Fear Street Part Three: 1666 (2021)

Directed by Leigh Janiak. Starring Kiana Madeira, Ashley Zukerman, Olivia Scott Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Randy Havens, Matthew Zuk, Julia Rehwald, Gillian Jacobs, Fred Hechinger, Michael Chandler, Jordana Spiro. [R]

Third and final chapter in the Fear Street saga jumps back more than three hundred years for the origin of the Sarah Fier curse/legend, and we get to see how the history (future) of Shadyside unraveled from betrayal, witchcraft, and pacts with the devil. Another glossy but unimmersive stab at self-aware and referential horror that only “gels” in ways that are distracting or off-putting. Revisionist, slow-burn folk horror in the vein of Robert Eggers’ The Witch (among others) have “changed the game” too much for discerning audiences to acceptthese Puritanical trappings as anything other than outdated—the characters seem far too contemporary, and speak in accents too unconvincing to look past, so it feels like we’re watching theater kids playing around during downtime of dress rehearsals for their school’s production of The Crucible. By the time the action jumps back to modern day—er, mid-90s day—for the last half-hour or so, the failures of each of these films to get me emotionally invested in the fates of these superficial youths have taken too much of a toll, and I watched the booby-trap-and-purification-laden final act, which wraps up all too tidily, in a state of déjà vu malaise. A mid-credits scene sets up the potential for additional Fear Street movies in a way that’s almost as lazy and unsatisfying as the average MCU/DCEU teaser.

39/100