WELCOME TO 'FEAR STEET'
We say this with confidence—Leigh Janiak (“Honeymoon”) is the perfect person to have worked on the film adaptation of R.L. Stine’s “Fear Street” books. “I was a fan of the books. I grew up reading them,” said the writer and director, who was a teenager in the ’90s, at the height of the popularity of the teen horror fiction series. Olivia Scott Welch (“Panic”), who plays Samantha, told Super, “Leigh is great. She’s the only person that could have made these movies.” Kiana Madeira (“Trinkets”), who plays Deena, chimed in. “Seriously. She’s like a super woman. Even in postproduction, seeing her work three movies, that’s such a huge undertaking. She somehow showed up to set just chill and calm and was so specific about her vision and what she wanted from us as actors, a true captain in every sense.” When the producers asked Janiak to create the films, she was “super, super excited.” But, Janiak told us, “I was also really scared . . . there’s so many of these [books], they’re so beloved, I love them. How do we begin to do this?” One couldn’t blame Janiak for being daunted. The original “Fear Street” series alone includes over 50 books, then you have the “Fear Street Sagas,” the “Fear Street Novels,” the “New Fear Street,” the “Fear Street Super Chillers,” the “Return to Fear Street” and others, totaling to about 100 books.
So much material
“There was just so much material,” Janiak said. “It was challenging to think, do we choose one specific book? How does this work? For anyone that’s familiar with the books, the universe is so big, and it’s also not really connected. There’s this idea of Shadyside where crazy things happen but there wasn’t really a unifying mythology.” Janiak and her cowriters Phil Graziadei, Zak Olkewicz and Kate Trefry got to work. “What we ultimately ended up doing was trying to stay true to the spirit of the books, the fun of the books, the subversive kind of edginess of the books, and then also kind of try to do something a little bit new with the slasher genre. I feel good about it as a fan, I hope other people do, too.” Fans of Fear Street will enjoy “The Fear Street Trilogy.” Yes, Janiak created three films—to be released one week apart. It starts in 1994, when a group of teens uncover connections between horrible things that keep happening in their town Shadyside. “The Fear Street Trilogy: Fear Street Part 1: 1994” started streaming on Netflix on July 2. “The Fear Street Trilogy: Fear Street Part 2: 1978” will follow on July 9 while “The Fear Street Trilogy: Fear Street Part 3: 1666” will be released on July 16. It’s an entirely new viewing experience for horror fans. “It’s groundbreaking,” Madeira said. While producer Peter Chernin had always wanted to release “Fear Street” as a trilogy, the original plan was to come out with it in theaters in the same year. “But obviously, as we all know, the whole world changed over the past year while we were in postproduction. That’s when we ended up shifting our home to Netflix,” said Janiak. Ryan Simpkins (“Revolutionary Road”), who plays Alice, thinks Netflix is the perfect home for the trilogy. “I mean, I love going to the theater but Netflix just makes more sense for this specific format.”
Rewatch factor
Emily Rudd (“The Romanoffs”), who plays Cindy, agrees. “I feel like we’re a very binge-focused culture as of right now. This kind of satiates that while also building the anticipation as the week goes on and you get the next one and the next one.” And with the movies on Netflix, you can rewatch them one after the other—something Madeira strongly recommends (as do we). “In three weeks’ time, you could actually go and watch them back-to-back-toback back. Once you get the whole picture and how the mystery reveals itself, there’s so many little Easter eggs that you can pick up on. It has a huge rewatch factor.” “The Fear Street Trilogy: Fear Street Part 1: 1994” transports audiences to the ’90s (duh)—in the same wonderfully nostalgic way “Stranger Things” brought Netflix fans back to the ’80s, an interesting thing to note, especially after discovering that Janiak’s husband is Ross Duffer, one of the cocreators of “Stranger Things.” Another thing the trilogy has in common with the series? Two actors: Maya Hawke and Sadie Sink. Janiak said of the comparison: “I’m like, ‘Sure, let’s take that space while they’re sitting there shooting for a year. They’ve been shooting since September so it’s been a very long season . . . I think that fans of “Stranger Things,” fans of nostalgic properties and people who love horror movies I hope will connect with these and find that they’re different, too.”
Bloodier
Her films, which are R-rated, are darker than “Stranger Things,” Janiak said. “They’re more adult and they’re bloodier, for sure.” They’re “Stranger Things” meets “Scream” meets ’70s slasher films. (And no, there’s no “Goosebumps” in this equation.) “The Fear Street Trilogy” is Janiak’s love letter to memorable films set in the ’90s, ’70s and the 17th century. “It was exciting as a movie fan and as a filmmaker to get to pay homage and kind of respect to the things that they did and then also push those boundaries and make it feel more modern.” Ashley Zukerman (“Succession”), who plays Nick Goode, said, “It was really satisfying to just go through periods of American history and try to mark the changes . . . I think something big in the films is about how the past affects us now.” Madeira said, “Even though the movie spanned over 300 years, history really has a way of repeating itself. The things that these characters were facing in the 1600s were the same things that they were facing, to an extent, in 1994 and 1978. That was really interesting to see.” With the trilogy, you have three films that feel distinct from one another while also having a story weaving them together. Gillian Jacobs (“Community), who plays C. Berman, said, “There’s a lot of interconnected stories . . . it’s all building toward the third movie, so you have to keep watching.” And you have to keep watching because the scariest scene is at the end of the third film—at least for Benjamin Flores Jr. (“Rim of the World”), who plays Josh. “No spoilers but a lot happens there.” The set design and costumes were crucial in building the worlds you’ll see in the films. Darrell Britt-Gibson (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), who plays Martin, said, “Kudos to our production designers, because you couldn’t help but be transported back to these times because they just did such an incredible job.”
Great team
Madeira said, “I feel like we were blessed with such a great team, literally everyone from the cast and crew. They cared so much and they were so detail-oriented in terms of the world that they created for us to act in and the space that we were provided really helped make our job so much easier.” Welch said everyone did their research, especially for “The Fear Street Trilogy: Fear Street Part 3: 1666.” “I was so excited and impressed that everyone, including the crew and our makeup artists, were reading books of nonfiction about that time period. It was so cool to see everybody be so immersed in that world and ready to shoot that movie.” The music was another important element. Janiak said she had playlists for the different time periods before the scripts were even written. Oscar-nominated composer Marco Beltrami worked on the music. He was also the composer for all the “Scream” movies and other horror titles including “Carrie,” “A Quiet Place” and “The Woman in Black.” A number of the cast members play dual roles. “The fact that I get to play two different characters over the course of three films was really enticing to me,” said Madeira. They shot the trilogy for 106 days. “Everyone was just ready to do the work and excited so the mood was amazing. Even when we were doing like the really crazy stuff and like killing people that we loved, everyone kind of just like came together and showed up so it was really great,” said Janiak. Welch said, “It was such like a safe place where you’d be like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna joke around and be goofy right now’ but then I’m gonna have to cry in five minutes and it’s not gonna feel awkward.” While scenes do get intense, really intense, the actors say they had a lot of fun on the set. Britt-Gibson said, “You’d have thought that we were shooting “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” [that’s how] much we were laughing on the set. The intensity that you see on screen was sort of lived there and stayed there because once Leigh said ‘cut,’ we just all really enjoyed each other’s company. It’s such a great cast, and it starts with our fearless leader Leigh, the captain of the ship, who created the environment for it to be such a warm space to be in, where everybody felt seen and everybody’s heard. We laughed more on that set than any I can remember, and I’ve been in some comedies. There’s a lot of good human beings in this film.”
Meeting R.L. Stine
One human being Britt-Gibson and Jacobs wanted to meet was R.L. Stine. Jacobs said, “I would just say thank you for bringing so much to my childhood and making me love reading.” Britt-Gibson said, “I would just apologize to him for not reading the ‘Fear Street’ books and if he didn’t hit me, I’d see if I could cultivate some type of friendship, like a book club, and read “Fear Street” excerpts to each other.” Janiak did get to meet the author while shooting the third film. “We were at our village set which is right outside of Atlanta. It was hot, I was so tired and so sweaty and I remember someone came up to me and was like, ‘Oh R.L. Stine is here today. Would you like to come meet him?’ And I was like, ‘Obviously yes, also, are you kidding me? Am I gonna go looking like this crazy person?’” She was weirdly starstruck, she said. “Honestly, I don’t even remember what I said to him but he was very kind and very sweet and and he’s been very supportive
in saying, ‘Oh, you know, my books are my books,’ and now, people take the books and they make them into this other thing.’” What Janiak and her cast and crew have created is so much more than just an adaptation of beloved books— it’s something even people who’ve never picked up any copy of “Fear Street” could enjoy. It also blurs the lines between genres. They’re more than just horror films, the cast members like to say. Zukerman said, “I think they speak to the comfort that many have with oppressing others for their own benefit. I think that is something that hopefully the world is challenging.” Madeira said, “These are horror films but they’re also funny, and they’re also really fun and they’re dramatic and they’re centered around a love story, a queer love story, and they’re also centered around characters of color and minorities, and I think that that’s so rare to see in this genre . . . They’re more than just horror films, they are so layered and so complex. The trilogy is just groundbreaking in so many ways and it’s really exciting as actors to be a part of a project like that.” Janiak said, “My hope is that audiences find this fun. Depending on where you are in the world and what’s happening with the pandemic, if you’re alone in your house or if you can go and hang out with your friends make it an event type thing, I just want people to have fun, and say, ‘Okay, for this hour and a half, I’m gonna sit here and I’m gonna watch some teenagers die, and it’s gonna be awesome.’”