"Fear Street: 1994" a fun, stylish, bloody R-rated valentine to '90s horror
Fear Street: 1994 (2021) It’s exciting when a film comes along and it feels singularly designed for you. Any ‘90s kid that frequented Waldenbooks will remember “Fear Street,” the YA horror series by R.L. Stine — it was pre-“Goosebumps” for the big kids. While those Jack Black-headlining “Goosebumps” movies were gateway-horror diversions for middle-schoolers, “Fear Street: 1994” is, as it should be, a stylish, bloody R-rated valentine to ‘90s horror. Leigh Janiak (who made her debut in horror with 2014’s creepy, haunting “Honeymoon” ) directs this first chapter (and the next two) in a back-to-back-to-back, released-weekly trilogy, inspired by Stine’s stories and broken into three different time periods. While it may be a placeholder for a sprawling, fuller story with an entire witchy lore, this is an auspicious start that more than delivers on its own terms. “Fear Street: 1994”—and the entire “Fear Street” saga itself—feels like an event destined to play like gangbusters at slumber pa...