July 17, 2021
Shadyside, Ohio was the so-called the murder capital of the United States. There had been a series of murders there over the years perpetrated by regular people who seemed very unlikely to be killers. Local legends say that these killers had been possessed by a witch Sarah Fier who cursed the town before she was executed three centuries ago. Meanwhile, their neighboring town of Sunnyvale had always been blessed with wealth and progress.
The story dealt with teenager Deena Johnson (KIana Madeira), her younger brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.), her good friends Kate (Julia Rehwald) and Simon (Fred Hechinger), and her ex-girlfriend Sam (Olivia Scott Welch), whose family had just moved to Sunnyvale. One night, the kids were involved in a bus accident where Sam got injured and hospitalized. Since then, the witch and all her minions all went after them to kill them.
This film had a throwback vibe like "Scream" (1996) and "Chopping Mall" (1986). The prevailing atmosphere was youthful and vibrant because of the soundtrack of 90s pop songs. The twist about Sarah Fier and the real target of her murderous spree was quite cleverly written. There was one extraordinarily gruesome kill with a meat slicer in the supermarket, but the rest were relatively tame by today's excessive standards. 6/10.
In the first film "Fear Street 1994," siblings Deena and Josh meet a certain C. Berman (Gillian Jacobs), a woman who apparently survived a previous rash of murders in Shadytown perpetrated by a young man possessed by the malevolent spirit of witch Sarah Fier. They interviewed her to find out how Ms. Berman was able to escape death, and possibly get a clue on how to break the curse that afflicted Sam.
Ms. Berman told her story about how she and her sister (Sadie Sink and Emily Rudd) were at Camp Nightwing that year 1978, when one of their friends Tommy Slater (McCabe Slye) suddenly began wielding an axe to kill Shadyside kids. The Berman sisters and their frenemy Alice (Ryan Simpkins) scramble to figure out the entries in Sarah Fier's diary to break the curse before more people die.
Unlike in the first film mostly set in the various colorful locations within a mall in 1994, the setting of this part 2 was limited to the grounds of Camp Nightwing, the various cabins there and some underground tunnels the kids discover. There was only one main killer the whole time who only used an axe, so not much variety in kill techniques. I did like the unexpected twist reveal at the end about the identity of Ms. Berman. 7/10.
This final installment of the Fear Street film series brings us all the way back to 1666 during the time when Sarah Fier was accused to be a witch and was hanged for it. Deena (Kiana Madeira) relived Sarah's harrowing experience when she reunited Sarah's severed hand with her body at the end of Part 2, and finally discovered who exactly was responsible for the curse that befell Shadyville since then.
The 1666 part was a straightforward Pilgrim-time witch hunt story (with a lesbian side plot). The second half brings us back to 1994 at the Shadyside Mall when Deena and her friends plot to put an end to the curse using what she learned from her travel back in time. Not much new slasher scenes this time around, mostly just quick montages of gory scenes already seen in the two previous films.
This was a tidy ending episode that tied up all the loose ends about the 300 year old curse that plagued Shadyville with misfortune and death. The young lead actors Kiana Madeira (as Deena and Sarah Fier) and Olivia Scott Welch (as Sam and Hannah Miller) still had campy acting styles in both their 1994 and 1666 characters, but their characters were consistent with the youth-oriented spirit of the series (the original book series was by R.L. Stein after all). 7/10.
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