Fear Street: 1666
Director: Leigh Janiak
Writer: Phil Graziadei, Leigh Janiak, Kate Trefry
Based on: R.L. Stine‘s series
Sequel to: Fear Street: 1994, Fear Street: 1978
Cast: Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Julia Rehwald, Fred Hechinger, Ashley Zukerman, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Jordyn DiNatale, Elizabeth Scopel, Gillian Jacobs, Emily Rudd, Sadie Sink, McCabe Slye, Ryan Simpkins, Ted Sutherland, Sam Brooks, Jordana Spiro
Seen on: 12.8.2021

Plot:
Deena (Kiana Madeira) has a vision of how everything started with Sarah Fier (Elizabeth Scopel) in 1666, seeing events through her eyes to learn how Sarah’s curse started, and how Deena can hopefully finally end it. It appears that Sarah used to be a normal teenager, trying her best to take care of her brother Henry (Benjamin Flores Jr.) and her father (Randy Havens), and even the unfortunate widower Solomon Goode (Ashley Zukerman). But after a visit to The Widow (Jordana Spiro) everything changes.

Fear Street: 1666 was a really nice finale to a very satisfying trilogy – one that doesn’t only deliver emotionally, but also gives us some surprises that completely paid off for me.

I already had an inkling that there was more to Sarah’s story than the simple evil witch narrative we heard so far. But I was very surprised about how they resolved things. I did not see it coming, even though it makes perfect sense and I liked it. It is rare to get a plottwist like this (more often than not, it’s that I either see them coming or they don’t make a lot of sense. One of the pitfalls of watching many movies, I guess).

While it isn’t strictly necessary for the film to surprise you to work, I think, it did help, especially considering that the party in the woods and the accents struck even a history noob like me as supremely unrealistic (there were probably many more things) and you need a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief to accept that vision of the past. Yes, even more than to accept the whole magic and witchcraft thing.

Much like with Fear Street: 1978, one wonders how yet another sequel that is set even further in the past can continue the story, and the answer is that it can – and it cannot, so for the second half of the film, we return to 1994 for the grand finale, richer in understanding and with a new sense of purpose to the characters. Plus, we spent so much time with these characters, it is hard not to root for them. Not that not rooting for them was the plan.

I really didn’t expect that much from this trilogy, but I’m really pleased about how much they delivered – and all with a sense of fun and a love for horror that makes it stand out among many other horror movies.

Summarizing: really happy with it.