“Fear Street”  is the new Netflix trilogy that has been trending this month. These movies are based on the books “Fear Street” by R.L. Stine, which are the grown versions of “Goosebumps.” 

The three movies all connect by exploring different years of the tragic events that keep happening in the run down town of Shadyside, where over 300 year’s worth of brutal murders have occurred while neighboring Sunnyville stands by in their seemingly perfect world. 

A witch’s curse has tormented the town for as long as anyone can remember and seems to be to blame for all the serial killers that have happened to the town. No one knows the connection or has even tried to solve the case until Deena (Kiana Madeira) and her friends are trying to save her ex-girlfriend, Sam (Olivia Scott Welch), from becoming another victim of the witch’s curse. 

The second film sees Deena trying to go back in time to find the only other person that has survived the witch’s curse, C. Berman (Gillian Jacobs and Sadie Sink). So they travel back to Berman’s years at a summer camp in 1978 when a serial axe killer was cursed.

The third film takes Deena and the gang all back to when it started in 1666, where Deena becomes the witch, Sarah Fier, and sees how things actually went down. The film then returns back to current time to wrap everything together, giving the audience the closure they needed after that unexpected plot twist.

While trying to save Sam, Deena will have to face the past serial killers from the witch’s curse as they will hunt her down to stop her from finding out the truth and restoring Shadyside.

The script was cheesy and the acting varied so much within the characters. I will never forgive the third film for providing the worst accents I’ve ever heard. The main character should not have been played by Madeira as she was the main reason the script felt so cheesy in the first place. Sink did so well in the second film, I almost wish there was a change of casting and she was shown more.

The visuals throughout all three movies were well done and it was easily distinguishable which year we were in for each part of each film. While there were the variations due to the decade differences there were still many constancies within the cinematography. 

The lighting was dim for most of the three films. Which in a lot of cases I would complain about not being able to see what’s happening well throughout the scenes, but for these films it was well done because the dimness always had pieces of light making it easy to follow even in the dark.

Now moving on to the plot, it was simply just a good idea. I loved the connections through decades. I did prefer this into a trilogy over a limited series because it made more scene for the films to be broken up into years the way they were. 

You can tell there is a lot of influence from Stephen King, as he’s mentioned a lot throughout and there are a lot of signs pointing to “Carrie” and “It” references. Also, there is a similar action as “It Follows” being presented as the “dead” killers walk towards their pray in both films. 

The movies are fast paced, so they were very entertaining to watch. The second film was the best one, the summer camp setting was just amazing. I am usually one to see plot twists from a mile away, but I truly didn’t see this one till much later in the films, I was impressed by that.

Overall, great movies, loved the layouts of the film just wished the the other two films lived up to the second film and the casting is what truly ruined it for me. The plot was better than the actual films.

Fear Street 1994: 3 out of 5

Fear Street 1978: 4 out of 5

Fear Street 1666: 2.5 out of 5