Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 54 minutes
Director: Leigh Janiak
Quick Impressions:
As I began to expect increasingly while I watched these movies, 1666 is the most satisfying chapter of Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy. But (and this is a big “but”), you have to give it a chance (i.e. you have to want to like it). I assure you, this third installment is the movie that will give you the answers you’ve been waiting for. But (and this is an even bigger “but”), the payoff is only satisfying if you really have been waiting for those answers. If you didn’t like the first two movies, and you couldn’t care less how the over-arching plot turns out, then you won’t like this one, either. In fact, you’ll probably like it the least because it’s meant to give meaning to the entire trilogy. As a standalone film, it’s the weakest of the three. (Honestly, it practically abandons the pretense that these are three separate movies. Halfway through, it ditches the 1666 setting and jumps back to 1994 to finish things up. It could be called Fear Street: The Information Deliberately Witheld.)
Recently, when I was talking with a friend (the horror fan who taught me all those Nirvana lyrics), she mentioned that she views these movies as episodes of the same TV show. That changed my perspective on the series a bit. I probably should have been watching that way the entire time, and I probably should have waited until watching all three parts to write about Fear Street at all.
Too late now, though!
As I struggled to explain my take on Fear Street to her, I was finally able to articulate not only why I like these movies, but also why I wish I could like them more than I do.
This Fear Street movie project appeals to me intellectually. It’s so pointedly self-aware and unabashedly delighted to be both playing into and subverting well known horror tropes. This trilogy is using existing horror movies (and our knowledge of them) as the language with which to tell us a new story. In many ways, the style is the substance here, because the atmosphere is ripped from other well-known horror projects (which we are supposed to recognize). It’s like the way pop songs sometimes sample earlier songs. Imagine a song that was just a never ending series of samples, and when we heard it, we’d bring our feelings and insights about all those other songs with us. Yet it would still seem new. Because of the arrangement and the choice of what elements to introduce and link, listening to the entirely familiar music would still take us to novel places. In Fear Street, familiar bits of style, sound, atmosphere, character types, plot elements, and other things all become the building blocks used to convey the story of this trilogy to us. The overall effect is something new, though it’s composed almost entirely of what’s familiar.
The movies also superbly evoke the experience of reading teen horror novels. (I haven’t read the Fear Street series, but I have read a bunch of Goosebumps books, and that’s what consuming this trilogy feels like, aged up a few years). Fear Street successfully shows us a story on screen that makes us think of writing genre fiction for several generations of teens. That’s cool.
The narrative structure is compelling, too. As I’ve said, I like the choice to advance the story by leading the audience (and ultimately the characters, too) further and further into the past, so that the ending lies in the beginning (and vice versa).
Experiencing this trilogy on screen feels almost like being told a very clever, elaborate (kind of meta) joke. Intellectually, I like what’s being done here. It strongly appeals to the writer in me.
But within the world of the story, I almost never feel the genuine emotional heft in the character interactions that I would like. Too often, the whole thing feels clever but hollow, high concept, low stakes.
And (problematically) this weakness of the films is partially a result of the aspect of them I find most alluring, the decision to tell the story backwards. If we heard the story of Sarah Fier first, if we really understood what we were seeing the first time we saw it, then any number of moments might offer more emotional resonance for the audience.
I’m patient, though. And I’m sympathetic to the need for unusual narrative structure. In my own series, Limitless Night, after the first book, we suddenly jump back in time (with a new narrator) for a prequel trilogy. Not until book five of the six book series do we return to the moment where we left off at the end of book one. And I did this deliberately because I felt it was the most effective way to tell the story. I hope readers would give my series a chance. And I was happy to watch Fear Street all the way through three full-length movies to learn the beginning of the story and why I should care about the characters and events. If you were happy to do that, too, then read on, and I’ll tell you what I liked about 1666. (And then at the end, I’ll tell you what didn’t work for me, even after I finally discovered what the trilogy had actually been telling us the entire time.)
The Good:
The plot of the trilogy is very clever, and the resolution of the story made my daughter so happy. She is absolutely thrilled with the social commentary implicit in the big reveal of the real villains in this film. It’s a good story. If I were reading a book with a similarly constructed and executed plot, I’d be thrilled to get that ending.
It’s a strong ending. Not only does it answer all of our questions, but it makes a bunch of small moments that didn’t really make sense initially make total sense now. Touches we didn’t even realize were significant suddenly become deeply meaningful. Stuff we joked about and called out as ridiculous or silly on a first watch suddenly turns out not to be silly at all, but deliberate, significant, and meaningful instead.
Once you know the ending of the whole story, the opening scene with Maya Hawke becomes even better than it seemed initially. (The conspicuous strength of that scene I always considered well done since for me, Drew Barrymore’s part is best in Scream. Not only is Maya Hawke “the Drew Barrymore of” 1994 (as my husband put it), but her scene is the Scream of the movie, too. 1994′s entire opening sequence is a Scream homage, so it’s fitting that Maya Hawke’s character would be conspicuously compelling. (If the first scene of Scream is its strongest, then opening this series with a Scream homage that seems conspicuously more compelling than what follows is the ultimate Scream homage.) This series essentially works because it wants us to believe, on a first watch, that it’s doing nothing more than offering a litany of clever homages. Because we’re so busy noticing how much the movie is like Scream, we miss the fact (on a first viewing) that we’re actually watching a different story with different rules and goals that only happens to look like Scream because we don’t yet understand what is truly going on). The movie cleverly masks itself in what’s familiar so we never think to look behind the mask where something very different is lurking.
Now, of course, if you are going to watch 1666 expecting the characters to seem like they’re actually in the year 1666, you will not be thrilled with what you get. Expecting that would be like watching Bewitched, shaking your head and saying, “I’m just not sure that I believe that Samantha and Darren are actually at the First Thanksgiving interacting with real Pilgrims. Some of these conversations don’t seem entirely historically accurate.” This is not historically accurate at all. It does not even attempt period authenticity.
There are two reasons not to mind this. For one thing, my friend was right when she compared Fear Street to a TV show. At moments, it feels a lot like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Don’t expect the grotesquely distorted realism you’d get from a Robert Eggers movie like The VVitch. Expect what TV teen horror would give you. (1666 is clearly thinking of The VVitch, though. But it wants to remind us of that movie, not be a movie like that.)
And more importantly, remember that Fear Street on the literal level of plot, never claims to take the audience back to 1666. This portion of the story is actually Deena’s vision. When we see these events (along with Deena), we are still in 1994 (with Deena). She is having a mystical experience. Sarah Fier is showing her the truth, letting her experience the story in the way that best allows her to understand its message. That way, Deena can’t miss the point. She lives the story. That’s why in 1666, the whole cast is suddenly back. Deena is being asked, “What if this had happened to you and your friends? How would you have felt? How unfair would that have been? What would you have done?” Sarah Fier even makes sure to show Deena the real villain’s true face, allowing no room for misunderstanding.
That’s the thing, you see. This is happening to Deena and her friends. This exact same thing. In Shadyside, this story happens constantly, repeatedly, over and over and over again. In fact, nothing else ever happens there. I talked about a Christian youth rally in my 1994 review. Youth pastors should love the plot of this trilogy. I can imagine them yelling in triumph, “See??? I told you! The costumes change over time, but those are just trappings of the age. Underneath all of these alluring period specific temptations lurks the devil in disguise. Always a different disguise, always the same devil.” (Look at the antagonist’s home decor. A bunch of goat heads and goat statues mixed in with cheesy motivational posters often seen in 90s high schools!)
This plot of the series (as finally revealed in 1666) could not appeal to Christian youth ministers more. The villain is literally Satan concealing himself in assorted disguises, hoping in all the flash and color of the pop culture of the day, you won’t notice him lurking under there.
Also, of course, if Satanic panic is not for you, think of it this way. There is probably a reason why some people always have prosperity, comfort, and wealth, while others get disproportionately convicted of crimes, murdered, and forgotten. The reason is probably not, “It was the witch!!!!!! Let’s get her!” Occam’s Razor suggests a simpler explanation for unequal distribution of prosperity and adversity.
In this entire trilogy, the true antagonist is wearing a disguise. The period specific settings, the recognizable pop culture, the familiar horror tropes–those things are his disguise. Using them, he hides his true face (and intent) from his victims and from the audience.
Fear Street is clever, well written, and intellectually satisfying. As long as we don’t expect too much from the characters, they’re all used well within the story.
Nonconformity is the way to survive in this series. Trying to succeed within the rigged system gets you killed. Making yourself a pariah by recognizing the flawed system and staying true to yourself is the only escape. (And you still don’t come out unscathed.)
As a series ending, 1666 is fairly strong. As a standalone film…well, I mean, it isn’t a standalone film. I did like the score at several moments. In the vision of the seventeenth century, we get different music, mostly instrumental pieces. Instead of playing pop hits from 1666, the movie offers us other auditory flourishes, like the sounds of ominous pigs (ominous because you know something awful will happen to them), and unsettling children’s rhymes.
Best Scene Visually:
“Pastor Miller blind as a bat.”
A girl who looks an awful lot like the young Ziggy leads the village youth in this seemingly childish chant.
We watched this movie Friday night before leaving on vacation. But my eighteen-year-old wasn’t with us at the time, so he was delighted to discover our second hotel had Netflix. My daughter and I watched 1666 again with him. (So later when you read my complaints about this film, keep in mind that I have already voluntarily watched it twice.)
As Ziggy’s doppelganger leads the village children in this chant, my son joked, “No wonder he kills y’all. You’re annoying.”
Yeah they thought Ziggy was annoying at camp in 1978, too. She saw the truth sooner than the others, but they dismissed her warnings and tried to set her on fire and stuff because they thought she was such a pest, remember?
(The series does this well. As we watched, we constantly joked about stuff that seemed crazy and ridiculous. Then later, it turned out to be relevant and deliberate. I remember we joked a lot about how Maya Hawke’s character is clearly still breathing when police initially arrive, but they incompetently take their sweet time hanging around staring instead of promptly calling an ambulance. How dumb, right?)
Anyway, turns out, the others should have listened to the Ziggy character instead of dismissing her as an annoying child.
Later in the movie, things don’t go so well for ol’ Pastor Miller, the settlement’s spiritual leader. After he proves himself unsuitable for a leadership position, everyone falls into a (metaphorical) pit. (Except Sarah (being played by Deena). She falls into a literal pit.)
Most people in the village just don’t see what’s going on.
The much later scene in the mall in 1994 also has an arresting look.
Best Action Sequence:
I like the part where Deena and Josh are running through the woods, then make a quick escape. I like Deena and Josh. With Deena, all actions must be taken. There’s no question of deliberating or planning. Something always must be done now.
Best Scene:
The confrontation that happens after Sarah leaves the widow’s house for the final time is pretty riveting. Here we get the big reveal of the movie’s actual villain. We get the missing piece that lets us decode actions we have already witnessed.
The conversations that happen here are so amusing as the villain’s identity becomes increasingly clear. But the scene also reveals to us the heart of entire series.
Listening to someone speak scornfully of the other villagers, my daughter asked, “If they’re that dumb, why do you have to murder them? Why don’t you just teach them?”
I told her, “There are two types of people in this world, those who teach, and those who slaughter the innocents to offer up their blood to Satan.”
We were laughing, but it’s true. Some see opportunities to uplift, others opportunities to exploit. What will you choose to do with your life? Will you make the world a more convenient place for yourself at others’ expense, or a better place for everyone?
Sarah Fier chooses to try to help others by telling the truth. They call her a witch and kill her. She wins anyway. (They should show this movie at Christian youth rallies, honestly!)
The Negatives:
From a certain point of view, the movie has a twist ending. All we have seen up to this point has been extremely familiar. And we have assumed we understood it because it was so familiar. (Kind of a “yeah, yeah, I already saw this movie” effect.) Fear Street leans into the familiar (to horror tropes, to homages of earlier films) in order to conceal from us what’s going on for as long as possible.
But if it’s practically a twist ending, why don’t I care more? I was pleased there was an ending, a solid ending, an ending as sound as the premise is clever. (I almost think I would have prefered reading it, that the whole thing would have been more satisfying as a book. Still, the ending is the best part of the series.) But I never felt any kind of shock or horror. (I feel more horror now writing about it than I did at the time watching. The sociological implications of this grim tale are horrifyingly true and impossible to ignore.)
If we weren’t supposed to feel anything, I would be less disappointed. But there are moments where we’re clearly intended to feel something because we can see that the characters do. Late in this last film, when Deena reveals something to C. Berman, and we get all these flashbacks of summer camp, quick cuts of stuff we’ve already seen in 1978, it is clearly an emotional moment for C. Berman. I think we should be feeling something more here. I think if I had read 1978 as a book, and then read 1666 as a book, I would feel more when I arrived at this revelation.
I don’t think the problem is Gillian Jacobs. As the adult C. Berman, she seems to be having the appropriate reactions. I actually find her character quite sympathetic. But here’s the thing. I feel like I’m doing all the work of deciding how these moments should feel and trying to imagine how I should feel. It all seems quite intellectual and complicated and divorced from actual, natural feeling. If the scene were working, wouldn’t I just react to it? Wouldn’t I just feel something when I watched it?
I find my lack of depth of feeling odd because the characters are sympathetic on paper. If I were to describe any one of them to you right now, you would probably say, “What an interesting person with realistic, relatable problems!”
The issue is, I feel like someone has just told me about all of them. The effect on me is the same as if I’d just read a brief description of each character. But I’ve been watching the movies. I shouldn’t have to be thinking, “How would I feel if this thing happened to this person?” because I’m literally watching it happen to them. I should be having some kind of emotional response to what I’m seeing, not taking notes on the plot inside my head, then asking myself how such plot points would make me feel if they happened to such characters.
It doesn’t help that I don’t quite believe the romance between Deena and Sam. I believe Deena. (She’s very persistent. You can’t ignore her.) But Sam doesn’t get much of a chance to be herself before she’s forced to be somebody else. (Somehow being possessed makes her even less interesting. We were hoping the opposite would be true. I think actress Olivia Scott Welch is actually more interesting as Hannah. Ashley Zukerman is more interesting as Solomon than as Nick, too.)
The most I felt anything in this series was the cake slicer part way back in 1994. While watching that first movie, I got lulled into a false sense of security and assumed certain characters were safe. They weren’t. This is a brilliant move. The movie does to the audience what the villain does to the characters, fooling us with the low-stakes pleasure of pop culture. The reason these characters seem safe is because their reality is toxic. They are always in danger, so they are desensitized to it (and so are we). (This is a justification for the endless stacking of 90s songs that so amused me in 1994. Yes foolish victims, drown in the pop culture; ignore the warning signs.)
But I think after that cake slicer stuff, I should have gone on to feel more and more things. I didn’t. (It is interesting, though, that the second movie does use our reactions to guide us toward the truth. Both a hero and the villain are hanging around in that seemingly lower-stakes but bafflingly more gripping bathroom prank part of the story.)
Here’s what I find really frustrating. These movies are always more effective (in every way) when I think back on them than when I watch them. If I were emotionally invested in the characters, I would spontaneously feel things while watching. I’m intellectually curious about the story construction, so I don’t feel anything until I think back over it, and then what I feel is admiration for a well told story.
Also this series contains so much gruesome violence. So why isn’t it scary? (Gore is really not my thing, but I’ll tolerate it if it’s nessary, and it does seem necessary here, for stylistic reasons if for nothing else.) But if we get R-rated gore, then why don’t we get R-rated terror.
At first I tried to tell myself, “Well, the series is attempting to replicate the experience of reading Fear Street books. There’s a breezy, comforting, superficial charm to books like that. They’re supposed to entertain and distract you, not deeply disturb you. They’re for kids.”
But Charlotte’s Web is for kids (actual children, not teens). Have you read it? It’s very sad. It makes you feel all kinds of things. Very deeply.
The Hunger Games series is for teens. One particular aspect of the ending of that series, a late death, is quite upsetting. That doesn’t just make you cry. It makes you angry and confused. (And if you have never done so before because you’re young, it could make you question your whole worldview.)
Admittedly, there is a big difference between novels like these and a never-ending series like The Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley Twins/High, Animorphs. I understand that. But even in books like that, you worry when bad things happen to the protagonists.
These movies don’t hold back in terms of gore. They seem thrilled to get an R rating. So why can’t they also scare us? (I mean really scare us in the moment.) There’s so much atmosphere (but it’s being deliberately used to numb us).
I know I’m not a teenager, but I have an eighteen-year-old and a twelve-year-old, and I consume lots of material targeted at teens. My daughter used to watch tons of Disney Channel shows for tweens featuring teen characters. They are not realistic or deep. But sometimes they do make you feel real, deep feelings. (There’s that Good Luck Charlie when Teddy learns her boyfriend is cheating on her, that Dog With a Blog when Avery realizes that she’s jealous of the time her mom is spending with her younger stepsister.)
Admittedly, Night of the Pompon (the book I got published at 19) didn’t evoke huge emotions, but it wasn’t as cleverly plotted as this series either. Fear Street tells a thoughtful story in an intriguing way. Anything that makes me think this much should be making me feel something, too.
I never felt scared while watching Fear Street, and I cared more about how the story worked than about any of the characters. I guarantee you that I become emotionally invested in characters. I have more feelings than anyone ever should, and I love fiction. I’m an English major who loves to study literature, and I’m also a novelist who compulsively creates fiction. I’m watching all the Best Picture winners in chronological order with my daughter right now, and I respond emotionally to all of those.
As I’ve been watching Fear Street, I’ve also been watching daily episodes of Jeopardy!. It’s Jeopardy! that’s elicited an emotional response from me, not this horror movie about seemingly sympathetic characters in constant peril. Now I’ll grant that I was on Jeopardy! myself, so when I’m thinking in agony, “This is so late in the game to get a Daily Double,” part of that agony probably comes from memories of my own personal experiences. But I was also in high school in 1994. Many aspects of these characters are highly relatable to me also and speak directly to my personal experiences.
These movies are so cool in concept, but they make me feel nothing (except admiration for the cleverness of the plot and the unique way atmosphere and homage are used as disguise).
Overall:
I’d like to watch the entire Fear Street series over from the beginning now, and possibly I will. Maybe a second watch (now that I know the whole story) will let me focus more on the human drama. We’ll see. These movies are not scary (and no matter what my husband says, I am scared by some movies). But I do find the overall concept cool. Netflix’s Fear Street series gave me a lot to think about. I just wish it made me feel a little bit more.