Fear Street Trilogy is one of the most exciting and exhilarating slasher thriller series of movies to come out in recent times. With its unique storytelling formula which spans over 300 years and goes backward into the origins of the curse of Shadyside, it reinvents a lot of the stuff that we have grown to learn in the genre while adding its own dark and gory twist.
Before we head into this, I must warn you that this article will divulge into heavy spoilers. So, the entire trilogy follows a lot of different characters from Deena (Played by Kiana Madeira) to Ziggy (Played by Sadie Sink) to finally, Sarah Fier (Played by Kiana Madeira / Elizabeth Scopel). It bounces between these characters while it traces back to the deep dark secret of Sarah Fier, and how the curse of Shadyside actually began. So let’s go through the events which take place in the three movies and dissect the lore behind the terrifying trilogy of Fear Street.
Fear Street: Part One – 1994: The Killer in the Halloween Mask
The first movie of this trilogy begins with Heather (Played by Maya Hawke) working in a bookstore late at night. Ryan Torres (Played by David W. Thompson) is a seemingly normal guy with his weird fetishes, but in a snap he somehow dons a Halloween costume and goes after Heather with a giant Butcher’s knife.
In a long chase filled with blood and fear, Ryan grabs a hold of Heather and brutally stabs her on multiple parts of her body, rendering her dead, and all of this plays off as a reference to the famous slasher thriller, Scream. What’s really intriguing about this scene is how subtly the movie indicated that Ryan had been possessed, which becomes more or less obvious when he has a fly on his neck. Flies are known to accompany every person who has been possessed by a witch and hence we see the insect multiple times in the movie, always accompanying a killer.
Times change and we see Deena fresh from a breakup, with wounds that are still fresh. Her confidence has taken a massive toll on her and she has become increasingly lonely after her breakup with Samantha (Played by Olivia Scott Welch). This is important because, as the film progresses, the curse usually targets those who are previously innocent, more or less pure-hearted and have a void in their hearts.
Sunnyvale vs Shadyside
Kate (Played by Julia Rehwald) and Simon (Played by Fred Hechinger) are two Shadysiders who accompany Deena and her brother Josh (Played by Benjamin Flores Jr.) to Sunnyvale, the infamous rival of Shadyside which is free of all the bad stuff that happens in the other part of the town.
As soon as they enter Sunnyvale, the situation changes and things become more and more posh. There’s a crystal clear contrast between Shadyside and Sunnyvale that is worth noticing. It just goes on to prove how the curse has only affected this part of the town and hence when the Shadysiders go to Sunnyvale, they are greeted with nothing but insults and taunts. Deena meets her past lover Samantha and they both have a brief moment after which they are separated again and before you know it, Samantha’s current boyfriend is chasing the bus of Shadysiders in a car.
Deena throws a bucket full of water on their car, almost killing the passengers. Nosebleed is yet another indication that the witch and her curse are close and Deena gets one just as she is about to throw water on them. Samantha gets her composure back after she has been injured and just as she is about to crawl her way to the car, her hands slips inside the soil and she accidentally touches the bones of none other than the witch herself, Sarah Fier. In a brief flashback, she discovers all the events and killings that have taken place in Shadyside throughout the years and thus, the curse latches on to her.
In the final act of the movie, the entire group of friends try to lure the killers and get the upper hand on them. But obviously stuff doesn’t go as planned and when the group tries to eliminate all of the ruthless killers by burning them, they somehow come back from the dead and it becomes clear that you can’t kill a person who is already dead.
So this plan goes to sham and they all turn to Samantha in the hopes that she will just kill herself and end the curse altogether. And when she steps out of that door with the Axe Killer chasing her, Josh suddenly discovers that not all of the people who have been latched upon are straight up killed, one of those girls, C. Berman, faced the killers and is still alive and well, for most part. But the catch is, she died before she came back alive.
So the climax involves them trying to overdose her to death while all the others distract the killers. Kate and Simon get slitted and smashed to death, but Deena manages to drown Samantha just in time. So that’s the end right? Well, that really doesn’t end anything and Samantha gets possessed either way and they go to the one person who actually survived the entire ordeal, C. Berman.
Fear Street: Part Two – 1978: The Berman Sisters
C. Berman is the one person who made it alive, and no one knows how. So we go back to the Camp Nightwing in 1978 where the Berman sisters are struggling with the omnipresent curse of Shadyside as much as Deena and Samantha. Cindy Berman and Ziggy Berman are two Shadysiders who lead completely different lives.
Cindy (Played by Emily Rudd) is the one who always puts her morals above her and likes to play by the rules whereas Ziggy gets herself in all sorts of troubles, with people even calling her Sarah Fier. Cindy and her boyfriend Tommy (Played by McCabe Slye) visit Nurse Lane, who happens to be the mother of the infamous killer, Ruby Lane, and Nurse Lane isn’t in the best state of mind.
She says that she saw Tommy’s name and he is going to die that night, and with that she pounces upon him with a knife. She is unable to kill him but she still manages to bash her head, and just after that ordeal, Tommy starts to hear a strange noise calling him, just like Ryan Torres in Fear Street: Part One – 1994.
The books that they discover in Nurse Lane’s cabin are concerning however with mystical symbols, maps and lore written on it, about the infamous witch, Sarah Fier. So when Alice (Played by Ryan Simpkins) and Arnie (Played by Sam Brooks), a raunchy, addict couple, discover this questionable book and the map hidden in it, they decide to go on a hunt to the Witch’s lair.
Cindy & Tommy along with Alice & Arnie venture down a hole in the ground which leads to nothing but literal and figurative darkness. All this time, Tommy’s condition is getting worse and the noises are getting more and more prominent and loud. The voice grows stronger as they go deeper into the lair and they discover the engraving on the ground which was used to summon the devil and the spirit of Sarah Fier.
While all this is going on, Ziggy is getting closer to the young version of Nick Goode (Played by Ted Sutherland) over at Camp Nightwing. They bond on Stephen King among many other authors and their relationship truly reaches its peak when they seriously begin thinking of opening a library.
Alice & Arnie in the lair are becoming careless with their actions and Tommy reaches a stage from where there is no coming back. So when Arnie reaches out to him to check whether he is alright, Tommy, with flies buzzing around him, reaches for the Axe and bashes Arnie’s skull with it. All he needs is a cloth bag and he is the ruthless axe killer who was chasing Deena & Samantha in Fear Street: Part One – 1994.
Cindy and Alice, absolutely terrified and petrified, make it their topmost priority to escape the ruthless maniacal killer thag Tommy has become. Tommy chases them with his fast pace and inhumane grin but they are saved by a blockade in the Lair. And hence, a mindless killer is let loose in the Camp Nightwing.
Tommy, The Axe Killer
A lot of the scenes where Tommy is hitting doors with an axe are purely reminiscent of the infamous scene with Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Tommy kills each and every person in his way, especially innocent Shadysiders. The most haunting of all has to be when he killed the Jailer Shadysider Kid who was already getting bullied by his Prisoner Sunnyvalers.
Cindy and Alice make a run for it and soon they realize that the diagram of the engraving on the Book is actually a map of the different paths in the lair, and that sets them off on a quest to get out. Meanwhile Nick Goode and Ziggy discover the dead kid and sound the alarm.
Nick heads off to get all the kids inside while Ziggy heads to the toilet where she trapped Sheila (Played by Chiara Aurelia). From the toilet she hears voices and when she looks down, she discovers Cindy and Alice trapped inside. Just as they are about to get both of them up, Tommy comes in and Ziggy makes a run for it.
Alice and Cindy figure out another way to get out of the lair but Alice is too badly hurt to tag along so she stays there and rests for a while, and while she is at it, she also discovers the hand of Sarah Fier in the red soil of the lair. Tommy is in the mess hall where Ziggy is hiding and even though she turns the music all the way up, Tommy still hears her footsteps as she is about to stab him, because the music had stopped.
She stabs him nonetheless which leads to Tommy choking the life out of her, but thankfully Cindy stabs him and kills him off. But as we all know, one can’t kill a dead person. Alice follows from behind, with the hand of Sarah Fier, which is the key to stopping this once and for all. But Tommy comes from behind and axes Alice, killing her off in mere seconds. Cindy even tries to decapitate Tommy after this but to no use.
Going back a bit, Ziggy starts to nosebleed when she sees the hand and accidentally, some of that blood falls on the bones which triggers the curse and brings back all the killers from the dead, just like Samantha did. The body is beneath the tree where Sarah Fier was hanged and reuniting the hand with the body is the only thing that is going to stop the curse.
So they run towards the tree to dig for the body but all they find is a Stone which says that The Witch Forever Lives. This was obviously clear to us as during Fear Street: Part One – 1994, we saw that the body was somewhere between Sunnyvale and Shadyside which was discovered by Samantha.
The killers are chasing Ziggy as she is the one who triggered the curse, so Cindy tries to fight Tommy but he ruthlessly stabs her multiple times and Harry Rooker stabs Ziggy. Both the sisters lie dead beneath the tree as Nick Goode comes in and revives Ziggy by giving her CPR. This is when we come to know that the C. Berman we have seen in 1994 is actually Ziggy and not Cindy, and Nick tells the cops that the real name of Ziggy is Christine Berman aka. C. Berman.
The most shocking thing during the climax is how Nick Goode chooses to hide the fact that Tommy got enchanted by the witch and just terms it as a maniacal episode he had. Now Deena finally knows how to stop the curse and she has the location of both the hand (Which fell into a puddle of water by the tree) and the body, and all she has to do is reunite them.
Fear Street: Part Three – 1666: The Origin of the Witch
The origin of Sarah Fier and how it all started is probably one of the darkest stories in the Fear Street saga. So Fear Street: Part Two – 1978 ended with Deena reuniting the hand with the body which transports her to the year 1666 where she relives the story of Saraf Fier from her own perspective.
The actors portraying the characters in 1994 and 1978 portray those characters in 1666 and at the center is a skilled village girl called Sarah. The town of Union is happy and peaceful, with people bonding and spending quality time with each other. Sarah and Hannah are best friends and they have an uncanny attraction towards each other.
On an evening, Sarah and her friends go to The Widow’s house where they discover the book of enchantments and spells. Then in the coming night they visit the bonfire in the full moon and Sarah and Hannah get more close than they ever thought they would, and they both confront feelings that they have never felt before. They know it’s wrong, even a ‘sin’, but they are too roped in their passion to give a damn.
But they hear a shriek in the woods, indicating that someone was watching. And ever since that ordeal, things start to go horribly wrong in the Union. Pets, Pigs and even the children die in the worst ways. The Pastor is the first one to get possessed by The Witch and he ends up killing the children of the town.
So now the whole town is looking for a valid reason as to who brought the devil in their midst. This is when Mad Thomas says that he saw Sarah and Hannah do things that were apparently unnatural and that caused the devil to frown upon the town.
Soon after this, the entire town goes out in the search for Sarah and Hannah. Sarah, who runs through the bushes and the fields in the shade of darkness, reaches Solomon Goode’s house. Goode is the one person she can trust, and the one person who is advocating the town against ganging up on Sarah and Hannah.
Sarah is in his house when the town folk rally towards her so she sneaks in one of the rooms of his house, wherein she discovers a hidden door in the ground. Much like the lair we saw in Fear Street: Part Two – 1978. She goes inside in the fear that the folk will catch her and to her horrendous surprise, she discovers the engraving of the devil. Solomon Goode comes down and his secret is no longer secure.
Sarah looks at him with shock and disgust as he explains why he brought the devil into the town. His selfish motives and his thirst for achievements made him invite the devil, to which he sacrifices a soul for years of good omens. He writes the name of the person he wants to sacrifice and his life keeps getting better.
Sarah runs in despair, feeling betrayed by the only man she could trust and Solomon chases her through the lair with a knife in his hand. They fight and wrestle and after a series of intense tussles, Solomon’s knife pierces Sarah’s hand and her wrist gets separated from her arm and it fell into the place from where Alice found it in 1978.
Goode is Evil
He manages to grab a hold of her and rallies her out of the house, saying that he has found the Witch who brought the devil in their vicinity. The town folk are fuming and they collectively decide to hang Sarah and Hannah for their crimes. Sarah takes the leap and says that all the wrongdoings were her own and Hannah had no part to play in any of those, and so she is mercilessly killed in front of an audience for crimes she never committed.
Her friends and Hannah bury her body in a discreet place, and that marks the end of the origins of the lore and the supposed ‘witch’, Sarah Fier. The film then goes back to 1994 and we see Deena who has just discovered that the whole story is fake and the real culprits behind this entire curse are the Goodes.
So they make a plan which involves luring the Killers into the mall by using Deena’s blood and caging them inside the shop so that when Nick comes, they can drop the bucket of blood on him and let the killers loose on him. Nick however, manages to escape into the lair and Deena chases him while Josh and the group fend off the killers.
Even Samantha gets loose and chases them in the lair. After a series of events, Nick gets hold of Deena and is about to slit her, when Deena, in retaliation, puts Nick’s hand on the beating heart of the devil, which makes him confront the same visions which were seen by Deena and Samantha. And while Nick is distracted, Deena stabs him in the eye with the Knife, finally killing him off and ending the curse forever.
The Killers vanish and the engravings on the ground disappear too. All the names on the wall go away and Deena and Samantha are finally free. All ends happily until someone grabs the enchantment book again which was left in the lair, thus concluding this exhilarating trilogy.
The Movie Culture Synopsis
This was the entire explanation of the Fear Street Trilogy. There are still a lot of Easter eggs and references which only become more prominent in the second watch. But all in all, this trilogy does well in reinvigorating the Slasher genre with an ever-engaging storyline and deep, dark lore.
