If Fear Street part 1 was Scream crossed with It and Fear Street part 2 was a full of homage to Friday The 13th then the only way to describe Fear Street part 3 is Blood On Satan's Claw meets Chopping Mall (minus the robots sadly) with a touch of Freddy Vs Jason in the mix. It's out today on Netflix and it has some harsh home truths for us.
After finding the skeletal hand of Sarah Fier, the witch who's put a curse on Shadyside, Deena (Kiana Madeira) is thrown into the colonial past of her town, 328 years in the past to be exact. It's a place full of recognisable places and faces, with characters from Part 1 and Part 2 playing familiar versions of their own ancestors, with all their good and bad traits. Deena's in the body of Sarah Fier and as in the present, she's a free spirit prone to behaviour that the patriarchal, puritanical leaders of the town frown upon. When things start turning rotten and horrific (and nauseating) tragedy hits, the townsfolk turn on those, who in their eyes, deviate from the norm. Meanwhile back in 1994 that past and present clashes in the very place where all the horror began.
The first half of FSP3 is far darker and way more stressful than you'll ever imagine it's going to be after the Ghostface and Jason Voorhees aping earlier installments of this trilogy. As with so many moral panics of the past it's a fear of sexuality that kicks things off, a scorned man screaming because he doesn't get his own way, wounded masculinity that turns into a witch-hunt culminating in a moment with a hideous resonance to modern day america. What started in fun slasher territory is suddenly a state of the union address. It's brutal, there's no knowing nods at nostalgia and no Sophie B.Hawkins or Buzzcocks songs to take the edge off like in the previous films. The dark heart of this story lays in the past and when those sins aren't dealt with properly they are doomed to be repeated. As a metaphorical device it's blunt as hell but effective as hell too.
The second half of the film brings us back to more familiar territory. Shopping malls, The Offspring on the soundtrack and Hot Topic in the background. The folk horror is over, replaced by bloody slapstick and shrieking histrionics. You couldn't have two more different halves but they somehow compliment each other, the latter adding a much need bit of fun and the former fleshing out the madness on display. Kiana Madeira as Deena does very well tying both parts of the story together and her centuries spanning connections to her brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr) and Sam (Olivia Scott Welch) really give us someone to root for, especially when everything goes full on monster mash at the end. It might make you roll your eyes but if you've made it this far you're well used to the silliness by now.
Fear Street Part 3 is on Netflix now. Part 1 and 2 were fun but this one took a much needed step ahead, giving it a topical vitality that feels necessary and, especially for a film on a huge streaming service, ballsy.
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