For people who grew up loving R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books, the author’s Fear Street series was an excellent way of transitioning to darker, more terrifying stories about teenagers dealing with rather Goosebumps-like, but markedly more dangerous situations in the fictional town of Shadyside.
In the wake of the Goosebumps movies’ surprising success, Netflix is bringing stories from Fear Street to the small screen with a trio of films directed and co-written by Leigh Janiak that all explore different horrific moments in Shadyside’s history that are part of a larger pattern. As a group of present-day teens begin to look into the town’s past, they uncover a string of murders and supernatural occurrences that, while somewhat widely known within the town, are largely unexplained. As the kids learn about their town, in the newly-released trailer, they begin to suspect that Shadyside’s darkness is on the brink of emerging again and putting all their lives in danger.
Though Fear Street: Part One, which is set in 1994, appears to be a sendup of your typical slasher film right down to the presence of a killer in a halloween mask, Part Two, set in 1978, goes more the Friday the 13th route with a story about someone hunting campers with an ax. Part Three, set in 1666 is featured the least in the trailer, but the brief shots of a person with their eyes gouged out and the time period suggest the historical tale might have a more supernatural aspect to it, and it seems very much like the three movies are going to connect in an interesting way.
While dropping multiple hours of new content for viewers to consume has become common for streaming platforms, Netflix is thankfully spacing the three Fear Street features out over three weeks to give people a chance to properly appreciate each installment on its own as well as appreciate them as pieces of a trilogy. The Fear Street movies star Gillian Jacobs, Sadie Sink, Kiana Madeira, Emily Rudd, Benjamin Flores Jr., Olivia Welch, and Mark Ashworth. Part One premieres July 2, Part Two, on July 9, and Part Three on July 16.
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