Fear Street Part 3: 1666
NETFLIXWatching the Fear Street films weekly has been a fascinating experience, as the lack of any real impact is felt on social media. For something that was meant to be Netflix’s first real attempt at a slow release of their content – rather than dumping every entry on the same day – it is unlikely that it will be remembered in the long run, or even by the end of the year. This can be attributed to easy accessibility to far better horror films, both originals and not, currently streaming on the platform, or to teenagers being so accustomed to violence and gore that this trilogy barely impacted them on any level.
Regardless of whether or not Fear Street will leave a cultural footprint, its final entry, 1666, does bring the narrative to a generally satisfying closure, albeit with plenty of reservations. If 1994 was a Scream homage and 1978 was heavily influenced by Friday the 13th, 1666 is a story of witchcraft panic and folk horror in the vein of The Witch and Witchfinder General. The Salem-inspired portion of the film serves in giving a definitive answer to what really happened when Shadyside and Sunnyvale were formed, shedding light on the hanging of the alleged witch Sarah Fier.
With a 17th-century puritan village as its backdrop, the change of scenery is very much welcome, especially as it prevents director Leigh Janiak from shoving needle drops every two minutes. While not particularly impressive, both costumes and set design do a good job in recreating the early days of America, even if the accents are incredibly uneven from every cast member. Many actors from the previous two movies return, portraying similar characters with the same light tongue-in-cheek verve that made the first two entries relatively fun to watch.
The grisly nature of the previous two entries is only amplified in this epic conclusion, delivering the most disturbing, gruesome, and gnarly imagery in the trilogy: audiences that are very squeamish when it comes to child murders and amputations might want to steer away from this. It is admirable that something aimed at teenagers can feature such graphic levels of violence, at times pushing the boundaries more than certain R-rated movies that are screened in cinemas, but the prevalent use of CGI for both blood and gore removes much of the impact. All of these moments also happen rather quickly, just like in the previous two entries, further lessening the deeply uncomfortable nature of certain images.
It definitely does not help that Part Three: 1666 is also the darkest entry yet. No, not just with the gore, but also with the cinematography: DP Caleb Heymann ambitiously shoots the night scenes in actual darkness, and the interiors use minimal lighting, which unfortunately leads to many nigh incomprehensible shots to look at. There are a couple of instances where characters are running through the forest that brought to mind Alien vs Predator: Requiem, the be-all-end-all of poorly lit night-time photography. Thankfully, all of that is improved in the second half of the film, which cuts back to 1994 and leads to a prolonged climax with high contrast colourful lighting.
An unsung element of this trilogy has been the central romance between Deena Johnson (Kiana Madeira) and Samantha Fraser (Olivia Scott Welch), which never brings too much attention to itself and is an earnest and genuine attempt at having diverse representation without it ever feeling forced. The horror genre has often featured doomed tales of romance that span centuries – think of Candyman, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, or most Gothic ghost stories – but this is the first mainstream instance that has a lesbian couple at the centre of it. Both actors do a wonderful job in here, especially Madeira, who shows a lot of talent and holds promise for great performances in the future. The picture’s final act has predictable twists and turns, a return to needle drops and comic relief, and an alright final confrontation between the Shadyside kids and the undead serial killers. The fact that it lasts almost literally half of the runtime of 1666 makes the historical portion of it feel more like a gimmick, a glorified exposition dump that is only used to, predictably, make audiences sympathise with Sarah Fier.
After a blasphemous attempt at sequel-baiting, a question comes to mind by the time the credits start rolling: did Fear Street need to be a film trilogy? The blurred line between TV and film was tackled back in the review for 1994, and now it is unfortunate to say that this would have benefited from being a four-episode mini-series; introduce the characters and murderers in part one, jump back to the past in the next two episodes, and conclude with the climactic showdown. This would cut down on the egregiously long runtime, for as much fun as the deaths and some character interactions may have been, the length of each film was sorely felt. Plus, it would justify the lacklustre and overly digital camerawork and the cheaper nature of the production.
Overall, Fear Street Part Three: 1666 will please the young fans of R.L. Stine, giving them a bloody, cathartic conclusion to a tale of romance, class differences, and murder. Only really nostalgic horror fans who grew up in the ‘90s are going to hail this as a contemporary classic, because otherwise it is too derivative, uneven, and visually dull to be as memorable as it could have been. It definitely bookends the 2010s, where films became more like TV shows, and TV shows reached the quality of films.