Fear Street Part Three – 1666 Movie Review: Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy, directed by Leigh Janiak, comes to a conclusion as the saga takes us back to 1666, to the origins of the grisly happenings plaguing the town of Shadyside. The third parter, Fear Street Part Three: 1666, is perhaps the most disturbing of the lot, at least the first half, before it awkwardly changes tone to bring back the pulpiness that ruled the first two movies. Fear Street Part Two – 1978 Movie Review: Second Part of Netflix’s Horror Anthology Is Campy, Grisly and Comparatively Underwhelming!
Fear Street Part Two: 1978 ended with Deena Johnson (Kiana Madeira) seeing hallucinations of a past life after her blood falls on the severed skeleton hand of the supposed Shadysider witch Sarah Fier. The new film has Deena relive the life of Sarah in her village in 1666, with other characters we meet in the previous films being her fellow villagers.
Sarah lives with her widower father and younger brother, tending to her pigs and farm. She also rallies the teens of her village for forbidden nighttime excursions, where they get intoxicated on ‘berries’.
That’s not the only forbidden thing Sarah is indulging on. She is also having an affair with Helen Miller. However, their lusty night-time encounter is discovered by a mad resident of the village, and the discovery of their affair coincides with strange and gruesomely happenings. Sarah’s sow eats her own piglets, her dog is found dead in the village well and the village pastor goes insane and blinds himself but not before killing 12 children.
Soon the villagers put the blame on Sarah and Hannah’s clandestine affair, as what they see as an unnatural, act of Devil. But has Sarah’s love for a woman really caused the Devil to rise in Shadyside? And what can the present-day survivors do to stop her curse on the descendants?
Watch the Trailer:
Fear Street Part Three: 1666 is divided into two parts, one is about Sarah Fier and her bleak tale, and the other returns to the ’90s with Deena, Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr), and Ziggy (Gillian Jacobs) trying to put an end to the curse on their town from what Deena learns from Sarah’s story. Fear Street Part One – 1994 Movie Review: Netflix’s Horror Flick Is a Fun Throwback to Retro-Slasher Films.
The first part is quite dark and disturbing, I must. When I say Dark, I mean it both literally and figuratively. Some of the night-time scenes was so blackish that I had to amp up the brightness of my TV to decipher what exactly was going on there. Kinda reminded me of the infamous “The Long Night” episode from Game of Thrones.
The screen-quality issue aside, Fear Street Part Three: 1666 leaves you with a sense of uneasiness once Sarah and Hannah’s intimate encounter spills into the village. The same-sex romance has been a central theme of the first film, and the track taking such a sinister, and yet expected, turn in the third film makes sense, recalling how witch-hunts of the past have mostly been used to torture and kill innocent women, whose ‘crime’ is perhaps going against the norms of the society they live, of crossing the men they stay around.
I was completely taken by the Sarah Fier tale and the tragic conclusion it has, while also offering explanations to some of the happenings that happened in 1978 and 1994. The tense and bleak atmospheric setting, and plentiful of disturbing gore on display, which includes a hand being broken and ripped off, adds to magnetic, spine-chilling effect that storyline has on us.
Which is why the sudden shift to the 1994 events, that returns to slasher territory/revenge saga bringing the whole saga to a close feels kinda awkward. Had a similar feeling when Baahubali 2 ended Amarendra Baahubali’s engaging storyline to shift to his son’s in the climax. In both the cases, the jump was needed but it felt contrived. Could Fear Street have ignored the trilogy act, and dropped the conclusion for the next week?
But once you get over this clumsy jump, there are plenty of tension-inducing moments in the third act as Deena and gang take on multiple killers in the Shadyside mall while bringing the culprit to justice. It is predictable, and yet still fun. Also, a special note of appreciation to actress Kiana Madeira whose performance shines through and through in both the portions of the film.
Yay!
– The Disturbing Nuances of Sarah Fier’s Tale
Nay!
– The Concluding Portion Feels Stacked Upon and Predictable, Though Quite Arresting and Tersely Addictive
Final Thoughts
Fear Street Part Three: 1666 bring the trilogy to a satisfying conclusion at least, scaring us more with the primeval nature of humankind more than the undead killers rising out of a blubbering, pulsating mass of flesh. All three parts of Fear Street are streaming on Netflix.
(The above story first appeared on Stock Market Pioneer on Jul 16, 2021 06:31 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website stockmarketpioneer.com).