Okay so, unlike L.K., I didn't take any notes. I have a newborn and didn’t think I could completely devote myself to a Fear Street movie series like I could have before. But I wrote this down the next day before I forgot. Just like old times - writing a recap completely based on my terrible memory! It's actually pretty long, but mostly just ramblings.
First thing to know: I don’t like horror movies. I’m okay with slasher flicks (love a classic 90s Scream movie) but I haaaate paranormal/ghost movies. So after the first scene, which is very Scream-y, I said out loud “Oh good, it’s a slasher movie!” Readers, I could not have been more wrong. What followed was the most bat-shit crazy movie full of horrifying paranormal stuff, with a huge amount of gore thrown in. It was truly an on-point homage to Fear Street: Insane and grotesque. I both loved and hated it. Let’s get to my vague memories!
Starts with a massacre in a 90s mall (did they use the same mall as Stranger Things? Google says no, but The Watchmen and Zombieland 2 were recently filmed there!). The killer wears a skull mask and stalks the few people left in the mall after closing. Brutal, gory killings which ends with the teen murderee, ripping off the killer's mask to reveal her friend, who is immediately shot in the head by a security guard or maybe a cop, I forgot. Could have used him earlier, either way.
Cut to: intros of our main characters, Deena, and Josh, siblings with absentee parents. Deena is mega upset about a recent breakup with Sam, and Josh is a computer geek. Got it
So the girl that was murdered at the mall last night (Heather) went to Deena’s school. Deena arrives at school and is greeted by the most CALLOUS high school students of all time. While there is a little locker shrine, these kids are TERRIBLE. There are a lot of jokes about murder and the curse of Sarah Fier, a witch from the 17th century. Which actually tracks really well from the Fear Street books. Those kids were always so strange about the murders happening in their town.
We meet the other main characters, Kate and Simon, who are delightfully weird and sell drugs to other kids in the hopes of leaving town after graduation (if you have read enough Fear Street, I think you know that’s a big ol’ red flag)
They go to a football game in another town and Deena confronts Sam - who is a GIRL!? I do not believe an LGBQT character appeared in any of the original Fear Street books so this was a pleasant departure from canon! In any case, they get into an argument. On the bus ride back to their town, Sam and her ultra-jock boyfriend follow the Shadyside bus and throw stuff at it - sure. Deena and her friend open the emergency exit and are holding a giant cooler of ice out the door… then Deena gets a nosebleed. This distracts her, and she throws the cooler on the windshield of the car, which then crashes. She’s horrified but like… what was her plan? Weren’t they going to throw it anyways?
Anyways, Sam gets out of the car all woozy with a *nosebleed*. She wipes her blood on the ground and gets these crazy flashes of red, and scenes of a witch. Very spooky! Deena comes to check on her and the police come, yada yada yada.
We decided that the police chief looks like an older BJ Novak, and is very useless, just like in the books! Love the continuity.
The next day, Deena and Josh are home alone (sidenote: there are almost no parents in this movie, which was also very on-point for Fear Street. Let these teens run wild!). They see the skull guy from the massacre outside, but assume it’s Sam’s new boyfriend trying to scare them because he’s a dick.They decide to go to the hospital to confront Sam about her shitty boyfriend (his name doesn’t matter).
Sam is pissed to see Deena there and tells her that her shitty boyfriend has been there all night. Shitty BF arrives just then, and is almost immediately stabbed from behind! He dies, and the girls take off with the skull killer chasing after them. They see he’s murdered a bunch of people, and in a fight, Deena rips off his mask to see… it’s the same mass murdered from the night before! But now he’s dead with a bullethole in his forehead. So that’s weird.
My recollection gets fuzzy here. Deena and Sam go to the police station and Kate, Simon and Josh steal an ambulance at some point. Incompetent sheriff/police chief doesn’t believe the girls (and somehow they haven’t heard about the second massacre at the hospital?! There were so many people who should have/could have called it in. He killed like two nurses. What about literally any other doctors/nurses/patients? None of them called 911??). Anyways, the girls leave, and Deena steals one of the cops’ guns.
Which was good because Simon wandered off from the ambulance (WHY?) and is attacked by a creepy teen girl singing a real creepy old-timey song. Deena shoots her in the back/head, but she just regenerates, and they realize they are in deep shit.
Josh is obsessed with all the mass murders of Shadyside (who wouldn’t be?), and realizes that was the zombie of a mass murder from ‘63. He tells them all about the other mass murders in a truly horrifying cut scene (“Deformed child bashes heads in” I think was one of the newspaper headlines). Josh puts it together: Sarah Fier possesses people every so often to commit mass murder. Sam bled on Sarah Fier’s grave the night before with her nosebleed of doom, and this disturbed her. They decide to go back to her grave to… I'm not sure what.
Anyways, when they get there, they discover her bones essentially lying underneath a small layer of fluff and attempt to rebury her and whisper “sorry”, haha. This shockingly doesn’t work and a NEW mass murderer, the Killer from Camp Nightwing (hello movie part 2!) charges out of the forest to kill them. Except he runs past Josh, and goes straight for Sam.
Side note: I enjoyed how each of the killers had their own creepy stalk. Skull Killer has the quick walk of 90s slasher killers, 60s girl does that broken-down doll walk, and Camp Killer just fucking all out runs (which is the scariest, obviously).
They put it together that the killers are just hunting for Sam and her blood. They decide to set a trap which was admittedly pretty cool! For unknown reasons, they go to the school, where they smear Sam’s blood on the floor in trails to the bathroom.
Before the killers find them, all of them need to clean Sam’s blood off themselves so they won’t be tracked too. This leads to a steamy sex scene between Sam and Deena, a weird kiss between Kate and Josh, and Simon pleasuring himself in a bathroom. Gotta respect Simon’s stamina.
Once all three killers conveniently wait until the teens are done getting off and arrive, they follow the blood into a bathroom. Once in, the other kids light the bathroom on fire. It works! The three killers explode into goo. Which is weird? Doesn’t seem like how fire normally works.
But it doesn’t actually work, and the three regenerate from goo. Kate and Simon decide that they’ve tried enough stuff and want to throw Sam out to the killers. Deena is obviously upset but Sam agrees. But then! They discover that there was a survivor from the Camp Nightwing. The only way for Sam to survive is for her to die...and be brought back. Since she’s already given up on surviving, she’s into it.
They go to Simon’s workplace, a supermarket, and Simon and Kate put their drug dealing knowledge to good use! They give her a bunch of pills and the order to take them in, and set off to distract the killers while Deena helps Sam die then hopefully revives her with some epi-pens. It’s...a plan.
Josh, Kate and Simon are chased around the store by the different killers. Kate is caught first by the Skull Killer who stabs her and then SHOVES HER HEAD THROUGH A MEAT GRINDER. Holy shit was I not prepared for that. I know that Fear Street murders are pretty gruesome (hand in garburator, face being ripped off, etc.) but we just read those! Very different to WATCH the horrificness. Ugh. Also, we all knew poor Kate was going to die. She was too callous about death, and also had “big plans”. Never dream big in a horror film, guys.
Then Simon suddenly is axed in the head by Camp Killer. It was also gruesome and horrifying! I did expect him to die too, but not quite so back-to-back with Kate.
Deena and Sam are disturbed by one of the killers and Sam doesn’t take all her death pills. (note: she’s attempting to swallow like 30 pills at a time DRY. Couldn’t stop thinking about that. There must be bottled water everywhere there). Deena has a better plan, and shoves her lover’s head into a lobster tank until she drowns. Jesus.
It happened at a good time though, because Josh was about to be taken out by the Skull Killer and Camp Killer was running down the girls as well. The killers just disappear.
Josh and Deena thankfully revive Sam, and the incompetent police come. They blame Kate and Simon’s murders on their drug dealing ways, saying that tweakers killed them. Harsh.
Also, I forget when this happened, but incompetent police chief goes to someone’s broken down house and slips a note in their door: “It’s Happening Again”. So he’s this incompetent WITH background knowledge? Dude.
Sam and Deena are all loved up the next day when Deena gets a call from the woman that survived the Camp Nightwing massacre. She basically says it will never end and Sam will always be hunted by Sarah Fier. Deena looks up to see that Sam is in front of her… and has brutally stabbed her with a broken drumstick! The girls fight and Deena wrassles her up in the telephone cord. Deena gets Josh to come help and they both look down on an obviously possessed Sam writhing to get free and kill them. Deena promises her that she’ll “get her back” and the movie ends.
What!
Since the other two movies go back in time, I’m assuming we get no more resolution than that.
But, again, pretty on-point for Fear Street. R.L. LOVED a good ending jump-scare with zero resolution and a million questions to be answered.
I don’t think I have too many questions but there were some things I loved.
Loved Simon - excellent random boy character and I would watch a full movie just about him, although he had way too much chest hair for a teen boy (he’s 21 in real life, so I guess just a hairy guy).
Loved that the teens didn’t look too old - they looked pretty high-schooly.
Loved Deena’s nose - so perfect!
Loved that the opening scene was in a bookstore, and they had all the Fear Street books on display, written by a “Robert Lawrence”. So 90s!
So these movies were actually supposed to be released in theatres, one at a time, with a month between them. That would have been super cool, although I’m glad I didn’t have to go to a theatre and watch this - a bit embarrassing to be a grown woman peeking through my fingers in public.
Legit don’t know if I will be able to watch the other two. I definitely stayed up an extra hour or so, just reading happy things, and waiting for my husband to be ready for bed so I didn’t have to go to sleep alone. Will L.K. be on her own for the rest? Probably not. But we’ll have to see if I have any nightmares!
Final Score: 21 dry pills swallowed out of 30
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