- [Narrator] The new Leigh Janiak directed
horror trilogy "Fear Street"
is intentionally a love letter to the horror movies
that have come before it.
With all three movies now streaming on Netflix,
let's take a closer look at the horror movie references
hidden in "Fear Street."
There will definitely be spoilers ahead.
(metal clanging)
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Fear Street's got a lot of love
for Wes Craven's seminal 1997 slasher "Scream."
Just like that movie,
which shockingly kills off a huge star,
Drew Barrymore, right off the top,
"Fear Street" sees fate catch up
to "Stranger Things" star Maya Hawke,
a lot sooner into the action than you might expect.
Many moments in this opening sequence
play out as beat-for-beat recreations
of Scream's iconic intro.
And of course, the skeleton-masked, robed killer
is its own homage to Scream villain, Ghostface.
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"The Shining" gets its moment to [clears throat] shine
in this scene from "Fear Street Part 1: 1994."
This shot recreates the most memorable moment
from "The Shining,"
when Jack Torrance is breaking into the bathroom,
where his terrified wife, Wendy, is trapped.
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After the 90's teens discover
that Sarah Fier's disturbed grave site
might be the reason for ghostly killers stalking them,
Simon mentions "Poltergeist."
- In Poltergeist.
(kids gasping)
- [Narrator] He makes the connection
between disturbing human remains in Shadyside
and the Freeling family's home.
Never a good idea in horror movies,
unless you want your pets or kids
to come back as soulless, blood-thirsty husks.
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George Romero's seminal zombie movies
get name-dropped in "Fear Street Part 1: 1994,"
by the world's worst sheriff, Nick Goode.
- Would you say he was more (sighs) "Dawn of the Dead,"
or "Night of the Living Dead?" - Wait.
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- [Narrator] We get a little nod
to one of the most beloved horror movies of all time,
"Halloween," at the candle lit vigil,
where we see a sign advertising Goode Family Realty.
Protagonist Laurie Strode's father
has a realty business of his own.
It's the reason why Laurie visits the Myers' house
at the beginning of the film
and maybe even the reason why Michael targets her
in the first place.
It's not the only homage to "Halloween"
in "Fear Street Part 1: 1994."
Before Kate and Simon are attacked
by the Skull Face Killer while they're babysitting,
Kate and Deena have a brief conversation over the phone.
In John Carpenter's 1978 classic,
Laurie Strode and her friend, Annie,
also share a phone call while babysitting,
just before Michael Myers' killing spree
in Haddonfield kicks off.
(metal clangs)
(woman screams) (blood drips)
"1994" isn't the only "Fear Street" movie
to give love to the horror classic "Halloween."
The second film in the "Fear Street" trilogy is set in 1978,
which is a very special year for horror fans.
After all, it was the year
that John Carpenter released "Halloween."
Now while "Halloween" might not have been the first slasher,
it is the one that cemented
many of the genre's most enduring tropes.
Perhaps the most well-known of those
is the idea of a "final girl,"
usually the main character in a slasher movie
whose purity tends to be enough to leave her alive
long after her drug-taking,
sex-having friends are dead meat.
Squeaky-clean Cindy Berman sure fits the bill,
but tropes are made to be subverted,
and it's actually Cindy's confrontational sister Ziggy
who makes it through to the end.
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"Fear Street 1978" has another
"Halloween" franchise connection
in the form of Nightwing counselor Gary,
played by Drew Scheid.
Drew played Oscar in 2018's "Halloween" sequel,
where he has a very meta one-sided conversation
with Michael Myers before he bites it.
"Fear Street's" 1978 summer camp setting,
and the fact that campers and counselors
become axe-fodder before long,
should immediately call to mind
1980's "Friday the 13th."
Even though it's the nigh-unkillable Jason Voorhees
who's the face of the franchise,
you might remember that he's actually
not the villain of the original movie.
Instead, it's Jason's mother, Pamela Voorhees.
That dynamic recurs in "Fear Street: 1978"
with Camp Nightwing's Nurse Lane,
whose daughter Ruby fell victim to the curse of Sarah Fier.
She tries to kill Tommy after his name appears
on the wall in the tunnels beneath the camp,
signaling that he'll be the next avatar of Sarah's wrath.
Another homage to "Friday the 13th"
comes in the form of some sound design.
You can hear some spooky voices whispering
as Tommy gets ready to kill,
(suspenseful music)
as well as when other Shadysiders
embark on possessed rampages across the three movies.
And that's a clear nod to the famous
(iconic "ch-ch-ch-ah-ah-ah" sound)
that signals that death is near for the victims
of whichever Voorhees is coming for their blood.
(dramatic music)
While Jason Voorhees is best known for the hockey mask
that covers his very gross face,
his first outing as the big bad
in "Friday the 13th Part 2" actually has him sporting
a more DIY face-covering solution:
a good old-fashioned sack.
It's one that Tommy Slater ends up with
by the end of "Fear Street Part 2: 1978" because, honestly,
nothing screams hot boy summer like burlap.
"Friday the 13th" homages go so deep
that Camp Nightwing was filmed on location
at the same shooting site as Camp Crystal Lake,
in "Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives."
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"Fear Street's" attention to detail
and how it celebrates horror runs deep,
all the way down to editing choices.
Case in point: there's a very brief
silent flash of Sarah Fier's face.
This nearly subliminal appearance
was used to great effect throughout "The Exorcist,"
where a demonic floating face in the darkness
portended the spiritual showdown
coming in the film's finale.
This actually happens in "Fear Street Part 1: 1994" as well.
There's another nod to "The Exorcist"
in the form of a piece of graffiti on Ziggy's cabin wall,
which offers some mean-spirited information
as to what Ziggy may suck and where she may be doing that.
It's the same thing that the demon-possessing
Regan McNeil in "The Exorcist" says to Father Karras
during the climactic exorcism.
- And your mother sucks (beep) in (beep).
- [Narrator] 1983's "Sleepaway Camp"
is another stellar and deeply weird entry into the subgenre
and helped establish some character archetypes
that are present in "Fear Street Part 2: 1978."
"Sleepaway Camp" sees Angela,
an introverted girl with a dark past,
going after her bullies one by one.
Chief among them is an especially cruel teen named Judy.
See, it's there on her shirt.
"Fear Street 1978's" Sheila seems to have a similar
single-minded focus on making Ziggy's life hell.
She should be wearing a t-shirt with her name on it.
There's also quiet nerd Jeremy,
whose innocence doesn't save him from Tommy's axe.
His bespectacled appearance
and low position in the camp pecking order
may call to mind "Sleepaway Camp's" Mozart.
At least Jeremy doesn't go after anyone with a knife
for pranking him with shaving cream.
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Though not strictly speaking a horror movie reference,
we'd be remiss if we didn't mention
that the work of horror maestro Stephen King
comes up a few times,
with Nick Goode being a big fan of his novels.
Ziggy also takes a page out of Carrie's book,
intending to douse Sheila with red paint,
but settling for giant cockroaches instead.
Oh, and that new "pretty good" King novel
coming out that Nick mentions?
That'd be 1978's "The Stand," widely regarded
as one of King's crowning literary achievements.
(metal clanging)
(birds shrieking)
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While Leigh Janiak told "The New York Times"
that her filming style for "1666"
was inspired by Terrence Malick's "The New World,"
fans have also been quick to draw visual comparisons
to Robert Eggers' 2015 horror movie "The Witch."
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The devil's book that appears through all three movies
has the traditional look of a spooky book
used for evil in horror movies,
including one of the most famous bad books of all time:
"The Evil Dead's" The Necronomicon.
Sarah Fier's recitation of the incantation in the book
before she is found by the widow
especially evokes the "Evil Dead" scene,
where the archeologist's tape recording of him
reading from The Necronomicon
sets off all the traumatizing events that happen
in the 1981 Sam Raimi horror classic.
(metal clanging)
(woman screaming) (screen thuds)
- We'll "Carrie" him.
- [Narrator] "The Carrie" reference
is right in the "Fear Street: 1994 Part 2" dialogue.
Both a reference to Ziggy and Goode's cockroach-dumping
in 1978 and a reference to the Stephen King classic,
Ziggy is, of course, referring to
dumping a bucket of blood on Goode.
Except, instead of mortifying him
in front of all his classmates, they use Deena's blood
to send all the Shadyside killers after him.
Who's laughing now?
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Though not technically a horror movie,
we couldn't let a list
of "Fear Street's" horror references go
without giving a shout out to the man we have to thank
for even having this trilogy: R.L. Stine.
His books appear in the Shadyside Mall's B. Dalton's
under the pen name Robert Lawrence,
aka what the "R.L." in "R.L. Stine" stands for.
One of the books featured, "The Wrong Number,"
is a real-life "Fear Street" book.
It's fitting then that Robert Lawrence's books
are also literally what saved Deena's life
when she gets stabbed by Goode at the end of the third movie
and one even stops a knife turned on poor doomed Heather,
buying her a precious few seconds for escape
in the opening scenes of "Fear Street Part 1: 1994."
What were your favorite "Fear Street"
horror movie references?
Let us know in the comments below
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for everything geek at Netflix.
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