Review of Fear Street: 1994 (2021) by Honesttalk — 03 Jul 2021

Its called Fear Street, for marketing purposes, but has very little in common with the Fear Street books.

Let me start this off by saying that the protagonist is definitely the most uninteresting and annoying character in the entire movie. The dullness and whiny nature of her character can only be matched by her equally boring girlfriend "Sam." Honestly, the main character should have been her little brother who was actually useful in the movie. "Deena", the protagonist, just cries, whines, and puts her lesbian girlfriend before everything, and everyone, else in the movie. On the other hand, her brother literally was the one who finds out what is going on and how they might stop the "witch" Sarah Fier. Unfortunately, he is relegated to a subordinate status so that we might see "Deena" (with two E's) tongue her girlfriend down and cry about her the entire film. And the equally interesting character, Kate, who had the chance to become a love interest for the brother is quickly killed off in order to focus on more crying and kissing between Deena and Sam. As stated beforehand this movie is "Fear Street" in name only. Many who are watching this film and giving it rave reviews are either paid critics or have never read the Fear Street novels. One lady had a Goosebumps book on her Youtube video when reviewing the film; as if Goosebumps is Fear Street. There were several ways the movie thumbed its nose at the Fear Street novels. The whole "only Sarah Fier the witch" is one of the ways the movie breaks away from the actual novels. In the novels there is an entire Fier family. The second way was with this whole "rich vs poor" class warfare nonsense that peppers the film. In the novels Shadyside is not an impoverished area that everyone is looking to "get away from to better their life." Its a regular suburb where creepy things happen. In fact, the Fier family, which is where they got Fear Street, is wealthy. I recall reading one of the novels where someone myseteriously drowned in a shallow lake or something like that. I can't really recall as I read the novels over ten years ago. The point is, Shadyside was not seen as a low class area at all. It was just feared because it was a place where strange things happened.

There was no arguing over wealth and so and so moved to the "good side" or any of that. That seems to be something that the "Karen" who was behind this film is stuck on.

The third way this film breaks with the books is the LGBT relationship. This is just not part of the Fear Street series. Especially one that is based in the 90s. That wasn't what killed it for me though. I went in knowing how infamous politically driven Hollywood is for butchering beloved franchises. Star Wars and Ghostbusters I'm looking at you!

One of the things that killed it for me was the removal of some of the only likeable characters. Kate was likeable and so was the young man who was murdered. The only likeable character that is left is Deena's brother and the police officer. I was surprised when they actually wrote in a young minority male character who had a pretty girl who liked him. Usually they hurry up and kill any minority males off in horror films and make sure they are just token characters. I also liked the fact that he was smart and had learned many things on his own. Again, I honestly wish he had been the main character in the series; but as I said Hollywood is politically driven. I was also surprised when they wrote in the small romance between Kate and his character. However, they fell back on Hollywood's fear of strong minority male main characters when they made sure his unofficial love interest got killed off right after she kissed him. I mean you can't have a smart, self taught, educated so called black boy getting the prettiest girl in the movie can you? So I saw that one coming.

Overall, other than the neon lights which were meant to make it feel "Fear Street-y" this movie just felt like a bootleg Scream with an LGBTQ love story to boot.