I did not like Fear Street: 1994.
Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy some aspects of the film. There was at least one really clever death and a handful of good jump-scares. But overall, I found the movie pretty boring and flat and not nearly as good as the movies it pays homage to, like Scream and The Blair Witch Project.
- You can read my full review here, or watch my video review on YouTube.
Most critics do not share my opinion, heaping praise on Netflix’s slasher movie—the first in a three-part series that releases throughout the month.
“Heaping” may be a bit hyperbolic, actually. Critics were mostly positive, though, handing out an 83% aggregate score on Metacritic and making Fear Street Part 1: 1994 a “Certified Fresh” horror movie. Well you know what I think?
I think the critics must be crazy, too.
What the critics are saying.
Alison Willmore of New York Magazine calls Fear Street: 1994 a “nasty, effective slasher” writing:
“While the film has obvious touchstones, the influence it quietly but most steadily brings to mind is the terrific (and admittedly very arthouse!) It Follows. Like David Robert Mitchell’s film, 1994 takes place in a suburban world that’s familiar and also borderline dreamlike — an inciting hazing incident starts with headlights zooming in from afar in the night, as seen through the windows at the back of a school bus. And like It Follows, the curse in 1994 involves inexorable pursuers that the gang tries to fight off with MacGyver’d solutions, with parents remaining indifferently offscreen and most other adults revealed to be oblivious or skeptical. But Janiak’s film is saltier, soapier, and more pragmatic — it has sequels to dole out, after all.”
I didn’t mention It Follows in my review of the film, and this is an astute observation. It Follows is a great horror movie, effective because of how it deals with the topics of teenage sexuality and shame and in how downright frightening it can be at times. But, like the nods to Scream and other horror classics, this comparison only serves to remind us just how much better It Follows is than Fear Street: 1994. And at a certain point, aping too many older horror movies just makes the whole thing feel more like Scary Movie than an actually scary movie.
Kevin Maher of The Times (UK) claims that the film “oozes confidence” which, I mean, if we’re talking about the false bravado of a swaggering teenage jock, then sure. Ooze away. Maher writes:
“The director and co-writer Leigh Janiak (she worked on Scream: The TV Series) rarely makes a misstep as she pits her relatively unknown cast (Maya Hawke, daughter of Ethan and Uma Thurman, is as flashy as it gets) against typical horror villains (including an axe-wielding killer), while allowing the young protagonists credible inner lives — they have crushes, broken hearts and failed dreams.
“Special mention for the relentless 1990s deep cuts on the soundtrack, from Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover by Sophie B Hawkins to Firestarter by the Prodigy. The film oozes confidence.”
Ironically, Firestarter by the Prodigy was actually released in 1996, two years after the events of the film. Curiouser and curiouser.
I guess there’s no accounting for taste. Janiak “rarely makes a misstep” is about the opposite of how I’d describe the film’s direction, though to be fair it’s not so much missteps as playing everything much too by the book. Fear Street 1994 plays it relentlessly safe, so I suppose it’s no wonder there are so few missteps involved. When you walk this cautiously into a slasher flick, you avoid missteps and successes in equal measure.
Johnny Oleksinski of the New York Post gives the film a positive review but speaks some truth in the process, writing “Nobody really needs a brain to enjoy this movie.” I would argue that having a brain is in fact a major impediment to enjoying this movie. Oleksinski calls it a “trashy good time” but it’s nowhere near trashy enough and not much of a good time, so we’ll just have to disagree. A trashier slasher would have been most welcome.
Over at RogerEbert.com, Nick Allen gushes: “Packed with '90s nostalgia, fountains of blood, and legitimately surprising twists, this initial movie would be strong on its own, but it shows a great promise for the next installment that’s arriving [checks notes] in seven days.”
He concludes: “It may not be as scary as its cumulative jump scares and wall-to-wall orchestral score hint, but the investment in everyone’s safety is not be underestimated. It’s a full cast of rising young stars, like “Stranger Things” before it, and “Fear Street” gives that palpable sense of having fun while hanging out with them, but worrying that one of them might abruptly die.”
I guess the point here is just that there’s no accounting for taste. As a child of the 90s, I spotted the nostalgia but it never clicked for me. Stranger Things wields its nostalgia effectively, if occasionally relying on it too much, but Fear Street can’t ever really tap into what makes nostalgia effective, even with a pretty decent 90s soundtrack.
One more, this from Adam Graham of the Detroit News, who writes: “It's more of a spiritual successor to "Scream" than most of its sequels; from beyond, Wes Craven is smiling.”
Fair enough. The Scream sequels were trash and should never have been made. I won’t say this is as bad—or insulting—as those. Whether Wes Craven is smiling from beyond the grave, well, who am I to say?
About My ‘Critics Must Be Crazy’ Posts
I don’t write these pieces to dog on other critics. It’s all in good fun, and I totally respect other critics’ right to enjoy or hate things that I feel differently about. I know that sounds crazy, but there you have it.
The headline I use is a reference to The Gods Must Be Crazy and The Gods Must Be Crazy, Too, two films with catchy titles that I haven’t seen since I was a kid and are probably oozing with racist tropes in retrospect, but again—haven’t seen in decades, so can’t really say. I just like the way they work as headlines, so I use them.
Normally I do the reverse of what I did here. When I wrote about The Orville, The Witcher and Altered Carbon using this format I said the critics were crazy for not liking those shows. (Click each link to read my reviews / critics must be crazy pieces). I felt like I was one of the few critics who actually enjoyed these (at first at least). With Fear Street it’s a bit different as more negative reviews have popped up since I first checked Rotten Tomatoes and began writing this. Oh well.
I feel pretty confident that I was right about all three of those shows, by the way. The Orville, of course, got much, much better in Season 2, but I think Season 1 was pretty damn good also. Critics came around by Season 2.
Altered Carbon took the opposite path, retreating from an excellent first season into a mediocre second and then, alas, cancellation. I think a lot of critics got suckered into thinking the show “white-washed” the main character and went into Altered Carbon with that bias at play. Clearly Takeshi Kovacs was not white-washed, but such is our social media discourse in the modern era.
And The Witcher was originally panned by critics but quickly became the biggest show ever on Netflix where fans of the games, books and newcomers alike all adored it (with some reasonable quibbles about a confusing timeline) and soon critics came around as well. Nothing to change hearts and minds like overwhelming popularity and one hell of a catchy song. Toss a coin to your Witcher, dammit. Everyone else is!
Am I always right? Yes, obviously.
Just kidding! The point is that nobody is right or wrong when it comes to this sort of thing but some people will reflect your tastes and views more than others. Some critics are better writers or better critics than others, too, but it’s still largely a matter of taste. You like it or you don’t.
I did not like Fear Street: 1994. I wanted to. I was pretty damn excited about it actually and then equally let down. Maybe expectations are to blame, but I thought it was pretty bad for the most part and I wouldn’t recommend it. But if you liked it, I’m happy for you. I’m perfectly fine with you not liking the things I like or liking the things I don’t like. Life’s too short to argue and bicker over who killed who, after all. Even if it is fun to debate movies and TV online with strangers.
Check out my Fear Street Part 1: 1994 video review below. I actually put a lot of work into this one, so I hope you give it a watch and leave a comment. Thanks!
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