We’re back with a review of the third installment in the Fear Street trilogy from Netflix, Fear Street Part 3: 1666. Things kicked off with Part 1: 1994 and followed up with Part 2: 1978.
The Story to Date
The series is a send up of a variety of horror movie genres, focusing on the serial killer, summer camp slasher, supernatural, and witchcraft subgenres in particular. Each episode frames a story in a different era of Shadyside, with 1994 framing the entire story.
In Fear Street Part 1: 1994, we were introduced to the towns of Shadyside and Sunnyvale, long-standing rivals going back to the 1600s. We also met a group of high-schoolers from Shadyside, fitting some of the stereotypical characters from a 1990s slasher movie.
Over the course of the first film, we learn that Shadyside seems cursed with bad luck, and a constant string of serial killers over the decades. Sunnyside is the opposite, with wealth and prosperity seeming to flow to all the residents. Shadysiders believe their town is cursed, because of a notorious witch who was hanged in the town in 1666, but who cursed the town with her dying breath.
In Part 1: 1994, our teens come into contact with the remains of this witch (Sara Fier) in the woods, which seems to awaken various dead serial killers who begin hunting down the group. One member of the crew (Sam) sees visions of the witch and the reanimated killers seem bent on hunting her down and killing her. In the end, the team thinks they have defeated the killers and the curse, only to have Sam now possessed by the witch.
In Part 2: our teens seek out the only survivor of a massacre from 1978 at Summer Camp Nightwing. This leads to a movie within a movie, where that survivor tells her story of how the witch’s curse came down on the summer camp one night, with a counselor going crazy and killing numerous campers and counselors.
Two sisters discover an ancient cave where demonic rituals are being conducted and is clearly the home of the witch - Sara Fier.
In the end, she survives after being resuscitated, but knows that she hasn’t really escaped the curse. She explains that her friend found the witch’s hand, which was said to have been cut off in 1666. They believe a way to end the curse is to return the hand to her body, which they were unable to find. But, our 1994 teens know exactly where the body is! As main character Deena sets the witch’s hand on her other remains, she gets a vision of how this all came to be in 1666.
The Flashback
This leads us right into Part 3, which tells us the story of Sara Fier in 1666 and how she came to be hung as a witch. To add a bit of continuity, the various characters in 1666 are played by different actors from the first two movies, with the 1994 crew being prominently featured, including Deena in the place of Sara Fier.
We see how Sara and her fellow teens of 1666 aren’t so different from teens of 1994, partying in the woods at night. This leads them to a witch’s hut in the forest, where Sara finds a book of black magic. She reads some of the book and begins to believe she is cursed, as the town begins to experience rotting food, dying animals, and any number of happenings that people of that era might attribute to witchcraft. Add to that a forbidden relationship between Sara and the preacher’s daughter and it's easy to see how both girls were branded as witches. There definitely is black magic in the works as the preacher goes mad and kills a dozen children from the village. This is quickly blamed on the girls.
Sara initially escapes, running to the witch’s hut, where she finds the witch murdered and her book missing. She then seeks shelter from the one person in town who seems to believe she isn’t a witch - Solomon Goode, a widower who lives in the forest and who Sara is seemingly promised to. Hiding from the mob, she discovers a secret passage leading to the same secret underground caves that we saw in Part 2.
The Twist
We come to realize that Solomon is the one who killed the witch in the forest to steal her book of magic and make a pact with the devil. The agreement is a trade, where Solomon provides names for the devil to possess and use to kill other innocents. In return, Solomon will receive a long, healthy, and prosperous life, as will his ancestors.
Sara fights off Solomon, who cuts off her hand in the caverns, but is eventually caught and handed over to the townspeople to be killed as a witch. Sara eventually confesses to being the witch behind it all, in order to save the preacher’s daughter. With her dying breath, Sara vows revenge on Solomon, saying the truth will come out.
Cut back to 1994 and Deena realizes that seemingly kind Sheriff Goode is Solomon’s descendent and is in fact carrying on his evil plans to the present day. She believes that this constant use of the book to curse more Shadysiders is why the town has such terrible fortune and why Sunnyvale receives everything good. This must stop!
The Trap
Our 1994 teens, along with the survivor of 1978 and a janitor for the Shadyside mall who we met in Fear Street Part 1, team up to take down Sheriff Goode and hopefully free Sam from being possessed. But first they need to survive a fresh wave of reanimated killers. They lure the killers and Goode to the Shadyside Mall, where the first movie opened, with the latest serial killer on the rampage.
Taking a cue from Stephen King’s Carrie, they douse the sheriff in a bucket of water, mixed with Deena’s blood, which attracts the reanimated killers. They descend on Sherrif Goode, but he escapes after being stabbed. Descending into the mall basement, which connects to the underground caves. Deenia follows closely behind and the two struggle with a knife before the spirit of Sara Fier takes possession of Deena before she passes out. Sara is able to get the knife away from Goode and stab him in the eye. This ends the curse.
We also begin to see the aftermath, where Sunnyvale’s good luck takes an immediate turn and Sheriff Goode is revealed by the media to be a serial killer. Our teen heroes survive and get a happily ever after ending, more or less.
Watch it or Not?
As with Fear Street Parts 1 and 2, this is a fun sendup of the horror genre, mixed with a bit of Stranger Things. If you enjoy a good horror flick that is both self-aware, but also embraces the genres, you will like this one. However, you really need to watch them in sequence to understand the full story. So, don’t start with Part 2 or Part 3 and expect to really understand the whole story. A three movie binge weekend awaits!
