Leigh Janiak
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Connections, in both directions
Much like the soundtrack serves as a direct homage to the music at the time, the overall experience, even down to the narrative and directing style themselves, serves as a faithful tribute to the teen-oriented slashers at the time, specifically Scream .
But what’s old will always be new again in Hollywood, and just as Scream affectionately skewered (and briefly revived) the disposable body-count horror of the ’80s, so now is Wes Craven’s watershed hit inspiring its own wistful copycats.
There are some meta echoes banging about: There are sideways references to Jason Voorhees and those nutty kids from “Scream” (director and co-writer of all three films, Leigh Janiak, helmed some episodes of the short-lived “Scream” TV series), and there’s a recreated sequence from “The Shining.”
Director and co-writer Leigh Janiak is clearly paying homage to Drew Barrymoore’s opening cameo in Scream , right down to the masked killer’s black hooded robe and the slow-motion shot of the murderer chasing down his final victim (Maya Hawke) just as salvation seems nigh.
Set in Shadyside, the cursed sister town to neighboring Sunnyvale (imagine if Tree Hill shared a border with Silent Hill), the film opens with a murder in a mall that pretty closely mirrors the opening murder of Scream, down to the recreation of a few of that scene’s iconic shots.
Janiak sets her stall out early with a terrific cold open that homages Scream with a certain Stranger Things star in the place of Drew Barrymore.
If “Fear Street Part 1: 1994” was a spiritual cousin to “Scream” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” then Leah Janiak’s lively sequel/follow-up “Fear Street Part Two: 1978” is in the same ballpark as “Friday The 13th” and “Sleepaway Camp.”
The follow-up to "Fear Street Part One: 1994" — a fun, frenzied "Scream" homage that introduced viewers to the cursed town of Shadyside and the teens who inhabit it — unfolds 16 years earlier, and is styled after "Friday the 13th" or "Sleepaway Camp," horror films set in the world of horny teens and hornier camp counselors holed up inside wooded cabins and mess halls at summer camp.
While there is a clear Friday the 13th inspiration, you could even say that this second film brings a bit of Sleepaway Camp to the table by casting a few younger-looking actors to make their ages more believable.
The aforementioned genre is, of course, used to populate — for better or worse — the 80s horror films seen in the likes of Friday the 13th (1980) and its subsequent sequels, The Burning (1981) and Sleepaway Camp (1983).
The sleepaway-slaughter hallmarks of the 1980s such as The Burning, Friday the 13th, Madman, Sleepaway Camp and Cheerleader Camp belonged to a disreputable, sleazy sub-genre that cannot be genuinely replicated by such mainstream studios as Fox (which produced Fear Street) and Netflix (which eventually bought the films).
All three “Fear Street” flicks were co-written and directed by Leigh Janiak, who has the difficult task of balancing the source material’s teenage sensibility with the rated-R trappings of “Friday the 13th,” “Sleepaway Camp,” and other slashers.
The Witch (2016)
Directed by Robert Eggers
influenced Fear Street: 1666 (2021), Fear Street: 1978 (2021)
Visuals Themes
Fear Street: 1666 has no such referents, but its visual aesthetic and tone do match up with other period horror films, like Gareth Evans’ Apostle or Robert Eggers’ The Witch .
If “1994” evoked “Scream,” and “1978” was reminiscent of “Friday the 13th,” “1666” feels kin to “The Witch.”
The cool-toned, grey-flecked palette and stark approach to gore seems borrowed from 2015’s The Witch .
Possibly the most dramatic of the films, “1666” transplants the characters from 1994 into a period set gothic horror setting reminiscent of Robert Eggers groundbreaking film “The Witch.”
The scares of 1666 are the very best of Fear Street thanks to both its creepy setting of a repressive Puritan colony and the way it ditches the slasher format of the previous two films in favor of more supernatural frights, pulling from works like Arthur Miller’s The Crucible or Robert Eggers’ The Witch and incorporating similar themes of patriarchal violence and religious hysteria.
1666 is a slight departure from the horror trend pattern of the last two films, but we’re still in subgenre territory, hitting up contemporary folk horror in the vein of Robert Eggers’ The Witch , colored with a sense of teen angst that’s closer to 1994 ’s Kevin Williamson-adjacent trappings.
Feeling more like a direct homage to 1970s slashers such as Friday the 13th and The Burning, with plenty of genre references like Carrie and Stephen King, 1978 delves much more into the classic slasher elements.
The aforementioned genre is, of course, used to populate — for better or worse — the 80s horror films seen in the likes of Friday the 13th (1980) and its subsequent sequels, The Burning (1981) and Sleepaway Camp (1983).
The sleepaway-slaughter hallmarks of the 1980s such as The Burning, Friday the 13th, Madman, Sleepaway Camp and Cheerleader Camp belonged to a disreputable, sleazy sub-genre that cannot be genuinely replicated by such mainstream studios as Fox (which produced Fear Street) and Netflix (which eventually bought the films).
Especially given films like Friday the 13th , The Burning , and Sleepaway Camp all being beloved by horror fans for their campground setting, it seemed like an obvious choice to deliver a straightforward, summer-themed slasher, only for Janiak to once again totally circumvent expectations.
A decidedly ’80s trend, its ingredients — teens holed up in a secluded spot away from adults, ripe for sex, drugs and mayhem — have been employed to various degrees of success, from the classics ( Friday The 13th , The Burning ) to the forgettable ( Cheerleader Camp , Sleepaway Camp ).
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
Directed by Jim Gillespie
influenced Fear Street: 1994 (2021), Fear Street: 1978 (2021)
Themes
If “Fear Street Part 1: 1994” was a spiritual cousin to “Scream” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” then Leah Janiak’s lively sequel/follow-up “Fear Street Part Two: 1978” is in the same ballpark as “Friday The 13th” and “Sleepaway Camp.”
The homages to the '90s era of self-aware slasher movies, such as I Know What You Did Last Summer and The Faculty , can be seen throughout 1994.
“Goosebumps” this is not, “Fear Street Part One: 1994” gets the series off to a fun, blood soaked start, paying homage to the slasher films of the nineties (“Scream,” “Urban Legend,” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer”) and curating a solid foundation for the sprawling world-building set to take place in subsequent installments.
Kevin Williamson, screenwriter of Scream , clearly read his share of teen-courting paperbacks, including the one he adapted into I Know What You Did Last Summer .
It's serendipitous that the film opens in a mall with Maya Hawke from Stranger Things, a show that draws on artistic and narrative influences of the 1980s the way Fear Street honors I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream, and other '90s horror hits.
By all appearances, Fear Street Part One: 1994 is a conventional contemporary riff on ‘90s horror classics like I Know What You Did Last Summer , The Faculty , and Scream , period-accurate needle drops and all.
Feeling more like a direct homage to 1970s slashers such as Friday the 13th and The Burning, with plenty of genre references like Carrie and Stephen King, 1978 delves much more into the classic slasher elements.
Friday the 13th (1980)
Directed by Sean S. Cunningham
influenced Fear Street: 1994 (2021), Fear Street: 1978 (2021)
Themes Plot
The aforementioned genre is, of course, used to populate — for better or worse — the 80s horror films seen in the likes of Friday the 13th (1980) and its subsequent sequels, The Burning (1981) and Sleepaway Camp (1983).
The sleepaway-slaughter hallmarks of the 1980s such as The Burning, Friday the 13th, Madman, Sleepaway Camp and Cheerleader Camp belonged to a disreputable, sleazy sub-genre that cannot be genuinely replicated by such mainstream studios as Fox (which produced Fear Street) and Netflix (which eventually bought the films).
“1978” is about a summer camp massacre, à la 1980’s “Friday the 13th.”
Janiak, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Phil Graziadei even tries to get a little meta by referencing popular horror films (the 1982’s Poltergeist happens to be one of them).
There are echoes of Halloween ’s besieged babysitters, Halloween 2 's hospital setting, and Friday the 13th ’s camp-slaying mayhem (though that one will play out more explicitly in Fear Street Part 2: 1978 , which drops next week).
Echoes of Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession and the novels of John Wyndham and Jack Finney haunt Leigh Janiak’s otherworldly chiller about newlyweds holed up in a cabin in the woods.
(The allusions have actually grown more obscure as the series progresses: A sequence featuring our heroine navigating a tunnel with a headlamp brings to mind the climax of “Kill List,” Ben Wheatley’s infinitely disturbing sophomore feature.)
The homages to the '90s era of self-aware slasher movies, such as I Know What You Did Last Summer and The Faculty , can be seen throughout 1994.
By all appearances, Fear Street Part One: 1994 is a conventional contemporary riff on ‘90s horror classics like I Know What You Did Last Summer , The Faculty , and Scream , period-accurate needle drops and all.
There are some meta echoes banging about: There are sideways references to Jason Voorhees and those nutty kids from “Scream” (director and co-writer of all three films, Leigh Janiak, helmed some episodes of the short-lived “Scream” TV series), and there’s a recreated sequence from “The Shining.”
Janiak still makes time to reference horror classics, swapping out Scream for Friday the 13th Part 2 , but this film is markedly better at approximating the thrills of its reference point.
The actor bears a striking resemblance to Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler during the modern sequences but, here, he’s reminiscent of the great Irish actor Emmett Scanlan, which is a real slight considering the unforgivably terrible attempts at Irish accents on display from the largely American cast.
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
influenced Fear Street: 1994 (2021)
Plot
(The ending includes a cool stinger in the vein of “Back to the Future Part II” setting up the July 9th release of “Fear Street Part Two: 1978”).
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Directed by James Cameron
influenced Fear Street: 1994 (2021)
Visuals
Without going too far into spoiler territory, all of the legendary murderers have now risen and are prowling Shadyside, and while at first, the proceedings feel more like Halloween or a slasher flick of your choosing, if anything, Fear Street Part One: 1994 is paying respect to the still-to-this-day astonishing special-effects of 1990s classic Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
“1994” has hints of “Scream” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” for example.
And Shadyside is much like Derry, the town at the centre of Stephen King’s It.
Where Get Out or The Babadook used horror to explore the razor-toothed hunger of white liberal (supposed) allies and the terror of feeling unable to trust your own mental state, plenty of other titles end up just pinning themselves to larger concepts in ways that range from clumsily obvious to grossly cynical.