Fear Street Part Three: 1666 (2021)
Fear Street Part Three: 1666 is a near-enough miss that I'm tempted to call it a hit. While it fails to answer some major questions, features a predictable twist, and ends with a whimper, it does tie this trilogy up nicely.
When Deena (Kiana Madeira) bleeds onto the bones of Sarah Fier, she sees the events that led to her execution in 1666. This history lesson is exactly what she, her brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.), and C. Berman (Gillian Jacobs) need to end the Shadyside curse and save the possessed Sam (Olivia Scott Welch).
1666 makes a major misstep out of the gate by using actors we saw in the previous films to tell Sarah Fier's story. We already have sympathy towards Kiana Madeira’s Deena, Olvia Scott Welch’s Sam, Sadie Sink’s Ziggy, and Benjamin Flores Jr.’s Josh so casting them again is an easy way to ensure an attachment to the new set of characters. It also choreographs what will happen immediately. The series isn’t going to suddenly show us a villainous lesbian when it spent so much time making us hate homophobic characters. This of course tells us what we've previously learned about Sarah Fier will be wrong and dispels any mystery. It's engaging to a point because you get to learn the truth but I was distracted for a moment by an unintentionally hilarious scene. We meet Fier’s father (played by Randy Havens) and your jaw drops. We never actually see the dad in 1994 but is it possible they're played by the same actor off-screen? I have a hard enough time believing the actors playing the kids are related. Related to him? Impossible.
With the truth fully revealed, we jump back to the present (and its glorious nostalgia-fuelled musical choices). It’s the big showdown with the villain and it's time for some payback centuries in the making. The plan is pretty ingenious all things considered but you want that final note to pack more of a punch than it does.
The disappointment we feel isn’t only from the same killers returning once more (300+ year’s worth of monsters, and we only see two new ones?); it's from the un-answered questions. What have Mrs. Lane (Jordana Spiro) and Ms. Berman been doing for 16 years? They haven't solved the mystery or even attempted to leave Shadyside. If you thought it was because a sinister force poisoned their minds and trapped them in the town - as Pennywise did in It - you’re wrong. With the masked killers and psychos showing up on what appears to be a weekly basis and the tragedies ONLY falling upon Shadyside, we still don’t know why people haven’t just up and left the cursed place. They're small gripes but they add up, particularly when the conclusion proves everyone - both heroic and villainous - is dumb as a blood-soaked bag of rocks. If all it takes to turn someone as normal as Tommy Slater into a mass murderer, why didn’t the one responsible for everything just transform Deena, Josh, and Berman’s to get rid of them? It isn’t a plot hole but no one in the movie even acknowledges this as a possibility and when the movie’s not as smart as its audience, it’s frustrating.
I’m coming down harshly upon Fear Street Part Three: 1666 because the good stuff proves it could've been a game-changer like Scream or Cabin in the Woods. Instead, it's merely a reminder of other movies you will revisit before this one. Then again, a post credit scene hints at more to come, so who knows. (July 18, 2021)