How the Fear Street Trilogy Reinvents the Horror Genre

By Julia Stitely
LinkedIn

THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FEAR STREET TRILOGY

It’s been two years since the release of the Netflix horror trilogy Fear Street and two years since I begged my friends to binge it for Halloween. The year before, we kept being like, “We’re watching Fear Street?” and then this year, I put my friends in a room and was like, “Alright, we are finally going to do it.” As much as I love the film series, it was as fun to watch my friends watch it, close their eyes at the gore, guess theories about what was going to happen, and chant, “LET’S GO LESBIANS!” 

The very loose adaptation of the R.L. Stine horror series held the audience's breath over the course of three weeks, releasing one film a week. The plot of the trilogy follows a group of teenagers uncovering their town’s curse and the history behind it. Each film goes backward in time, revealing more and more. 

Fear Street may rely on tropes of past horror films. The first film draws inspiration from 90s teen slashers like Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Urban Legends, whereas the second one follows in the footsteps of 70s summer camp slashers like Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp. Finally, the last film takes on the genre of witches. However, Fear Street uses these tropes as a basis to expand upon a genre that has had a complicated past.

Queer and People of Color Aren’t the Victims, They’re the Heroes 

The known trope in horror is that people of color, specifically Black people, are the first to die in horror films, and even though Scream 4 thinks that using “I am gay” will get you a pass, there haven’t been many prominent queer characters in horror. However, Fear Street takes these tropes and flips them around. Deena, the main character of Fear Street 1994, is a Black lesbian teenager reeling from the breakup between her and Sam, her ex-girlfriend who moved towns after her parents divorced. Deena’s brother, Josh, takes over the nerd role, knowing all about the theories that are happening in the town. Deena’s two best friends, Simon and Kate, are dealers who are trying to raise money for college. By the end, Josh, Deena, and Sam are the only ones left standing and honoring Simon and Kate by calling them heroes, even though the police want to frame them as killers. 

Going into the second movie, there is more of an allusion to a past queer relationship between two characters, Alice and Cindy. The two characters used to be old friends until Cindy’s dad left and her mom started drinking. It made her realize the only way to get out of the town of Shadyside is to be “miss perfect.” The monologue she gives to Alice alludes to the idea of Cindy hiding her sexuality and feelings for Alice.

In an interview following the film’s release, Ryan Simpkins, the nonbinary actor who plays Alice, came out and said that they fully saw Alice as “...heavily queer coded…And honestly trying to fight that impulse to be like, ‘I think Alice has maybe been in love with her best friend Cindy.’ I kept trying to push that feeling away until I finally embraced it.” After filming, they went up to the director, Leigh Janiak, and Cindy’s actress, Emily Rudd, and asked their thoughts on Alice’s sexuality and her relationship with Cindy. The actress and director agreed:  “‘One-hundred percent, Alice and Cindy are gay.’” In the final film, there are queer elements, but that will be discussed in a later portion of this article. 

The trilogy also touches on themes of discrimination towards the Black community by law enforcement. In the first film, Martin, the Black mall janitor, is falsely accused of vandalizing the mall by the Sheriff, Nick Goode, alluding to the false accusations of crimes towards Black men from police officers. Martin does come back in the final act to help the heroes, trying to defeat the bad guy with his expertise on how the mall operates. 

Women Aren’t Witches

The idea that witches are “evil” comes from the idea of women expressing their sexuality. That spawned because of their sins, they bring a curse. Throughout the entire series, the audience is told through dialogue and the history of the town that people murder others in the town because of the witch, Sarah Fier, who was hanged. But in Fear Street 1666, it’s revealed she didn’t curse the town at all. She was only accused of it because she and another girl, Hannah Miller, were being intimate. And someone else cursed the town (that will be discussed later). She sacrifices herself and confesses that she cursed the town to save her lover. Because that accusation was put on her, that’s what the town believed for generations and generations. 

It’s interesting to watch the films back to back and get clues that reveal more and more. This also creates an interesting comparison of how Deena relates to Sarah’s story of discrimination. For example, she has to talk to Sam in private at a football game not only because they can’t seem like they’re together, but can’t be together at all. 

Police and Power

What really brings the trilogy full circle is revealing who actually cursed the town in 1666. It was a descendant of the Goode family who made a deal with the devil. A first son of the Goode family would have good fortune and luck for them and Sunnyvale as long as, in a few years, it was followed by the possession of a Shadysider and killing. Sarah Fier found out about it but wasn’t able to speak the truth. So while the Goodes live in Sunnyvale, one of them being mayor and one being sheriff, that town is rich and thriving; Shadyside, the town of the main characters, is suffering and having bad luck. Nick Goode could easily get away with his crimes due to his status, including accusing Martin of vandalization when it was actually him who did it. And because of his actions, Shadyside is blamed and suffers the consequences. It creates a power dynamic as Sunnyvale treats Shadyside like trash because of the town’s history. 

The main characters in past horror films like Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween have allies in the police department. There’s no awareness of the racist history of policing; however, it doesn’t concern these franchises due to the lack of prominent Black characters until future installments and the setting of white suburbia. 

After finishing the series, it was the talk of my friends for the rest of the week, with us joking about rewatching it again. I feel like that’s not just what a good horror film does but a good film. As a fan of horror, Fear Street cements itself in the Horror Hall of Fame by respecting the genre but also critiquing the harmful tropes while creating a story centered on switching them. 

Film Recommendations Similar to Fear Street: 

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Black Christmas (1974) 

The People Under the Stairs (1991) 

Nope (2022) 

Talk to Me (2023)