Fear Street Part Three: 1666

Director: Leigh Janiak
Starring: Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, Ashley Zukerman, Gillian Jacobs, Benjamin Flores Jr., Sadie Sink, Darrell Britt Gibson, Fred Hechinger, Julia Rehwald, Emily Rudd, Ted Sutherland, McCabe Slye, Jordana Spiro, Jordyn DiNatale, Elizabeth Scopel, Ryan Simpkins
Running Time: 114 min.
Rating: R  

★★★ (out of ★★★★) 

If Fear Street Part One cleverly took inspiration from 90's horror movies like Scream and a supernatural side helping of Stranger Thing and the superior Part Two delivered a dead-on tribute to 70's teen slashers like Friday The 13th, what could now become of the trilogy's third and possibly final film? While the preview oddly indicated something along the lines of Back to the Future Part III, the main reference point is folk horror in the vein of Robert Eggers' The Witch, The Wicker Man, or even more plainly, The Crucible. But if the idea of stringing a single narrative through three movies with the same cast in different eras is an intriguing one, the format's payoff is ultimately what matters. Almost everything needs to converge in such a way that audiences get satisfying answers and aren't taken on a manipulative ride.

As 1978 demonstrated, director/co-writer Leigh Janiak is having quite the run proving she's up to the task this storytelling experiment requires. And notwithstanding the creative pitfalls that could trip up an endeavor this inventive, it does come together in the end. Not without some flaws and certain questionable choices in the last act, what's promised mostly comes to pass, with style, suspense and excitement to spare. It might also be the thematically deepest entry, tackling some timely issues through the lens of an entirely different period and setting. 

If this stayed the course throughout, the sky would have been the limit, but there's also that nagging issue of a mythology to wrap up. It does that well, even if the Stranger Things comparisons will justifiably be out in full force again. If those allusions were noticeably present in Part One, they disappeared in the second installment when Janiak picked exactly one thing to do and did it masterfully. Regardless of its inspiration, the middle chapter felt original, like a great horror movie you'd want to rewatch endlessly. 1666 isn't that, but with a strong lead performance and memorable finale, the third Fear Street takes us back to how it all began in order to effectively close things out.

After returning the severed hand to the corpse of accused witch Sarah Fier, Deena (Kiana Madeira) has a vision, transporting her from 1994 to 1666 as she gets a firsthand perspective through the eyes of Sarah, witnessing past events as they're happening. Living in Union with father George (Randy Havens) and brother Henry (Benjamin Flores Jr.) before its eventual division into Sunnyvale and Shadyside, she's embroiled in a secret, forbidden romance with Pastor Miller's daughter Hannah (Olivia Scott Welch). 

The recipient of constant harassment from town drunk, Mad Thomas (McCabe Slye), Sarah finds herself having an encounter with the reclusive "Widow" (Jordana Spiro) deep in the woods, as she and Hannah discover a mysterious book of black magic. The girls return to a town suddenly beseiged by bad luck and death with townsfolk believing witchcraft to be the cause. Targeting them as the perpetrators, the residents begin their hunt, even as Sarah looks for help from trusted confidant Solomon Goode (Ashley Zukerman), the only person who believes in her innocence. With the walls closing in and Sarah set to be hanged, in 1994 Deena must use the new information she's gained through her vision to break the curse, as Ziggy (Gillian Jacobs) comes face-to face with her traumatic past and the Shadyside killers are summoned to make their final stand. 

Having the same actors playing a multiple roles in various timelines can be jarring so it helps when there's solid reasoning behind it. From the start it's easy to have doubts since there isn't much of explanation other than that some members the cast are playing relatives of whomever they were in the previous entries. But in other instances, certain actors are almost extras of sorts, causing confusion in the early minutes as we're trying to find our bearings in the 1666 story. You could say Deena "leaps" into Sarah Fier, experiencing everything as her, with the romance between Sarah and Hannah serving as a mirror image of Deena's rocky relationship with Samantha in 1994, as actress Olivia Scott Welch also pulls double duty in two roles. But once all that's established, Janiak does an admirable job fleshing out Sarah's backstory and dives headfirst into the folk horror aesthetic.

The girls' plight is caused by a growing lie when someone tells someone else, and before long it's spreading through town like wildfire. It's gripping how the film tracks the trajectory of this while making it known that being viewed as "different" is what dooms them. The script does a skillful job of touching on issues of contemporary relevance without preaching since so much of it already feels ingrained into this particular story. As death and destruction reigns down upon Union, Janiak extends her streak of not holding back on the gore and violence (particularly in a disturbing church scene), as Sarah's eventually led down a path of discovery the townsfolk are destined to remain ignorant toward, having convinced themselves she's the source of evil. The reveal of the actual villain's identity isn't exactly a shocker, but doesn't have to be since it makes sense by tightening the last screws of this three-film spanning mythology. 

Kiana Madeira taking on the Sarah Fier role proves to be more than just a gimmick, as she delivers a performance that's considerably more affecting than her work as Deena. There's dramatically heavier lifting in this storyline and she rises to the occasion in suprising ways alongside Olivia Scott Welch as Hannah. While there's more than faint echos of familiarity to their 1994 counterparts, they are entirely different characters, so it's a testament to both that they play them as such, navigating a fairly tricky situation. 

The rest of the cast mainly provides backround support in smaller, less pivotal roles than the previous installments with Sadie Sink, Emily Rudd, Fred Hechinger and Julia Rehwald making sporadic appearances that don't amount to anything of great consequence. It would almost be too convoluted if they did, but you still have to question if they were included if only to keep with a running continuity throughout the trilogy. Ashley Zukerman and Jordana Spiro's respective roles as Solomon Goode and the Widow are more purposeful, directly linking to the events that make up the last third of the film.     

Inevitably, the script circles back to 1994 for its conclusion, as what happened to Sarah Fier and how the curse managed to pass through generations to torture Shadysiders for centuries becomes valuable information for Deena. The final half hour is kind of a thrilling mess with her and the gang trying to lift the curse (and its spell over Samantha) in a battle between good and evil at the Shadyside Mall that recalls the climactic Starcourt Mall showdown in last season's Stranger Things. Despite that, Janiak again doubles down on the violence while still efficiently tying up all the loose ends. And if we were given a music breather with Marco Beltrani's haunting 1666 score taking the place of 70's and 90's hits, some more mid 90's classics make a welcome return at the end, reminding us what might be most remembered about this trilogy is its soundtrack.

Fear Street proves itself capable of sampling different genres and mixing them into a fresh concoction that works better than it ever should have. If 1978 is far and away the strongest of the three entries, the others at least don't pale in comparison, especially now that we can see how everything connects. Still, creating this kind of "expanded universe" can also hurt if more creative energy is spent trying to explain what happened before and set up what's next than focus on the movie in front of us. The second entry proves immune from this by standing alone with a singular vision of exactly what it wanted to be and following through completely. Working within a new format that carried a high risk of creative failure, Janiak deserves a lot of credit for putting her own distinctive stamp on it. She kind of stitches pieces of pop culture and classic slashers together to create this Frankenstein's monster of an R.L. Stine adaptation that still has legs to continue. And based on what we've already seen, it's hard to argue it shouldn't.