Fear Street Part 3: 1666
Year: 2021
Director: Leigh Janiak
Starring: Benjamin Flores Jr., Gillian Jacobs, Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch & Ashley Zuckerman
Runtime: 114 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 17/07/21
Director: Leigh Janiak
Starring: Benjamin Flores Jr., Gillian Jacobs, Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch & Ashley Zuckerman
Runtime: 114 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 17/07/21
The first Fear Street film, 1994, was a fun yet overlong and slightly underwhelming introduction to Netflix’s new horror trilogy. But the second film, 1978, managed to improve upon the first film in almost every way, with better pacing, more interesting characters, and more frequent gory deaths. So does the third and final part, 1666, round off the trilogy in the same impressive style as 1978, or does it become a victim of its own ambition.
After reuniting Sarah Fier’s hand with the rest of her corpse at the end of Fear Street 1978, Deena (Kiana Madeira), is thrust back in time to 1666 to witness the birth of the Shadyside killer phenomenon through the eyes of Fier herself.
Persecuted by the townsfolk for being a witch following a plague of rotting food, Fier is chased and tormented before being hung as a witch.
Now understanding the true evil behind the centuries of Shadyside killings, Deena, Ziggy (Gillian Jacobs), Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.), and Martin (Darrell Britt-Gibson), must unite against the satanic forces plaguing Shadyside in 1994 in order to save Samantha (Olivia Scott Welch) and stop the Shadyside killings once and for all.
Fear Street Part 3: 1666 has a big undertaking to try and achieve by tying up the loose ends left by the previous two films and explain the origins of the Sarah Fier curse. Unfortunately, whilst it does manage to do this, it also manages to be the least entertaining film of the trilogy. The reason why is simple, it bit off more than it could chew, and it’s juggling too much.
The first half of the film which takes place in 1666, is kind of boring and uneventful. I was expecting something akin to 2015’s ‘The Witch’ and what was presented was mostly nonsense. It didn’t seem period accurate at all, with the women in the community having considerably more autonomy than they probably should have had. Plus, the whole reason Sarah is accused of being a witch is because the town lunatic claims to have seen her doing dirty deeds in the dark, which everyone believes! Now whilst she was doing things that would be considered unholy in that time, the fact that it’s the outcasted, drunk, barely coherent loony that claims to have seen her doing this, and everyone believes him, really pushes me beyond suspension of disbelief. Sure, back in those days it was common for women to be persecuted as witches for little to no reason, but prior to the scene where he claims to have seen her doing this, nobody believes a word that comes out of his mouth. It’s so inconsistent!
After reuniting Sarah Fier’s hand with the rest of her corpse at the end of Fear Street 1978, Deena (Kiana Madeira), is thrust back in time to 1666 to witness the birth of the Shadyside killer phenomenon through the eyes of Fier herself.
Persecuted by the townsfolk for being a witch following a plague of rotting food, Fier is chased and tormented before being hung as a witch.
Now understanding the true evil behind the centuries of Shadyside killings, Deena, Ziggy (Gillian Jacobs), Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.), and Martin (Darrell Britt-Gibson), must unite against the satanic forces plaguing Shadyside in 1994 in order to save Samantha (Olivia Scott Welch) and stop the Shadyside killings once and for all.
Fear Street Part 3: 1666 has a big undertaking to try and achieve by tying up the loose ends left by the previous two films and explain the origins of the Sarah Fier curse. Unfortunately, whilst it does manage to do this, it also manages to be the least entertaining film of the trilogy. The reason why is simple, it bit off more than it could chew, and it’s juggling too much.
The first half of the film which takes place in 1666, is kind of boring and uneventful. I was expecting something akin to 2015’s ‘The Witch’ and what was presented was mostly nonsense. It didn’t seem period accurate at all, with the women in the community having considerably more autonomy than they probably should have had. Plus, the whole reason Sarah is accused of being a witch is because the town lunatic claims to have seen her doing dirty deeds in the dark, which everyone believes! Now whilst she was doing things that would be considered unholy in that time, the fact that it’s the outcasted, drunk, barely coherent loony that claims to have seen her doing this, and everyone believes him, really pushes me beyond suspension of disbelief. Sure, back in those days it was common for women to be persecuted as witches for little to no reason, but prior to the scene where he claims to have seen her doing this, nobody believes a word that comes out of his mouth. It’s so inconsistent!
The second half of the film picks up after Ziggy’s retelling of the events in 1978, and the group set a trap for the real villain at Shadyside mall. This finale takes a whole hour to play out, and not a whole lot happens here either. Whilst the climax of this plan is engaging, I wonder whether it’s because nothing had happened for the rest of the film that I was just excited to finally see something happen.
There’s almost no killing in Fear Street 1666, there is one gory scene around a quarter of the way through, but outside of that the film has no murders…which for a slasher film is kind of the big component, especially in the grand climax of it all.
The performances are even bad in this one, and I don’t really understand how as it features all the same cast from the previous two films. For the portion of the film that happens in 1666 everyone’s putting on an awful Irish accent, due to them being new settlers in America coming across from Ireland. But literally nobody can do it, why was this creative choice kept when nobody can get through a sentence without breaking the accent?!
Even when we return to 1994, the performances from the whole cast are less interesting than they were in the first film. It’s like everyone stopped caring!
The ending is fine, I suppose. It gets the job done and the killing stops. But our characters haven’t learned anything, they haven’t really changed much from who they were at the start of Part 1, and then it makes me wonder what this was all for?
Fear Street Part 3: 1666 is so disappointing. Whilst Part 1 certainly had some issues, it showed promise, and that promise really shone through with Part 2. But this film just squanders all the good the previous two films did by not even adhering to the most basic conventions of the genre in which it is set. It’s two hours of people not doing very much, and funnily enough that doesn’t make a good film.
If you’ve seen the previous two Fear Street films then I’d understand that you may want to watch Part 3 just to see how it all ends, but to be perfectly honest I’m sure if you just made it up in your head it would be more entertaining than the real thing.
There’s almost no killing in Fear Street 1666, there is one gory scene around a quarter of the way through, but outside of that the film has no murders…which for a slasher film is kind of the big component, especially in the grand climax of it all.
The performances are even bad in this one, and I don’t really understand how as it features all the same cast from the previous two films. For the portion of the film that happens in 1666 everyone’s putting on an awful Irish accent, due to them being new settlers in America coming across from Ireland. But literally nobody can do it, why was this creative choice kept when nobody can get through a sentence without breaking the accent?!
Even when we return to 1994, the performances from the whole cast are less interesting than they were in the first film. It’s like everyone stopped caring!
The ending is fine, I suppose. It gets the job done and the killing stops. But our characters haven’t learned anything, they haven’t really changed much from who they were at the start of Part 1, and then it makes me wonder what this was all for?
Fear Street Part 3: 1666 is so disappointing. Whilst Part 1 certainly had some issues, it showed promise, and that promise really shone through with Part 2. But this film just squanders all the good the previous two films did by not even adhering to the most basic conventions of the genre in which it is set. It’s two hours of people not doing very much, and funnily enough that doesn’t make a good film.
If you’ve seen the previous two Fear Street films then I’d understand that you may want to watch Part 3 just to see how it all ends, but to be perfectly honest I’m sure if you just made it up in your head it would be more entertaining than the real thing.