Fear Street: 1994
Runtime: 1 Hour 47 Minutes
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery
Summary:
Things in Shadyville have always been rough around the edges, and the killing sprees don’t help their image. After some very weird events around town, Deena, Sam, Josh, Kate, and Simon are thrown together against the forces that haunt Shadyville.
Characters:
Deena is the protagonist and she is a teenage girl going through a breakup. After her girlfriend, named Sam, breaks up with her, Deena acts pretty moodily. Deena is a funny, sarcastic, smart, and aggressive teenager and she does well in this dangerous situation. Josh is Deena’s little brother and he spends most of his days on the computer talking to an online friend about Sarah Fier, an evil witch who supposedly cursed the town of Shadyside. He is smart and he has a knowledge of what might be happening in their town.
Nathanyal: 9.5/10
Review:
Oh boy. Now where do I start? I guess for one, this movie defied some of my expectations. My expectations were pretty low going into this, but I was pleasantly surprised by a story driven movie with some horror elements. I think that’s the best way to think about this movie. It has a focus on lore, combined with a mystery, with some horror here and there. It reminded me of the Conjuring series with all the paranormal aspects with a combination of Stranger Things, as the cast is relatively young, and they fight other entities.
I guess there’s only one area that I wish this movie focused on, and that was horror. Now, this movie did give me the creeps, but I wish they could have packed more of a punch with a few more scares. There were a few scenes here and there that had some gore, but nothing truly scared me. I had some shivers when walking through some dark areas of my house, but that was about it.
What this movie did brilliantly instead was to focus on the lore of this world. They created a whole line of possessions and supernatural occurrences. After the intro scene, this definitely got me hooked, as I wanted to learn more about this world. Being more focused on the mystery aspect was also a good move. I was invested in the story, and it never lost my attention. I want to bring some extra awareness to the characters. The lead of this movie was lesbian, however, this aspect of her was never the core of her character. She was more than her sexuality, which I really enjoyed. I like it when a character’s sexuality adds to them and isn’t their core character. Take Captain Holt from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It’s that same idea. Some other characters also have different orientations, but they also weren’t the focused part of them. It was a nice breath of fresh air and it fleshed out the characters more. Without getting too spoilery, I also enjoyed some of the twists and surprises. Everything was built up for those moments, and they definitely made my jaw drop.
Overall, Fear Street Part One: 1994 was a surprisingly great horror movie. I didn’t have high expectations going in, but it was one that I really enjoyed. It had a nice balance of mystery and lore, and it made for an intriguing and interesting world. I can’t wait for Part Two to come out, and you guys should stay tuned for that as well!
Favourite Moment (Spoilers):
My favourite moment came during the climax of the movie. For a pretty tame movie when it came to deaths, my favourite part was when Kate and Simon died. At this point, no one from the main crew bit the bullet, so when these two characters were removed, my jaw dropped. When Kate left, my jaw dropped, and while I was recovering, Simon was gone as well. I think I really enjoyed this scene for the shock factor and how much I had cared for these characters.
Austin: 9.5/10
Review:
Fear Street: 1994 is awesome, hands down one of the best horror’s I have ever watched. The story is super compelling, and the characters are so well written. I thought it was interesting that they decided to move away from jump scares and opt to follow a more creepy type of Horror. For anyone wondering, this isn’t a scary movie. It shades towards the Mystery genre, and I love that decision. It’s super entertaining, will have you on the edge of your seat, and these characters are going to grab your emotions and hang on.
I thought the story followed a quick pace, but it didn’t run through too much at one time. It’s simple enough to follow the plot without becoming oh so confusing, and it’s also full of lore that keeps your brain turning. I do feel like we got screwed a little bit by the ending, but that could be resolved if the second one picks up at the right spot. Regardless, the plot was super entertaining, and the way everything worked in the little Town of Shadyville was super interesting. The gore could be a little bit much for certain people, but I felt it was a great touch that accented certain scenes and made the deaths that much more intense.
The characters, wow the characters. For a relatively unknown cast, I thought the acting was pretty darn great. The writers did a great job of crafting relationships between characters and between the audience and the characters to create a type of emotional attachment that made some of the bigger moments land well. Our main 5 shift and grow as the movie progresses and their arcs just continue to get deeper and deeper.
If you are a horror fan, and mystery fan, or something in between you have to check out this movie. It’s exciting, it’s emotional, it has enough lore to keep the theories flying for days, and it isn’t super-duper scary. It relies on cinematography choices to be creepy as opposed to jump scares. I’m beyond excited to see where we go in Part 2!
Favourite Moment (Spoilers):
This movie is awesome so picking a favourite moment proved challenging. Mine has to be the scenes where we learn about the lore being the witch. It provides a lot of depth to the trilogy and was super interesting. It’s not the most action packed moment but it gave the rest of the movie meaning.
Sebastian: 9.1/10
Review:
Now as you may have read in some previous reviews I am not the biggest fan of horror films. It’s not like I think the films are bad I am just too scared to watch most of them. However, this film was quite good and I really enjoyed it. What really interested me about this film was the lore it establishes in this first film of a trilogy. You get the feel of a larger history behind what our characters are talking about which makes sense due to the fact that it is a trilogy but I enjoy learning about this town and its horrible history. The characters themselves are all very standard teenage characters but I felt that the actors did a great job making them more unique than their archetypes they are set up to be. They are funny and interesting and it’s believable the way they get through these terrifying scenarios because they act like teenagers would and are rightfully scared through most of it. I thought this film wasn’t too scary but more so gory and had a good atmosphere that made you feel the fear that the characters were experiencing. The possessed creatures in the film were creepy and I like how they were all different. The film definitely does a good job setting up the sequels and I am interested to see what happens next. Without giving anything away there are some characters who die in this film that I was unhappy with and that would be a negative for me in regards to this movie. Another thing some people might dislike is the similarities to Stranger Things but I would say it fits with the fact that it is teenagers dealing with mystical
All in all, this is a really good and interesting film that I quite enjoyed (though that might be because I wasn’t terrified the whole time), I thought it had a good story and characters and would recommend it.
Favourite Moment (Spoilers):
My favourite moment is out there and that’s because it isn’t an action scene, it’s when Kate kisses Josh. Just because you rarely see the kid with the crush on the more popular girl get a kiss in this type of movie so you know go nerds!!
