First Street

This post -- and two to follow in the next few days/weeks -- are for the horror fans in my readership.

I'm always far behind on my Netflix queue -- some combination of "the fire hose of content spraying out all the time" with "anything buzzworthy that they release is chewed up and spat out in a matter of weeks anyway." But I did finally get to something that's been in there a while, a trilogy of original horror movies: Fear Street.

Based on a long-running series of books by R.L. Stine, Fear Street Part One: 1994 is set in a "wrong side of the tracks" suburb where brutal murders are a disturbingly common occurrence, and attributed to the centuries-old curse of a powerful witch. In this first film, a teen unknowingly disturbs the remains of that witch, triggering a vengeful rampage from beyond the grave.

This first installment in the serialized trilogy has a lot of peaks and valleys. It's not a bad horror movie overall, but it's also constantly having to "start over again" in terms of building momentum. Several sequences really work to generate tension and jump scares, but then long and talky sections in between (with hit-and-miss acting) really sap the energy from the narrative.

That's kind of a shame, because it's not like I'd choose to cut those slower parts. They're vital for fleshing out the story, and that story is actually rather clever. Horror fans are no stranger to supernatural killers with spooky origin stories, but there's a clever twist here to up the ante and sort of Voltron the best parts of several horror sub-genres into a nifty whole.

The movie it's most paying homage to, unsurprisingly, is Scream. That was made in 1996, just two years after Fear Street Part One: 1994 is set. Fear Street isn't borrowing any particular plot points from Scream. (In fact, its key LGBT romance marks it as immediately more modern.) Still, it's in lockstep with the same gory sensibilities, hard R rating, and teenage protagonists. Basically, this is a retro 90s horror movie, and what movie most exemplifies that? Scream.

There were enough tantalizing teases here at what the rest of the trilogy could bring to persuade me to continue, even if I didn't find the first movie to be truly exceptional. I'd give Part One a B-.