Fear Street [2021]: Part 1, 2, and 3
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IMDB: 6.6 RT: 88/76 Me: 5.8
(#'s are averages of all three films)
"The truth shall be your curse."
Consider Stephen King's IT. Now consider making that more accessible for a younger audience. Finally, consider putting it on the largest streaming platform around and giving it pretty colors. If you've considered all of those things and decided they're a good idea, you've accidentally made a horror version of Stranger Things and you should probably call it, Fear Street.
Before we get too into it, a statement about my overall view of Fear Street and its creators is really important. While I did not enjoy my time with the production, I will absolutely be watching future projects by this crew. All of my issues with it center around inexperienced and half-baked ideas that, with more work under their belts, I think will make something really special.
On the surface, Fear sounds pretty great. Two cities diametrically opposed because one is full of crime and problems and the other is perfectly idyllic. There's some sort of recurring curse that ravages the bad town every handful of years that "reaches from beyond the grave to make good men her wicked slaves". It sounded, looked, and was reported to be mad fun. So, I was excited to get into this but, my excitement began to wane as the series quickly lost its identity and never really committed to any of its themes.
As a whole, the show lacked any sort of clear direction in theme, style, or message and got lost in a mishmash of mid 90's and early 00's cinematography and score while lightly touching on the graphic violence of the 70's and 80's. It never fully committed to the time frames it was supposed to be portraying in shooting techniques, editing flair, or on screen performances. While some of its takes are refreshing, it lacked any real identity or voice and, in doing so, ultimately lost any sort of poignancy. There just wasn't any atmosphere to speak of, making even the most upsetting scenes kind of bland. One scene in particular during the last film should have been absolutely SHOCKING, but simply wasn't due to lack of tone.
I think a lot of the commitment issues of the show come from the fairly inexperienced crew that worked on it, and a lack of adhesion to the source material. The crew is mostly consistent through each episode and it seems that they learned a lot as they went. The final episode shows the most cohesive and well shot, cut, and scored bits in the whole series -- but it still lacks consistency. Cinematography improved as the show went on but still never quite managed to break through as meaningful or moving. The editing showed brief moments of creative brilliance but, like much of the show itself, never quite committed to any one idea long enough to really shine. The score was fun and probably the part of the show that I'd compliment most for being mostly on point, despite still not grasping the different periods of time. The writing is boring but not offensive, which is a pretty good allegory for the production as a whole. By swaying between "fun spooky teen drama" and "hyper violent horror", Fear Street never settles on a tone and it's very strange to watch. Most of the ideas were good, but their execution needs a lot of polish that I look forward to seeing in future productions by this crew.
While Fear certainly wasn't BAD, but it strayed pretty far from GOOD as well. Had they made it sillier -- almost Scooby-Doo esqu -- I would have loved it. Had they made it more serious -- The Outsider -- I would have loved it. As it is, the show never really commits to one or the other and suffers greatly for it. Act 3 ultimately wraps up with some really strange and rule breaking sequences that not only don't make any sense... and also don't matter. Nearly all of the conflicts throughout entire series can be summarized by one line from the final chapter:
"You don't have to do this.
--Yes, I do."
If you liked Stranger Things, you'll like Fear Street. If you didn't, skip Fear and check out Dark or Black Spot -- also on Netflix -- for some heavier hitting television, but keep your eyes peeled for their next project as I think there's a lot of potential here.
"Last night, tragedy struck again."
