Fear Street Part 1 1994 is a horror film made for the group that grew up on the Goosebumps show and wears its plethora of influences proudly on its sleeve.
From the start the film tries to set the mood of the 90s to a solid degree both in atmosphere and the feeling of it being a movie that could have dropped 25 years ago. Following a group of teenagers who discover their town may have a curse and they are next in line seemingly on the chop block. From here we are given a mix of various villains, some surprisingly nice kills, and a heavy mythology for the first of 3 movies.
Also setting up the series to go back in time was a nice move I thought. We are given a cast of characters who both are typical in fashion but some with a little added depth. Slightly enough to root for but not enough to care if they don’t meet their demise.
Sadly though not all is perfect here. Visually the movie is very dark in spots, to a fault almost. And for being just under 2 hours in run time it does drag in moments. For being so heavily rooted in the Scream slasher era that was the 90s it falls into some of the same tropes that the movies of similar did with characters not thinking of obvious things.
Through it all though Fear Street : 1994 does enough to hold you through it and have some fun along the way. It’ll be interesting to see how the next 2 follow through into the larger story. Plus it was great of Netflix to not water this down at all and give fans a gory fun throwback horror film.
Score : 6/10
