Producedby Chernin Entertainment, a film adaptation of Fear Street began development at 20th Century Fox in 2015, with Janiak hired in 2017. Filming for the trilogy took place back-to-back from March to September 2019 in Georgia, with the intention of a theatrical release in June 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney, Chernin Entertainment ended their distribution deal with 20th Century Studios and sold rights to Netflix in August 2020.
Fear Street Part Three: 1666 premiered at the Los Angeles State Historic Park on July 14, 2021 and was released by Netflix on July 16, 2021. It received generally positive reviews from critics, who described the film as an effective conclusion to the trilogy.
After reuniting the severed hand of Sarah Fier with the rest of her corpse, Deena has a vision showing the events of 1666 from the perspective of Sarah Fier. She lives with her father George and brother Henry in Union, the original settlement before it was divided into Sunnyvale and Shadyside.
Sarah sneaks into the chapel where Hannah is confined and the two profess their love. Sarah decides to retrieve the widow's book and use it to make a deal with the devil and save Hannah, but she discovers that the book is gone and the widow murdered. She flees to Solomon's house and hides after he is ambushed by men hunting her. While hiding, she finds tunnels under his house, discovering a ritual as well as the widow's book. Solomon reveals he took the book to make a deal with the devil, offering Pastor Miller to be possessed in exchange for power and wealth. He offers to share it with her, but she rejects his offer and a fight ensues with Sarah's hand being cut off in the struggle. She escapes to the chapel only to be captured by Solomon and the townspeople. At her and Hannah's execution, Sarah convinces the town to spare Hannah's life by proclaiming she is the witch and swears vengeance to Solomon before she is hanged. Later, Lizzie, Issac, Hannah, and Abigail grieve Sarah and properly bury her body.
In 1994, Deena realizes that the Goode family is responsible for the Shadyside curse, as the firstborn of each generation repeats the ritual begun by their ancestor Solomon. Because of this, Sunnyvale has always prospered while Shadyside has become worse. Deena and Josh are found by Sheriff Nick Goode, but the two escape in Nick's car and arrive at Ziggy's house. The trio deduces they must kill Nick to end the Shadyside curse. After they recruit the help of Martin, the mall janitor, the group concocts a plan to lure Nick to the mall and set traps to have the Shadyside murderers kill him.
The group manages to trap the killers and Ziggy pours a bucket of Deena's blood over Nick, causing the killers to attack him. As Nick escapes into the tunnels, Deena and a possessed Sam follow him while the others fight off the killers. Sam attacks Deena, but she breaks Sam out of her possession temporarily before incapacitating her. Nick nearly kills Deena but she exposes him to the pile of beating organs in the tunnel, which gives him the visions of all of the killers' victims, distracting him long enough for Deena to kill him. With the sheriff's death the curse is lifted, releasing Sam and evaporating the killers.
Some time later, the Goode family are exposed for their actions while life improves for the residents of Shadyside. Josh meets his online friend in person; Ziggy reunites with Mrs. Lane; Simon, Heather and Kate are commemorated by the school, and Deena and Sam have a picnic date at Sarah Fier's grave, naming her the first Shadysider.
On October 9, 2015, it was announced a film adaptation based on Stine's Fear Street book series was being developed by 20th Century Studios (then known as 20th Century Fox before its acquisition by Disney) and Chernin Entertainment.[2] On February 13, 2017, Kyle Killen was hired to write the script for the film.[3] In July, the project was announced as a trilogy, with Janiak set to direct and rewrite the scripts with her partner Phil Graziadei.[4][5] The films would be set in different time periods and shot back-to-back, with the intention of releasing them one month apart.[4]
In March 2019, filming began on the first film in Atlanta and East Point, Georgia.[6][7] Production also took place at Hard Labor Creek State Park in Rutledge in August 2019.[8] Filming on the trilogy wrapped in September 2019.[9]
The first film of the trilogy was scheduled to be released theatrically in June 2020,[10] but was pulled from the schedule because of the COVID-19 pandemic.[11] In April 2020, Chernin Entertainment ended their distribution deal with 20th Century Studios and made a multi-year first-look deal with Netflix.[12] By August 2020, Netflix had acquired the distribution rights to the Fear Street Trilogy with a mid-2021 release date strategy for all three movies.[13][11]
Fear Street Part Three: 1666 premiered at the Los Angeles State Historic Park on July 14, 2021.[14] The first two films were released on July 2 and July 9, respectively, with the third film following on July 16, 2021.[1]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 89% based on 99 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's critics consensus states, "Fear Street Part Three: 1666 sends the slasher series back in time for a trilogy-concluding installment that caps things off on a screaming high note."[15] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100 based on 15 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[16]
Natalia Winkelman, in her review of the Fear Street trilogy for The New York Times, wrote, "Here, there is less to propel the action, and lacking in pop artifacts, lingo or fashion trends, Janiak struggles to recreate the fizzy and fun tone she achieved in the earlier movies," but added: "by Part Three, you feel safe following these survivors wherever they go."[17] Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent gave the film a score of 3 out of five stars, writing that "even though Part Three is the weakest of the trilogy, director Leigh Janiak still manages to end on a high," and described it as "a thrilling finale that Janiak doses once more in old-school gore and deliciously garish neon."[18] Donald Clarke, in his review of the Fear Street trilogy for The Irish Times, wrote that the film "owes more to The Crucible than it does to any American shocker", and stated: "Though the decision to have the puritan settlers speak in largely terrible Irish accents defies all reason, the closing section ties up some ends in a satisfactory whirl of implausibly well-scrubbed colonial paranoia."[19]
Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com gave the film a score of 3 stars out of 4, describing it as a "triumphant finale" and writing, "Executed with the confidence of a victory lap, the last hour of 1666 is a series highlight, especially as it captures the brand of out-and-out fun that has made Janiak a newly minted crowd-pleaser in horror."[20] Benjamin Lee of The Guardian gave the film a score of 4 stars out of 5, describing it as "The Crucible meets The Witch meets It meets It Follows meets the trilogy's ultimate overarching influence Scooby-Doo," and called it "a rousing finale to a winning new franchise." He concluded, "Janiak has found a way to add new life to old material, gifting us with the rare horror franchise that makes us want more rather than less, the prospect of an expanded universe seeming less like a curse and more of a blessing."[21]
Fear Street Part 3: 1666 sheds a lot of insight on the untruths seeded out by the Goode family over centuries, slandering Sarah Fier as a witch so they could take blood sacrifices using slashers. It paints Shadyside as a true victim with Sheriff Nick the mastermind of so many innocent murders in recent times. However, while he gets his comeuppance and the curse seems to be lifted, there are some mysteries left unanswered when the trilogy ends.
Deena's dad was said to be working in Part 1, but as she assembles a team in Part 3, including Christine and Martin, to go after Nick at the mall, he doesn't factor in. He just leaves a post-it for them at the end of the film to hint that they've reconciled. Deena's dad was painted as a neglectful drunk, so it would have been interesting to have him helping out his kids. More so, when Deena was sent back in time to Sarah's body, we saw Sarah's father letting Sarah be persecuted without so much as a word, so it did foreshadow that Deena's dad would play a role to help her and fix the wrongs of old.
When Sarah's caught by Solomon Goode, resulting in the bigoted town of Union getting ready to lynch her, she doesn't shout to high heavens that he's actually the witch. We have no idea why as she knew where his lair was, so even if the mob ignored her, her friends and dad could have gone to corroborate the twisted truth, thus freeing Sarah of her bad name.
Nick summons slashers to get sacrifices for Satan, and to silence those who know about his secret. We never learn, though, why they chase those who desecrated Sarah's grave and are marked. That shouldn't matter as they should be killing everyone. It's weirder at the end when Nick has Deena's blood on him and they attack him. While Deena's a desecrator of Sarah's bones, Nick's the overlord so he should be able to command them to stop.
Nick's lair is cordoned off when he's killed, clearly the scene of a massive investigation. But someone steals this demonic tome in the post-credits, which leaves fans wondering if it's one of Deena and Sam's friends. It may even be someone linked to Josh as he was online spreading news of the drama from Part 1, confirming supernatural occurrences were plaguing the town.
The firstborn of each generation, like Nick, takes up the mantle of the witch, but in flashbacks, while they operate alone, it's never confirmed if other family members know. Will's benefited a lot as Sunnyvale mayor so it's easy to see him helping Nick protect their family's secret. If Nick's dead, the firstborn from the next generation could have swiped the summoning tome. The Goodes deny that they know anything, but they could be lying to the media.
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