Fear Street: Part Three- 1666

Starring: Kiana Madeira, Ashley Zukerman, Gillian Jacobs, Olivia Scott Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Randy Havens, Fred Hechinger, Elizabeth Scopel, Michael Chandler, Sadie Sink, Emily Rudd, Ryan Simpkins, McCabe Slye, Julia Rehwald, Matthew Zuk, Ted Sutherland
Directed by: Leigh Janiak
Rating: R
Genre: Horror, Drama, Mystery
2021

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Sarah Fier's unexpected origins are finally revealed.

Review:

Tim: I was excited to see the final chapter of Netflix's Fear Street trilogy. I enjoyed the first film, the second film was decent, and there were high hopes for this third chapter. It felt like maybe the best was saved for last, the culmination of the first two movies. That doesn't quite come to pass. Yes, the movie ties up the stories from the first two and it ends in solid fashion. However, this film is closer in quality to the second film, not reaching the heights of the original.

While I'm going to talk about some of this film's flaws, I do want to acknowledge that what Leigh Janiak and Netflix did with these movies was more successful than not. True, I'd only consider 1/3 of these films to be "good", the 2nd and 3rd get pretty close. Horror sequels are notoriously tricky, so to deliver a horror trilogy with a good film and two decent ones is actually pretty good. Sure, you wish these movies were better, but in the grand scheme of the horror genre, you have to feel pretty good about these three films.

This movie starts off by going way back to 1666. This was a nice change of pace from the first two films. It was brilliant to use the same actors to play these new characters. It brought a nice feeling of continuity and familiarity between the three movies. The story from 1666 is fairly decent. It's creepy and fully leverages its "Salem Witch Trials" vibe. The cinematography, the way the story unfolds, it works more often than it doesn't. I was excited to go back in time to see Sarah Fier's origins and to reconnect with these actors. The story offers up a few decent twists and holds our attention. This was definitely a stronger aspect of the film.

Some of the issues happen when we jump back in time to the "present" day. It's funny, throughout the second film, I wanted to get back to the characters from the first film. I felt them to be more compelling than the ones in the second. Here, though, when we finally do pick the story back up, it feels a little disorienting. Jumping from 1666 to 1994 is a big leap and it felt like we'd been gone a while from the original characters. I was glad to pick their story back up, but there wasn't a sense of momentum. That got lost a bit in the telling of the story as we traveled from 1994 to 1978, to 1666 and then back to 1994. Momentum matters in movies and it took a while for this film to pick that back up. This was an interesting experiment in storytelling. The unique approach was definitely a benefit to all three films, but the pacing and momentum issues plagued the narrative for sure. This contributes to the film not quite being good.

I thought the conclusion to the trilogy was decent. I'm not sure I completely bought everything the film was selling. You definitely have to suspend your disbelief and there's a few eye rolling moments. These aren't terrible and the conclusion is fairly interesting. I wouldn't say the movie ended on a high note, but it wasn't a disappointment, either. It was more satisfying than not.

The cast is once again good. It helped to film these movies all together. I've mentioned the cast in the previous reviews and I don't know if I have a whole lot to add here. The actors are all decent, although I wouldn't say anyone really emerged as a true breakout of the trilogy. They worked well, but no one was truly excellent. I will say that I was glad to see Gillian Jacobs had a slightly bigger role this time around.

In the end, Fear Street: Part Three- 1666 is a worthwhile conclusion to this horror trilogy. I didn't like it as much as the first film, but I did enjoy it slightly better than the second. This was a fun trilogy to watch, somewhat due to the release strategy. It was fun to see an entire movie trilogy in the same year (just FYI, I watched the first two in back-to-back weeks, but it took a few months for me to finally get to this film). This is a decent movie and while it's easy to wish it was better, it's worth acknowledging the strengths the movie has.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Fear Street: Part One- 1994, Fear Street: Part Two- 1978