.  Eventually I will see how the new anthology series from American Horror Story is.

-Unrelated, how wild of a school mascot is the Shadyside Witches, like hilariously strange.

-At times it plays like a worse version of Scream, but with a fun supernatural angle, now it takes a bit to get to the more freaky deeky side of this tale, but no matter what, the group of teens is a fun squad to get to know in the 90’s version of this story.  Also to that same watch through later on, having the Sunnyvale mascot being the devils and the shadyside mascot be the witches, it is like so good for foreshadowing, like putting it right out there, so good.  These will always be fun to watch with knowing who the killer is after the fact, and seeing that build up to being unassuming.

- We will of course get to the other two entries, but having there be a mention of there is nothing good to look for in the past, beautiful knowing we have two more entries taking place in the past

-You know what else I get strong vibes from here, actually it takes a ton from the Avengers 2.5 of the conjuring series, Annabelle comes home.  There are like so many other scary haunted objects and that movies throws those at you a mile a minute.  And this movie is no different, there are so many haunted instances in this seemingly cursed town, and we only get to see the full stories of three of them unfortunately.  And this movie and the rest of the franchise finds ways to pepper in the other tragedies of this town.  And while I am happy with the way they do this for the most part, I wish we could have even more of these stories, I’ll elaborate in the final film in the trilogy.

-For the most part this really does have everything you could want in a masked serial killer teen movie, the supernatural angle exists, even if it isn’t super strong here

-By the end of it this movie has a plethora of fun serial killers, like there are so many stories I want to know more and more.  I mean thankfully one of the stories we got was indeed the summer camp 70’s/80’s slasher fare that y’all know I love

-While there is a fun cast here, it is a shame that some of the better more interesting members are the ones that don’t make it to the end.  I get that drug dealing and sex are big no-no’s in this franchise, those be the rules after all, and sadly, the straight-laced leads are sometimes not the most exciting or fun characters.  If you have heard my case on both the Halloween and Friday the 13th Franchises, sometimes the leads just aren’t the best part of the cast of teens or counselors.  They can’t all be Laurie Strode or Tommy Jarvis.

-While those roles of final girl/boy are paramount in this genre, the next most crucial role besides the killer is the law enforcement officer who is either skeptical till the very end or out for blood from the onset.  Once again, trying to keep things in this movie and not the full series just yet, but this sheriff does feel more useless than most in this move

-I mean there are hints to flatliners, like a more hardcore Scooby Doo, and there are so many references I love here, but overall, the highlight has to be the final battle at the grocery store.

-They made me care about some of these characters, yes there were only so many fatalities, part 2 brings the gore up exponentially, but something about the small scale teen cast, I dunno, I just sort of felt it.  The love story does feel like it is missing a little something, but that does see a little boost with the circle story once you get to the 1666 time.

-Now you could never expect everyone to make it through any of these, heck even Scream keeping a trifecta of heroes 4 movies in, they still found a way to kill of Randy eventually.  And when that 20-30 hits, so do the hardcore kills.  From a more standard axe to the head to the way more visceral head through a bread cutting deli machine.  And yeah the killers get some stuff to it, I mean one of them gets hair-sprayed lit on fire, but that head through a mechanical bread slicer was something to behold, in no world did I see that coming.  

-I don’t know what the first cinematic version of using an adrenaline shot of some variety to bring someone back is, I gotta assume it is Pulp Fiction unless otherwise stated, if you know an earlier version, let me know on social.  But people forget that most scary movies have some form of a happy ending, the conjuring films, scream, and more, things work out in the end for a ton of these movies, they are not all doom and gloom as the perception always is.

-But there is always that last gotcha scare too, and in this movie, knowing there are two more to come, you know they had to have it, and the possession of the latest girl being tha girlfriend of our lead, it lead to a fun direction and a way to send us back to 1978 for the sequel with this franchises older final girl that combines Halloween and Friday the 13th, so you know I was pumped for part 2, much like AHS 1984 was the inciting incident to watch that whole series in 2 weeks and kick this podcast off.  But yeah, part one was and still is super fun, also maybe it is because I know it now, but the witch covered up outfit, while used to hide who the witch is, for sure looks more like a warlock outfit like one of the deatheaters from HP, final observation.  But while we are in summer, might as well go to summer scare camp!

-Fear Street Part Two: 1978

-So you know summer camp horror was my first real foray into this genre, sure I had Scream and a plethora of zombie shows, but this was the real inciting incident that lead me to Halloween, Alien, Predator, The Conjuring, and more horror franchises that you can listen to episodes all on this very podcast!  Plug over

-Now my love for Friday the 13th may cloud my mind a tad, but I will do my darndest to stay objective here.

-So onto the actor slate for this movie, A few people are back from the original movie, the survivors find a way to blend the past and future stories.  New adds include Gillian Jacobs, this version is akin to the modern day version of Laurie Strode in the reboot/sequels of Halloween.  I have yet to dive into Community, but if you know here, you probably know her from that or you may recognize her as the voice of Atom Eve from the second Amazon super hero show, Invincible, I know I may be discounting the Tick, once I see it I can get a better sense of where it stands.

-Now with this being a Netflix movie in horror, you think we could get away without a stranger things alum?  To quote the latest Jordan Peele movie title that was just announced, Nope!

-This movie brings in Sadie Sink, in season 2 of stranger things, they needed to bring in another girl to the group to diversify out of Eleven, and that is how we got Max Mayfield, who truly shined in season 3.  The budding friendship of Eleven and Max, especially the mall trip they took to get over boys was amazing and true nostalgia love, that’s why this trilogy and those movies feel so at home in tone and setting together.

-But Sadie Sink plays a huge role in this movie that really gives us a unique take on the simmer camp slasher genre.  The first and third focus, outside of scares, is based on a specific romantic relationship.  This romance transcends time and shows up in the past and present.  While no summer camp spooky tale could be complete without hookups and more, the real relationship shown here is the waning and eventual growth between 2 sisters, but you know from the onset that one of the two would not make it out into the modern story.

-Unlike the third movie, which has to have a more 50/50 split of past and present, thankfully this movie is able to spend the majority of time in the past

-And as the last real final stay in the present here, the story of adult trauma, PTSD, and grief of an older final girl is like so well done and shown in such a short time.

-While not like crazy brutal, especially compared to how later the movies gets mad dark, but the kid on kid bullying is like shocking, by literally stringing a girl up and burning her, and it adds to push that narrative of Sunnyvale and shadyside, and we get a young sheriff Nick Good to boot. 

-But the one camp thing I have to say, only one Friday the 13th movie ever had campers at the camp, it was always CIT’s, counselors in training for the non-summer camp experts, or just teens overall.  And spoiler alert, none of them died there, but this movie, and things made in 2021 are held to that requirement, and the kids here are in actual danger with the killers come out to play, real stakes and a real populated camp, love it!

-And while the 90’s music had some good bops, the 70’s version has some amazing neil diamond and follows up with love will keep us together and cherry bomb, like, perfection

-While Ruby Lane was billed as one of the main killers in the first movie, a story which I would have loved to see as a full movie, here we get her mom as the haunted nurse from her past trauma

-There is another fun note from the first movie of knowing one of the killers, Tommy, being the one to go bad and be the next killer, just waiting for the inevitable to happen, another fun wrinkle that especially is shown when our Nurse Lane takes it upon herself to try and end the nightmare before it begins and kill Tommy before he becomes the bag masked Jason of this story.  Maybe at first you thought she was possessed, but with what she says and what we know about the wall of names carved into it by the evil powers that be, you know she is of as sane mind as can be and is doing what she can to avert another pre-determined tragedy

-The sister drama is on a perfect backdrop to this idyllic camp setting that you are just waiting to fall to madness

-There is not as many Beltrami beats with the awesome pop culture music, especially early on, but he weaves and crafts the atmospheric tone of oldies camp, suspense, and terror.

-Besides the obvious references in Fear Street Part two, to Friday the 13th, summer camp slasher and all that which feels standard at this point. The Carrie nods are my fave, having seen both the original and the latest remake.  I mean the line after planning to fake blood someone to “carrie on”, is cheesy magical.

-Is the second Carrie anything to write home about? I don’t know, but I may be wrong for enjoying the Chloe Grace Mortez version of the character more than the original.

-But back to the movie at hand, the eventual reveal of Tommy being on the killer’s wall to his turn to madness, so good, and while the kill count was not super high in part 1, part 2 does everything you would expect with seeing a ton of axe murders, they are fairly mild with seeing actual kids die which is to be expected.  And while the slasher fare is there, this movie of course dives even more into the supernatural than you would expect with either this genre or this franchise actually seeing the witches lair.  

-And all the romances and movie parts lead us to thinking Cindy is the lead of the movie, but I really liked the romance of Ziggy and young Nick.  Gosh I really liked it, and Nick, you really wanted this romance to work, and for Nick to be an eventual hero, but clearly that was not the direction they went with the assignment.

-Some of the makeup is wild, like they made a bone sticking out of a leg look surprisingly good.

-I think the one question I have about all this,  I don’t think any Sunnyvale-ers die in this movie, where it was totally possible and there were many chances, I think that is the case until the very end, but of course that first movie did indeed have some Sunnyyvale-ers casualties.

-Also when the Good brothers talk and will says to nick, did you do this?  Classic foreshadowing, because now we know the answer is yes

-The end get’s a bit messy, somehow Ziggy survives with CPR from Nick Good after multiple stabs, I mean it is less likely to survive all the axe hits, but this is also a bit surprising lol.  But of course, the only way she survived was by dying and being brought back.

-This franchise has a summer interesting take on systematic oppression cloaked in a horror story that spans decades.  And thankfully how it all happens makes sense after the third entry, going back to the beginning to see how this all became what it was.

-But the final end part of the this important hanging tree still existing and having a spot in this iconic mall, and the hand of the witch being buried there this whole time, now having all the parts together, the hand, the body, and all, it is a fun transition to get to 1666.  But 78 really stands on its own and is so much fun.

-Fear Street Part Three: 1666

-So this movie places a lot on us and has a lot to do, it has to explain things from the first instance of witchcraft and it has to of course wrap up the modern day story in an meaningful manner that also makes sense narratively spanning decades.  Like I said, I wish more of the killer stories could have been explored, seeing all the killers is fun, but having them all be explained in a large franchise would have been great, but that would have taken ages so I get it.  But this period piece time is super uninteresting, in the same way as the flashback episode of Amazon’s them was important for explanation purposes, but I was still super uninterested in that era.

-So the actors here are all the people you have been familiar with before, but now in different historical roles, the anthology angle is on true display seeing people like Sadie Sink and Ashley Zukerman play old timey roles.  Sadly, they could not find another role for Maya Hawke from the beginning of part 1.

-Either way, I knew I wasn’t looking forward to this movie based on that oldies moment, heck I read it at first as like a movie taking place in the 60’s and I was hoping it was a story about Ruby Lane or something, but we had to know about the witch Sarah Fear, but I knew I didn’t like this all as much, the same reason I don’t much care for the Village.  I mean I also think the new Shamalan movie Old also looks brutal

-The accents, the music, the timeline, the still somewhat modern story beats that feel out of place in this time period, the more heavy handed approach to romance and being different and unaccepted.  I dunno, this whole story is just a bit exhausting.

-The witch story is even less interesting in the olden times as some older medicine lady who has some devil tomes, and the drinking and drug stories are still there, but once again, it is exhausting trying to fit all this into the 1600’s, and it really feels like when the CW tried high fantasy with Reign.  The Outpost is a bit better, not including random pop beats and everyone being horny all the time, but man what a departure Reign was after trying to find something else to enjoy post Game of Thrones and Tudors.  Maybe I can get into Salem and Motherland: Fort Salem to see if I can get a spell cast on me for some more witch content, both available on Hulu.

-I guess the old village going to shit is kinda scary, bugs all over the place, a pig parent eating all the piglets, I mean yeah that’s wild, I just super don’t really care for it all.

-When we do see our first killer in pastor Cyrus Miller, the drawing we saw in part 1, and seeing him here gauging his own eyes out and having a congregation of dead kids all with their own eyes gauged out, it mean that is pretty harrowing and gruesome, after that it is pretty stale of a waiting fame of witch trials and accusations until the eventual killer is revealed

-There is a little bit of a fun reveal of Ashley Zukerman playing the old timey warlock who is doing all the devil magic who also plays Sheriff Good in modern era.  And that chase and discovery scene is grand, especially learning just how not witch sarah fear looses her hand and all that.  The rhyme we had heard for ages about cutting away her wicked hand, but seeing it is more an ill-fated final girl chase scene getting her hand gruesomely cut and ripped off is hardcore, not sure if that is more than the eye gouging scene after the fact, but this is pretty crazy

-So then we get out big witch hang scene and all that you’ve come to expect from a witch story, and there we have it, back to modern times thankfully, we needed the info, but both times watching this I was a bit bored getting the info we needed for the modern-day conclusion.

-Thankfully watching these in 2 days things make more sense continuity wise, why are Deena and Josh, the main survivor kids on the side of the road, why is Sheriff Good right there, but the end of part 2 sets those things up a bit with the eventual discovery of the cause of everyone’s misery in shadyside is someone whose last name is good.

-This movie of course tarnishes that relationship that I really liked in Part 2 of Ziggy and nick good, unfortunate and for shame

-Also, as a character who was only barely touched on in part 1, Martin played by Darrell Britt-Gibson, is amazing whenever he is on camera, he is a small part of this story, but I really do like his character, and I am baffled that he survives to the very end, in the I mean I guess that is true with Adult Ziggy too.  The amount of people who survive the end while only 5 of the characters we know, that seemed high, no one really dies in this end of consequence besides the bad guy, which is a bit surprising with the end of the first and second movies.

-Thankfully when this movie gets back to the 90’s the oldies music and pop culture references are back with come out and play by the offspring and the infamous Konomi code reference

-Like I said, when the monsters come out to play in the mall, it is fun to see the one gate not closing all the way being a callback issue from the first movie to this part.  And the moment of comeback of Ziggy having to face and see not only the monster who killed her sister but the man who seemingly was on her side and helped her through all this but of course is revealed to have been behind all the killings, or his family lineage of first born’s is at least.

-And with all of the stuff going on at the end, the trick to seeing all the killers fight one-another is also, super neat to behold, thankfully we get the majority of all our killers shown one final time before Nick Good is Nick Dead, it is a nice ending, I wonder why Sam, the girlfriend possessed in the first one is fine and not dust, maybe it is because she never died while possessed by the witch?  

-I will say the surprise of the tunnels and mall all connected to the tree and the good house is a bit much, but that end final peak moment of things finally going bad for Sunnyvale of a guy leaving and getting hit by a truck, a line that was brought up, yes, they used a bus in their version, by multiple characters in this movie.  Also there are some super fun end notes, Ziggy reuniting with Nurse Lane to tell her the curse is over, and some other nice wrapup moments for the rest of the cast.

-It is a fun way to end it.  Even if it never truly ends with a post credit moment of someone grabbing the devil’s book.  So the end is good and the overall franchise is good, but the ball was dropped a bit in the tangent in 1666.  So good fun and let’s look at my rankings, even if it might feel mostly predictable.

-Movie Ranking List:

-3 Fear Street Part Three: 1666

-2 Fear Street Part Two: 1978

-1 Fear Street Part One: 1994

-wrap and call to action

-Well that is the episode, there is a potential future for more adaptations to arrive on Netflix to delve into this world a bit more, but if that does not happen, at least you and I had a fun time with the franchise and while the trilogy may not be perfect, there are only so many fun spooky streaming selections, and this is an enjoyable one.  The cheese of the second film and the campsite setting was a hoot and super Friday the 13th-eey.  And the first one for sure felt like Scream-lite with a bit more supernatural thrown into the mix.  So what did you think of this trifecta?  What was your favorite of the three?  Let me know on social at either Nick Nack Underscore IC or Nick Nack Movies on Twitter, Instagram, Letterboxd, and Tik Tok.  Make sure to throw up a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts while you’re at it.  So that’s all from me so cheers and until next time cinephiles.  Also before you go, one final point, my new secondary obsession is Animal Crossing on the switch, and I am very proud of my island name, you ready?  Cineph-Isle.  Like cinephile, aka a movie lover, with the abbreviation of island, Isle, tacked on the end.  With a character limit, I was super proud of that, but come be Animal Crossing buddies when you are watching some super or scary scenes!