Fear Street Part Three: 1666 Finds Success at the Ambitious Netflix Trilogy’s Grisly End

The first two entries in Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy from director Leigh Janiak have been widely described (and widely praised) within the bounds of language often devoted to slasher movies—as solid “popcorn entertainment” and “simple fun” that represents, in this case, a welcome divergence from the more serious streak of arthouse horror we’ve been experiencing of late. And although it is true that there’s nothing “elevated” or pretentious about any of these three Fear Street entries, to simply think of them as slasher films isn’t quite right either, despite their gory flair. They’re not even really meta-slashers in the mold of Scream, which was relentlessly name-checked by critics as they appraised first entry Fear Street: 1994 in particular. Rather, the real meat of this trilogy is a metaphysical, supernatural mystery that spans across lifetimes and centuries—it’s a story that uses the trappings of slasher cinema in two different eras, the ‘90s and ‘70s, in order to get at eventual themes of scapegoating, privilege and corrupted history. This is the bigger message that final entry Fear Street Part Three: 1666 attempts to deliver, albeit in a clumsier manner than its previous time jump, in a more difficult setting to truly capture. Three movies in, the little absurdities of this series are beginning to mount, but it at least manages to remain briskly entertaining and pretty damn bloody.

When we last left teenage protagonist Deena (Kiana Madeira), she had attempted to end the curse of witch Sarah Fier by reuniting her severed hand with its long-buried body, only to see her consciousness thrown across the vasts of time, Quantum Leap-style, into none other than the literal body of Sarah Fier. As it turns out, however, the end of Fear Street: 1978 is a bit misleading in this regard—we aren’t actually watching a fully aware (and confused as hell) Deena navigating the year 1666, but instead witnessing the life of Sarah Fier as more passive observers. And it’s not that the witch is a long-lost ancestor of Deena’s, or is meant to look exactly like her, as initially appears—rather, we somewhat confusingly come to realize that she simply looks like Deena to us, but like another teenage girl entirely to everyone else.

This same, slightly awkward mechanic is then extrapolated to the entire colony of Union, which will one day split to form towns of haves (Sunnyvale) and have-nots (Shadyside). Actors from throughout the series are all able to appear again in this manner, from Julia Rehwald and Fred Hechinger as new characters who are echos of Deena’s dead friends Kate and Simon from 1994, to Ashley Zukerman playing the ancestor of his own sheriff character, Solomon Goode. It’s not so much “magical,” as it is a visual tool to help the audience assign archetypes to the characters as soon as we see them, based on the characters they play in 1978 and 1994. Does it really feel like it makes sense, in the end? Not really, but it quickly becomes clear that just because it’s 1666, we’re not suddenly going to be heading into dour, grounded, “elevated horror” territory. The appearing and disappearing accents of nearly every character should be evidence enough of this.

As a result, the portions of 1666 that actually do take place in the titular year are hamstrung a bit by a certain lack of gravitas—these teenage actors often feel awkward and out of place, imbuing tropes of 1990s teenage rebellion onto characters who likely would have been treated as grizzled adults by the time they turned 17, some 350 years ago. The Witch this is not, but that’s ultimately fine—although the themes may be something like a mash-up of The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, the tone has a much more pop mentality that is at least consistent throughout.