Based on the works of R.L. Stein, Netflix’sFear Streetis afun and scary new take on classic horror. In them, we learn about the town of Shadyside, a lower-class neighborhood that carries a centuries-old curse placed on it by the witch, Sarah Fier. Over the years, this curse has manifested in several unexplained murders committed by a series of unlikely killers. On the other side of the tracks is Sunnyvale, the stuck-up, well-to-do citizens who look down on their unlucky neighbors.
The three movies in theFear Street Trilogy—1994, 1978,and1666— are about Sam (Olivia Scott Welch) and Deena (Kiana Madeira) trying to solve the mystery of the curse after an accident puts them directly in its crosshairs.Fear Street Part 1: 1994introduces them to the reality of the witch’s curse and almost ends on a happy note, but Deena quickly finds out that the horror’s not over when Sam herself is possessed.
InFear Street Part 2: 1978, Deena reaches out to the only former survivor of the witch’s curse, C. Berman, who relates her story of surviving the Camp Nightwing Massacre. Using what she learns from the past, Deena thinks she’s solved the mystery. Instead, she psychically links with the witch and sees the truth.
Fear Street Part 3: 1666begins with Deena reliving Sarah Fier’s final days and learning the true villain behind Shadyside’s curse. There are plenty of tense moments, creepy images, and jump-worthy scares in these three movies; below are the ten best.
10Sarah Reads the Witch’s Book
Just because the final film takes place in the 17th century doesn’t mean the teens won’t have a wild party. Sarah and her friends go to the Widow Mary’s home for some “potent” berries, but when they don’t find her, the girls take the liberty of looking around themselves. Mixed in among the various bones and animal skins, Sarah finds abook of black magic.
She flips through its pages, stopping on one with different names for Satan. Sarah reads the names out loud as if in a trance, only to be broken out of it by the widow herself. She tells Sarah that Satan is growing more powerful and that the book that calls to Sarah will be her doom. The widow is cast in Deena’s vision of the past as Nurse Lane; it’s fitting that she would be the one to deliver a creepy and ultimately ineffectual warning to our hero yet again.
9Alice Learns About Shadyside’s Killers
In the center of the witch’s cave, Alice (Ryan Simpkins) and Cindy (Emily Rudd) come across an enormous mass of pulsating organs covered in flies. The mass beats like a human heart, and an inner whisper draws Alice toward the thing.
Hypnotized, Alice places her hand on the organ. She’s instantly rushed with visions of past murders, the crimes ofShadysiders once possessed by Sarah Fier. When Alice looks up, she’s met with a horrific vision of Cindy’s mutilated body.
This scene is most of what we’re shown of the witch’s cadre of killers. Among them is Ruby Lane, as well as a creepy little kid in the mask named Billy Barker, and Harry Rooker, the Milkman Killer. Hopefully, these and others will get the chance to shine in future sequels.
8Nurse Lane Attacks Tommy
Any viewers curious about Shadyside killer Ruby Lane in1994are treated to a bit of her backstory in the second entry,1978. Ruby’s mother, Mary Lane, is the nurse at Camp Nightwing, and she found Sarah Fier’s home in her quest to discover why her daughter lost her mind. Among the things she would’ve seen there is the stone wall of killers that Alice and Cindy discover later.
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When cleaning up the camp’s mess hall, Cindy and her boyfriend, Tommy, are met by a disheveled Nurse Lane wielding a large kitchen knife. She apologizes to Tommy for what she’s about to do, telling him that he will die that night “one way or another.” Nurse Lane attacks the counselor, but he’s able to fend her off and unfortunately survives to commit the dreaded Camp Nightwing Massacre.
7Tommy’s First Victim
The witch’s possession works quickly, with the victims showing few if any outward signs that something’s amiss until the perfect moment strikes. For Tommy, this is the moment when Cindy and Alice discover his name in Sarah Fier’s lair. Scratched into the stone among the other names inShadyside’s pantheon of killers, at the very bottom, is Tommy Slater.
With little warning, Tommy grabs a nearby ax and repeatedly buries it in Alice’s boyfriend Arnie’s head. The girls watch in terror until Tommy turns his attention to them. Alice and Cindy run through the witch’s caves with Tommy in hot pursuit. Cindy is almost caught, but she manages to kick off Tommy before a rock slide closes off the path. For now, they’re safe.
6Skull Mask Stalks the Mall
TheFear Streettrilogy opens strong with a terrifying and bloody opening killin clear homage toScream.1994starts by introducing us to Heather (Maya Hawke), a teenage Shadysider finishing up her closing shift at the mall bookstore. Alone and with only the ambient light of the mall to guide her, Heather closes up shop. All the while, she can’t help but feel like she’s not alone in the empty store.
These instincts turn out to be correct when a killer in a skull mask attacks Heather, but she manages to escape the store. Heather’s luck can’t last forever, though, and Skull Mask eventually chases her down and stabs her repeatedly. In the throes of death, Heather pulls off the killer’s mask to reveal Ryan, the goofball friend she’d spoken to earlier.
5Simon Meets Ruby Lane
Alone on the dark streets of Shadyside, Simon (Fred Hechinger) hears the faint sound of singing in the distance. He follows thecreepy siren songto a lone young woman sitting by the side of the road with her head buried in her lap. As Simon gets closer and asks if she’s OK, the woman looks up, revealing a deep gash on her cheek and a sinister smile.
The woman slashes Simon’s leg before tackling him to the ground, to the tune of The Mills Brothers songYou Always Hurt the One You Love, the same song Ruby had been singing herself. She slashes and slices at Simon as he does his best to fight her off. As Ruby is about to land the killing blow, a gunshot rings out, the bullet piercing straight through the killer. Simon’s been saved by his friends, at least for now.
While the group runs away, Sam watches Ruby shake off the wound and heal herself before she picks up her song once again.
4Skull Mask Returns
After a prank gone wrong sends Sam and her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend Peter careening off the road, she crawls out of the car for safety. On the ground she unknowingly finds Sarah Fier’s bones, unleashing on Sam a torrent of horrific images.
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Later at the hospital, Sam, Deena, and their friends start to find out what else that connection unleashed.
Deena and Sam are interrupted in the middle of a tense argument by the tell-tale slash and gurgle of a stab in the back. They turn as Peter, knife through his chest, collapses to the ground and reveals his killer: Skull Mask is back.
The killer chases Sam and Deena through the halls of the hospital, where they find he’s already murdered some of the staff. After a brief scuffle, the two are able to get away, but not before Deena seesthe face beneath the Skull Maskand recognizes it as Ryan, complete with a bullet hole straight through the head.
3Shadyside Killers Go After Ziggy
After the undead Tommy takes down Alice, Cindy beheads him, but more killers are on the way. Creepily crawling from the sewer drain comes Ruby Lane with another behind her. Even Tommy is still kicking, his headless corpse desperately grabbing for Ziggy (Sadie Sink) as she and Cindy run away. The sisters make it to the hanging tree to reunite Sarah’s hand with her body and start digging as the killers emerge from the surrounding woods one by one.
Tommy then runs in from the distance, ax swinging and body intact. The sisters think they’ll be safe once the hand is back in place, but they don’t get the chance: buried in its place is just a rock that reads “The witch lives forever.” The moment is equal parts horrifying and heartbreaking, as Cindy and Ziggy have now trapped themselves in a situation with no way out.
2Kate Gets Sliced
Searching for a way to free Sam of the witch’s curse, she, Deena, Simon (Fred Hechinger), Kate (Julie Rehwald), and Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.) hatch a plan. They’ll “kill” Sam with drugs and then resuscitate her, thus tricking the curse and ridding Shadyside of the killers. No final act plan can go perfectly right, though, and Kate and Simon get the short end of the stick.
Skull Mask sneaks up on Sam and Deena, but he’s stopped by Kate with a DIY flamethrower. Angered, the killer tracks Kate down to the bakery. She does a valiant job blocking his blows, but the killer is eventually able to stab Kate, subduing her just enough so that he’s in complete control.
Kate’s screams ring throughout the store as Skull Mask inches her head closer and closer to the deadly blades of a bread slicer. With one final push,Skull Mask forces Kate through the blades, her blood and viscera spewing out the other side.
1Pastor Miller Sees Everything
Fear Street: 1666takes us back to the beginning of it all, including thefirst victim to be possessed by the witch’s curse. The town pastor, Cyrus Miller, begins acting strangely, murmuring whispered “prayers” to himself that no one else seems to understand. Later, the townsfolk discover that Pastor Miller has locked himself inside the chapel with at least twelve children, including Sarah’s brother Henry. When Solomon Goode finally makes it inside, he discovers the horrors the Pastor has committed.
Dispersed throughout the pews are the children, dead, their eyes gouged out and piled on the floor. Standing at the lectern is Pastor Miller, mumbling as he wraps his sharp, bloodied poker against the wood. As he looks up, speaking how now he “can see everything,” Goode sees that the Pastor has gouged out his own eyes as well. It’s chaos as the townsfolk rush in around the stunned Goode, horrified at the sight of innocence slain.
