‘Fear Street’ trilogy: what’s next for Horror’s response to Marvel

[Editor’s note: The following post contains spoilers for the “Fear Street” trilogy.]

Like any movie series that hopes to continue, the latest film in Leigh Janiak’s “Fear Street” trilogy has a lot more thrills and thrills to come. As “Fear Street Part 3: 1666” ends in style, as Deena (Kiana Madeira), Sam (Olivia Scott Welch), Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.), Martin (Darrell Britt-Gibson) and Constance (Gillian Jacobs) defeating an ancient evil, erasing Sarah Fier’s name (and her wizarding past), and seeming to make some pretty big progress in saving their long and hapless hometown of Shadyside, a post-credits scene threatens that peace.

As the heroes celebrate and the credits roll, we return to the local mall, site of so many horrors from the film and the group’s final showdown, as a pair of invisible hands reach out to grab the spell book left behind by Sheriff Goode (Ashley Zukerman), one of the last descendants of the family that has truly haunted Shadyside and neighboring Sunnyvale for so long. Goode may be gone, but it looks like the evil his family spoke of via the book long ago has already ensnared a new devotee. One thing’s for sure: This story isn’t over yet, and no one is more thrilled about it than filmmaker Leigh Janiak, who directed all three films.

“One of the exciting things about ‘Fear Street’ is the fact that the universe is big and allows a lot of space,” Janiak said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “One of the things I talked about before I got hired was that we have the potential here to create a horror Marvel. [Cinematic Universe], where you can have slasher killers from many different eras. You have the canon of our main mythology that is built around the fact that the devil lives in Shadyside, so there’s room for everything else as well.

Of course, that depends on what audiences think of the current trilogy, which has been unfolding over the past three weeks on Netflix, with a new movie coming out every Friday morning. If people like it, Janiak said, the franchise could expand into all kinds of new ventures.

“I think my hope is that the public likes it enough that we can start building [more], we can think about what another trilogy would be, what the autonomous ones would be, what television would be like, ”she said. “I don’t even think about it exactly like I do on television or in the cinema. That’s the benefit of Netflix and what “Fear Street” is, which is kind of a hybrid novelty. I am excited about the possibility of what else can happen.

As for Janiak, she knows what story she really wants to see next: the kind of slasher even a devoted gorehound like she’s never seen before. “I really started to get excited about a 50s slasher movie that I haven’t really seen and what it means,” Janiak said. “It’s just cool to think about the different eras and what’s possible as a horror fan.”

“Fear Street Part 1: 1994”, “Fear Street Part 2: 1978” and “Fear Street Part 3: 1666” are all streaming on Netflix now.

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