Fear Street is a Netflix horror trilogy based on the book series of the same name by R.L. Stine. The teen horror is produced by Leigh Janiak and the first film was released on July 2, 2021, with the other two films following in the subsequent weeks.

Based on the IMDB synopsis and the trailers, the movie follows a group of friends who accidentally encounter an ancient evil that haunts their small town for over 300 years. While fighting for their lives, the teenagers uncover dark secrets about their seemingly ordinary town. The other two movies in the trilogy dig deeper into the town’s mystery and how the gruesome killings can be stopped..

Raise a hand if you are one of those horror fans who went completely crazy after the news that Netflix is producing not one, not two, but three horror films. For me, this was better than waiting for Christmas. The critic’s expectations were very promising and let’s be honest when was the last time, a good slasher movie was produced?!

But don’t let me raise your hopes if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

The only good thing in this film was the first three minutes, starring Maya Hawke. The beginning brings you all the emotions you want to experience when watching a horror film. There was a funny moment to make you sympathetic to the presented character. There was a fake scary moment in which a goofy guy is trying to scare his friend. And finally, there was the suspense when you realise that someone will die soon but first, there will be a lot of chases and you probably will be hiding between your pillows.

And that’s it. Unfortunately, after these three minutes, we find out who is the killer and the whole suspense is gone. Even though there is a bigger mystery later, personally I don’t see a point to see a masked killer if I know who is behind the mask. The whole point of masks in horror films is to build the fear of the unknown. In Fear Street, the purpose of the mask felt more like nostalgia for the iconic masked killers in Scream (1996) and Halloween (1978).

After I finished the film, I felt like the producing crew was trying to combine all emblematic horror films and use all of their strongest features. We have a masked killer as I mentioned before, we have a babysitter with a psycho walking around the house, we have an evil curse and some demonic witch. In the end, this leaves us with a giant mess from which the viewer has to figure out the plot and occasionally be “scared”.

Let’s talk about the soundtrack and the cinematography. The soundtrack was surprisingly good. There is a nice variety of 90’s hits that set the mood and transfer you back in time. The problem was that the transition between the songs was too fast and not smooth at all. No matter how relevant and good are the songs, the change of 3 songs in 30 seconds is irritating the ear and definitely doesn’t allow the viewer to understand the scenes. The cinematography had some issues too. Overall, I liked the shots, especially the ones with the killer and the chase. They bring you the vibe of 90’s slasher films. On the other hand, in the first half of the movie, there are a lot of scenes which doesn’t make much sense to the story. They look like a filling until another important part comes and similar to the soundtrack, they change too fast for the viewer. (Without spoiling too much, I will say, try to count how many passing houses you can see and also, the scenes in the supermarket)

Overall, creating a horror film is not an easy job. It’s hard to achieve something similar to Friday 13th, Scream or Nightmares on Elm Street etc. Not to mention that the audience nowadays is harder to be scared of and has higher expectations. On the other hand, every year we see at least one movie prepared for the task and executing it perfectly. Even the Halloween sequel from recent years managed to sustain the tension we expect from the genre.

In the end, we hope the other two parts will be produced better and give us the long awaited dose of fear!