Stabby Road
FEAR STREET I R.L. Stine’s pulp horror series gets a multi-movie Netflix adaptation…
What do Richard Donner, Robert Zemeckis and the Wachowskis have in common? They’ve all shot multiple movies back-to-back. But writer-director Leigh Janiak has them beat. Over 106 days in 2019, Janiak shot a trilogy of Fear Street films, adapting R.L. Stine’s beloved young-adult books, which will be released on Netflix this summer.
“One of the exciting things about being a filmmaker right now is the fact that everything is changing,” Janiak tells Teasers. “It felt like a cool way to start experimenting: how can we tell new types of stories in a new way? But I did not know how insane it would be to shoot three movies [at once]!”
Since 1989’s The New Girl, Goosebumps creator R.L. Stine has written more than 150 skin-prickling tales under the Fear Street label. Wisely, Janiak and co-writer Phil Graziadei opted against a faithful translation to the screen, instead taking two key elements from the books: the “spirit of fun” and the setting, the town of Shadyside. “We definitely were creating a new story, in a new world,” Janiak nods. Setting each film in a disparate era – 1994, 1978 and 1666, respectively – also allowed for a trilogy of films that, though narratively connected, felt completely distinct.
“They’re extremely tonally different,” says Janiak. “We shot them in a different way. The acting approach is different. And the stories themselves nod and pay homage to the era that they came from.” For Fear Street 1994, Janiak points to I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream (“One of the best movies of all time, period – genre aside”), the summer camp-set Fear Street 1978 draws from Friday The 13th and Halloween, while 1666 has a more... left-field inspiration.
“This is going to sound ridiculous and, I’m sure, a little pretentious, but the biggest inspiration for 1666 was Terrence Malick’s The New World!” Janiak says with a laugh. “The thing that drew me to that movie was a real capturing of the grotesqueness of colonialism, and seeing how this beautiful space is spoiled. And the grounded camera work, even though you’re in a period film.”
Starting with Fear Street 1994, the films will debut in reverse chronological order as the multigenerational saga plays out over centuries, with cast members (including Stranger Things star Sadie Sink and Community’s Gillian Jacobs) set to feature in multiple instalments. “It’s one of the cool things about the project. We use a lot of the cast from movies one and two in the third movie.”
And with ample source material to draw from, don’t be surprised if this isn’t the last we see of Shadyside. “We have introduced the universe of Fear Street,” Janiak nods. “This story is complete, but there’s a bigger world that’s been introduced, which you’ll see. There’s certainly room for more Fear Street.” JF
ETA | JULY TBC / FEAR STREET IS SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON NETFLIX THIS SUMMER.