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Fear Street: Part One - 1994
Fear Street: 1994
USA / Canada 2021
produced by Peter Chernin, David Ready, Jenno Topping, Kori Adelson (executive), Yvonne M. Bernard (executive), Timothy M. Bourne (executive), Leigh Janiak (executive), Adam Wingard (executive) for Chernin Entertainment/Netflix
directed by Leigh Janiak
starring Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, Benjamin Flores jr, Julia Rehwald, Fred Hechinger, Maya Hawke, David W. Thompson, Noah Bain Garret, Jordyn DiNatale, Lloyd Pitts, Kevin Waterman, Elizabeth Scopel, Charlene Amoia, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Ashley Zukerman, Jana Allen, Matt Burke, Christian Bridges, Matthew Zuk, Jeremy Ford, Jaime Matthis, Danyon Huntington, Tayla Rogers, Maya Rogers, Jordana Spiro, Diane Sellers, Eric Mendenhall, Todd Allen Durkin, Emily Brobst, Keil Oakley Zepernick, Michael Chandler, Lacy Camp, Meghan Packer, Gillian Jacobs
story by Kyle Killen, Phil Graziadei, Leigh Janiak, screenplay by Phil Graziadei, Leigh Janiak, based on the book series by R.L. Stine, music by Marco Beltrami, Marcus Trumpp, Anna Drubich, special effects by Crazy Horse Effects, visual effects by Rodeo FX, Vitality Visual Effects
Fear Street
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Shadyside 1994: When Ryan (David W. Thompson), a mild-mannered nobody,
massacres a handful of people for no apparent reason and can only be
stopped by a bullet in the head, that shocks the whole area - but not
enough to have any effect on the long-standing rivalry between Shadyside
and neighbouring Sunnyvale high schools, and this time around it's a
Sunnyvale car that's totalled in a crash - with driver and passenger
getting away with minor injuries though. But after that incident,
Shadyside resident Deena (Kiana Madeira) thinks somebody from Sunnyvale is
prowling her neighbourhood in a skull mask, just like the one Ryan wore
when he killed all those people. Deena thinks her Sunnyvale ex girlfriend
Sam (Olivia Scott Welch) is behind this, as she was in the crashed car, so
Deena fetches her brother Josh (Benjamin Flores jr) and her best friends
Kate (Julia Rehwald) and Simon (Fred Hechinger) to pay a visit to Sam in
the hospital and tell her to stop this, but then somebody kills everybody
in the hospital - and it actually turns out to be shot dead Ryan himself -
and Deena and company fetch Sam and the lot of them go on the run from
what they soon find out is more than just one killer. Now Josh is quite a
bit of a nerd, and he knows about town history that's pretty much drenched
in blood, and a killing spree in pretty much every generation. And he also
figures the killers after them are actually the killers of past killing
sprees reaching back to the legend of Sarah Fier (Elizabeth Scopel), a
burnt which who has sworn revenge on Shadyside. It also turns out that all
the past killers are after Sam, who has accidently touched Sarah's bones,
which ... I don't know. Anyways, knowing that, our heroes use Sam as bait
and lure the killers into a trap to blow them up - but unfortunately,
while the trap works just fine, the killers regenerate. So our heroes find
out Sam actually has to be actually dead for a time for the curse to end,
and if she can be brought back to life then, perfect. So Deena and gang
lure the killers to a department store and drug Sam like crazy - while the
killers already close in, take out some of the gang, and ultimately it's
up to Deena to drown her girlfriend in order to save her ... Now
the concept to spread out a slasher story over three movies in reverse
chronological order seems to be a promising one at least on paper, and
watching this first movie one can's denie that it does many things right,
from telling a self-contained story with only hints to future episodes, to
focus on characters rather than losing itself in its mythology, making
this one a decent thriller - but one that's by no means perfect, basically
it's just a bit too full of high school clichés to stick out, and while
it has its fair share of good scenes, much of it seems to be no more than
routine. That's not at all saying this one isn't entertaining, it's just
not something one will remember for long.
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