Pack your bags because we’re about to spend July in Shadyside, Ohio. Netflix has just released the first teaser for Fear Street, its series of horror movies based on R.L. Stine's book series of the same name, and I am ready to be terrorized — not once, not twice, but three times. The movie trilogy, directed by Leigh Janiack, will be released in weekly installments, beginning on July 2. Spanning three hundred years, each movie (set in 1994, 1978 and 1666, respectively) will unpack a layer of the haunted history of the fictional town, and center around groups of teenagers being terrorized by a mysterious presence.
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Think of it as Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story, in movie form. Much like the long-running show (and all its spin offs), Fear Street also boasts a star-studded cast: Sadie Sink and Maya Hawke from Stranger Things, Love’s Gillian Jacobs, Trinkets’ Kiana Madeira, and Chiara Aurelia from Freeform’s Cruel Summer, which lends its ‘90s suburban vibes to the first half of the teaser. The 1666 installment definitely brings back AHS: Coven memories.
For those who didn’t grow up shoving Goosebumps paperbacks into your bedside drawer at night just in case the creature described within somehow came out to attack you, a brief refresher: Also written by R.L. Stine, the Fear Street universe is composed of 52 books, all set in Shadyside. In order to translate that expansive world to the screen, Netflix created a writer’s room — like you would on a TV series — and came up with the idea of a weekly drop to keep audiences engaged. “Leigh’s created these worlds and these characters that you really fall in love with,” Lisa Nishimura, Netflix’s vice president of independent film and documentary features told The New York Times. “So the ability to, in a week, come with the next film that continues the story, gives audiences a wonderful kind of interlocking of narratives that they will want to stay inside of and be deeply engaged with.”
Still, each movie is designed to stand on its own, starting with Part 1: 1994, which introduces us to a villain that appears to pay homage to Scream’s Ghostface, who terrorizes the teens of Woodsboro wearing a skeleton mask in the 1996 slasher film.
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“We filmed all three Fear Street movies over one crazy, bloody summer. It's a dream that audiences now get to experience the story in the same way -— back to back to back, with only a week of waiting in between,” Janiak said in a statement. “I can't wait to welcome everyone into the world of Fear Street in 1994, 1978 and 1666!"
As for just how scary it will be, be warned. The books may have been PG, but the movies are rated R. Watch the full teaser below, if you dare: