Nightmare on Fear Street
A group of teenage friends stumbles on an ancient evil curse that has plagued their town for centuries in the Fear Street trilogy.
THERE is something about teenagers and children that makes them especially compelling to watch in horror movies, and a new trio of Netflix slasher flicks takes full advantage of that.
The Fear Street trilogy are based on a popular young-adult book series by R.L. Stine – dubbed the Stephen King of children’s literature.
The first, Fear Street Part 1: 1994, introduces a group of teen friends who stumbles on an ancient evil force behind the murders that have blighted their town, Shadyside, for three centuries.
In Fear Street Part 2: 1978, the story jumps to teenagers at a summer camp in the 1970s, and in Fear Street Part 3: 1666, the origins of the curse on the town are finally revealed.
Speaking in an interview from Los Angeles, Olivia Scott Welch, Kiana Madeira and Emily Rudd – who play three of the protagonists – say the films will reinvent the slasher genre and use the highs and lows of adolescence as a metaphor for life and death.
Welch, 23, says: “It really pays homage to classic horror cinema, but takes all the tropes and completely flips them on their head – and infuses things with a lot of love and empathy.”
The actress, who appeared in the sitcom Modern Family (2009 to last year), adds: “And it recognises the character tropes in slasher films, but breaks them down to understand how those types of people really tick.”
The main characters are also the kinds of people you would normally expect to be killed off early.
Madeira, 28, says: “Our central characters traditionally wouldn’t even make it through the first couple of minutes of horror movies in the past.”
And Shadyside is a town full of these outsiders and misfits – “people who have been placed in boxes and told they’re always going to get the short end of the stick and never make it out”.
“But those are the heroes of this trilogy and that’s so rare,” says the performer, who has appeared in the superhero series The Flash (2014 to present).
Because of this, the story holds a deeper metaphor for systemic and generational oppression.
Madeira says: “Here’s a town of people who have been told they need to remain over here and they’re never going to excel or make it out of this doom. And through generations, that has kind of been instilled in them.
“That’s so relatable to the society we live in today.
“It also really highlights how history has a way of repeating itself, but this features protagonists who take destiny into their own hands and fight through that oppression.”
And Welch thinks there is a reason horror fans love watching younger characters battle their way out of scary situations.
“When you’re a teenager, you’re experiencing all of these emotions and feelings for the first time. Everything is so heightened, everything is like life and death. So in that way, teenage characters are really relatable to the stakes of a horror film.”
But while kids and teens are often dismissed in other genres, horror seems more likely to put them front and centre, she observes.
“Teenage characters in so many genres are sort of thrown under the bus, like with the ‘dumb little sister’ trope. Or they are portrayed like they’re just angsty.
“But their feelings are really validated in these and a lot of other horror films.” – The Straits Times/asia News Network