The history of the R-rated teen slasher movie is rife with scream queens. Kiana Madeira is not one of them.
Trailer Tuesdays: ‘The Forever Purge’ and July 4th blockbusters that brought the fireworks
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The 28-year-old actress didn’t think that her tough and resilient character Deena Johnson would be the type to scream bloody murder – even though bloody murder is what she’s usually encountering – in Netflix’s new “Fear Street” film trilogy.
“It just didn’t feel natural expressing myself in that way when scary things are happening,” Madeira says. “I just kept my head down and kept that intensity to want to fix the problem and chase the killer as opposed to feeling like a scared victim.”
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Ready to see a great movie? These are the best yet in 2021, ranked
She’s not the normal horror-movie persona nor is “Fear Street” (the first film is streaming now) your average nightmarish stroll down Elm Street or machete-filled visit to Camp Crystal Lake.
Based on R.L. Stine’s young-adult book series, “Fear Street” aims to reinvent the teen slasher 25 years after “Scream” by combining the sex, blood, gore, four-letter words and, yes, fun of a throwback era with a queer romance, lead actors of color and a centuries-spanning mythology.
“Fear Street Part I: 1994” introduces Deena and her friends in the town of Shadyside, deemed “Killer Capital USA” for its history of serial psychopaths. Shadysiders are mocked and marginalized by the residents of rival Sunnyside, where Deena’s ex Sam (Olivia Scott Welch) moved for a better life. Another Shadyside tragedy brings them back into each other’s orbit, and the heroes investigate connections between a 17th-century witch’s curse and the town’s ghastly body count.
“Part II: 1978” (streaming July 9) rewinds back a couple of decades and sets the action at Camp Nightwing, where another Shadysider goes on a rampage. And “Part III: 1666” (July 16) reveals the true history of the witch Sarah Fier and how she connects back to the 1994 storyline.
Fourth of July viewing: Movies to watch, from ‘Fear Street’ to ‘The Tomorrow War’
“At its core, ‘Fear Street’ is weirdly a love story and it’s the love of these two girls and their motivation to figure it out, to save each other, to realize they’re better with each other,” says Leigh Janiak (“Honeymoon”), who co-wrote and directed all three films. “That drives them further into ultimately realizing not only can we be together, we can change things, we can save the town.”
The mythology of Shadyside is that they’re “a group of outsiders told that they are ‘other’ or they’re not good enough and that they’re bad,” adds Janiak, and she wanted to change the narrative about what kind of people are in slasher films. In another time, for example, Sam and Deena might not have lasted very long in a movie: The “bury your gays” trope in film and TV existed for years. “You could have queer people in your movies, but they had to die in like a really horrible way to prove a lesson to the public,” Welch says. “That’s just so messed up.”
When Janiak was Sam and Deena’s age, she was already a horror fan raised on “Child’s Play,” “Psycho” and Stine’s “Fear Street” books. “There is a certain naughtiness,” the author says about their appeal. Stine’s teenage audience was “reading something that’s maybe a little bit bad for them.”
Janiak saw the original “Scream” when she was 16, and “it was mind-blowing how this movie could be so meta and so cool and then so disturbing at the same time.” With “Fear Street,” she pays proper tribute: The opening scene of the first movie, with “Stranger Things” star Maya Hawke as a mall bookstore clerk chased by a killer in a skull mask, is an homage to the classic Drew Barrymore prologue.
As for the trilogy’s grander scope, Janiak looked at the Marvel movies to lay “the groundwork for a horror universe” but also the “Back to the Future” films as inspiration for having “characters in different time periods, playing different roles and watching them evolve.”
While “Fear Street” has ambitious cinematic aspects, it also doesn’t skimp on the blood and guts. Stine, for one, gets a kick out of that. “It’s the only R-rated thing I’ve ever had in my life. Even my life isn’t R-rated,” the author quips.
Ana de la Reguera plays a Mexican woman driven out of her home country by cartels and living in Texas when she’s hunted by killers in “The Forever Purge.” We’re ranking every horror movie that comes out in 2021, and here’s where the film stacks up against the rest of this year’s frightfests:
54. “Dreamcatcher”: Bodies and beats drop in the EDM-themed mystery thriller with Travis Burns as a DJ on the cusp of superstardom who headlines an underground music festival and Niki Koss is one of a group of friends who have to avoid a masked killer on the loose.
53. “Funhouse”: Valter Skarsgård plays a C-list celebrity ex-husband participating in a “Big Brother”-style reality show with a twisted cartoon panda and bloody death challenges in this film resembling an overlong, very mediocre “Black Mirror” episode.
52. “Fear of Rain”: The psychological thriller casts Madison Iseman as a troubled teenager diagnosed with schizophrenia who thinks she saw a missing girl but doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not.
51. “Shook”: A social-media beauty influencer (Daisye Tutor) begs off a livestream with friends to dogsit her sister’s pooch, and it proves to be a bad decision when she’s tormented all night by a mysterious caller who knows her every move and Internet post.
50. “Phobias”: An ex-SWAT team operative (Martina Garcia), scared of weapons after a raid gone wrong, is one of five subjects who has their fears weaponized by a mad scientist in the anthology thriller.
49. “Stay Out of the Attic”: A crew of ex-con movers (Ryan Francis, far left, and Bryce Fernelius) are hired to pack up the house of a mysterious elderly German (Michael Flynn) and discover the place’s monstrous secrets, including Nazi experiments and diabolical science.
48. “A Nightmare Wakes”: The moody gothic drama tackles the history of “Frankenstein” writer Mary Shelley (Alix Wilton Regan), her affair with poet Percy Shelley (Giullian Yao Gioiello), the creation of her masterpiece and the birth of a monster.
47. “The Seventh Day”: “Training Day” meets “The Exorcist” in this religious thriller starring Vadhir Derbez as a rookie holy man who teams with a renowned demon-buster to take on a case involving a young boy who’s murdered his entire family.
46. “Dementia Part II”: An ex-con handyman (Matt Mercer) has a heck of a day helping a strange older woman (Suzanne Voss), who gives him increasingly oddball tasks revealing disturbing secrets in an irreverent B-movie that’s not to be taken too seriously.
45. “Boys From County Hell”: A young Irishman (Jack Rowan) and his pals punk tourists by taking them to the grave of Abhartach, the legendary vampire that inspired Dracula, but then have to figure out the best way to take him down in the horror comedy.
44. “The Sinners”: In a religious town, the devout Aubrey (Brenna Llewellyn, left) is a member of a high school group nicknamed after the seven deadly sins and becomes the target of hazing by her predatory BFFs approach in writer/director Courtney Paige’s feature debut.
43. “The Unholy”: Cricket Brown stars as a deaf teen girl who can hear and heal the sick after seeing a heavenly vision, though her miracles give way to freaky occurrences in director Evan Spiliotopoulos’ creepy flick.
42. “Held”: On an anniversary getaway to save her marriage, a wife (Jill Awbrey) fights back when she and her husband are taken hostage in a strange high-tech house in a home-invasion horror flick that doubles as a feminist spin on “Get Out.”
41. “Hunted”: Lucie Debay stars as a woman chased by a predatory villain who transforms from damsel in distress to absolute rage machine in the survival thriller, a violent and modern take on the Little Red Riding Hood story.
40. “Reunion”: A pregnant academic (Emma Draper) is haunted by ghosts from the past when she returns to the family mansion, and doesn’t find much help in her domineering mom (Julia Ormond) in the twisty thriller.
39. “The Banishing”: A family relocates to a new English town and their manor is an unholy place with dark secrets hat begin to take hold of a young girl (Anya McKenna-Bruce) in a 1930s-set haunted-house flick with time loops, terrifying hooded monks and Nazis.
38. “Sator”: A mysterious forest demon stalks and manipulates a family whose various members experience strange voices and visions over the years in the slow-burn chiller written and directed by Jordan Graham.
37. “Things Heard & Seen”: The Gothic supernatural drama stars James Norton and Amanda Seyfried as a couple who moves into a rural home in upstate New York with a strange history, and dark forces and relationship issues complicate their lives to a freaky degree.
36. “Vicious Fun”: The horror comedy stars Evan Marsh (right) as a hapless, awkward horror journalist who accidentally crashes a meeting of vicious serial killers, including the murderous Bob (Ari Millen).
35. “Son”: An escapee from a dangerous cult, single mother Laura (Andi Matichak) flees town with her son (Luke David Blumm) following a failed kidnapping, but the aftermath leads to the kid becoming sick and mom engaging in horrifying acts to keep him well.
34. “The Amusement Park”: George Romero’s long-lost 1973 educational program about the plight of the elderly is an affecting allegory about growing old, with an aging man (Lincoln Maazel) facing nightmarish rides and horrendous treatment by fellow human beings.
33. “Bloodthirsty”: An indie singer/songwriter (Lauren Beatty) is haunted by visions of herself tearing apart and wolfing down an animal in the werewolf thriller that puts a furry twist on the familiar Faustian bargain for success.
32. “Caveat”: A troubled young woman named Olga (Leila Sykes) has a drum-playing toy rabbit that detects the supernatural in an Irish mystery thriller that interestingly tackles memory loss.
31. “Initiation”: Isabella Gomez (far left) and Lindsay LaVanchy star as college students avoiding a masked killer who fouls up fictional Whiton University’s homecoming week in a campus slasher flick with clever moments and surprisingly emotional touches.
30. “Slaxx”: The clever and horror satire stars Romane Denis as the newest employee of an annoyingly hip, Gap-style clothing store ramping up the grand reveal of high-end unisex jeans that happen to be possessed and murderous.
29. “Spiral”: Max Minghella (left) and Chris Rock star as detectives investigating a series of murders marked by an eerie symbol in the ninth “Saw” installment, which turns down the extreme gore to take the franchise in a more conventional cop-thriller direction.
28. “Let Us In”: A spirited 12-year-old girl (Makenzie Moss) and her best friend (O’Neill Monahan) are on the case and look for clues when several teens suddenly disappear in their small town in a scrappy sci-fi adventure that’s also a good entry into scary movies for kids.
27. “The Night”: Niousha Noor plays half of an Iranian couple trapped in a freaky L.A. hotel with their baby and haunted by strange visions and odd noises in this sinister Farsi-language thriller with “The Shining” vibes.
26. “Seance”: A group of girls (including, from left, Stephanie Sy, Inanna Sarkis and Djouliet Amara) at a prestigious boarding school try to call forth the spirit of a deceased former student, but one of the them is dead by the next morning in the sinister teen chiller.
25. “The Evil Next Door”: A 5-year-old (Eddie Eriksson Dominguez) makes a creepy new “friend” when his dad takes a job that keeps him out of town in the slow-burn Swedish ghost story with an unnervingly freaky monster.
24. “The Forever Purge”: Josh Lucas is a Texas rancher taken captive by masked outlaws when an underground movement decides to kill immigrants and the wealthy in the latest timely installment in the long-running dystopian “Purge” franchise.
23. “Wrong Turn”: Jen (Charlotte Vega) and her dad (Matthew Modine) run afoul of an enigmatic group of Appalachian mountain people who get violent when it comes to trespassers in a surprisingly good reboot of the 2000s backwoods-slasher franchise.
22. “The Power”: A young nurse (Rose Williams) gets stuck on the night shift on her first day at a creepy East London infirmary during the blackouts of 1974 in the ghostly period thriller, which explores male abuse of power and sexual abuse in a horror setting.
21. “My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To”: Patrick Fugit (far left) and Ingrid Sophie Schram play devoted siblings who go to murderously extreme lengths to keep their brother (Owen Campbell) healthy in a gripping and touching spin on the vampire film.
20. “The Reckoning”: Charlotte Kirk stars as a widowed 17th-century mom imprisoned, accused of being a witch and seduced by none other than the devil himself in director Neil Marshall’s gory, spooky, slightly nutty and even adventurous horror fantasy.
19. “Army of the Dead”: Dave Bautista and Nora Arnezeder play members of a mercenary crew sent into Las Vegas – quarantined after a zombie outbreak – to steal $200 million out of a casino vault in the genre-mashing action flick.
18. “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It”: Julian Hilliard plays a boy from a cursed family tormented by something seriously creepy coming out of his waterbed in the eighth and latest chapter of the “Conjuring” horror universe.
17. “False Positive”: The very dark psychological horror stars Justin Theroux and Ilana Glazer as a married couple desperate to get pregnant, but she begins to think their renowned and charming fertility doctor is too good to be true.
16. “Jakob’s Wife”: In a throwback chiller with an absurdist bite, Barbara Crampton stars as the spouse of a small-town minister who feels stuck in her 30-year marriage when a run-in with a vampire gives her a new sense of power and ownership over her life.
15. “Lucky”: A self-help author (Brea Grant, who also wrote the film) has to kill the same masked slasher before he kills her day after day, a situation that turns maddening for her in a feminist home-invasion thriller that cleverly explores the trauma of male violence.
14. “In the Earth”: During a global pandemic, a curious scientist (Joel Fry) and the coolest park ranger ever (Ellora Torchia) go deep intp a forest to find a research site and discover some serious craziness afoot in a mythology-rich folk horror that’s ripe for interpretation.
13. “The Djinn”: Ezra Dewey stars as a mute 12-year-old who, grieving the loss of his mother, discovers a book of magic spells, performs a ritual to finally have a voice and unleashes a sinister shapeshifting monster in a film more moving than your average chiller.
12. “A Quiet Place Part II:” After a tragic turn of events, a displaced family (from left, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe and Emily Blunt) ventures out and attempts to survive in a post-apocalyptic world full of blind dangerous creatures in a worthy followup to the 2018 hit.
11. “Sound of Violence”: Jasmin Savoy Brown plays a woman enraptured by a euphoric sensation when she experiences horrific brutality in the thriller, a nifty, trippy take on a killer origin story full of self-discovery and “Saw”-level gore.
10. “Willy’s Wonderland”: Nicolas Cage (right) plays a silent drifter who has to stay alive through a night filled with murderous animatronic mascots – though he gets some help from a few rebellious youngsters – in the wonderfully absurd action horror comedy.
9. “The Queen of Black Magic”: Old ghosts and guilty consciences return to haunt three men who, with their families, revisit the orphanage where they grew up in the brutal and freaky Indonesian horror film.
8. “PG: Psycho Goreman”: A malevolent alien overlord (Matthew Ninaber, left) unwittingly makes friends with a couple of kids (Nita-Josee Hanna and Owen Myre) who hold the ancient crystal that controls him in the gory and hilarious sci-fi horror comedy.
7. “Violation”: With her marriage falling apart, Miriam (co-writer/co-director Madeleine Sims-Fewer, right) visits her sister (Anna Maguire) for a getaway. But a brutal betrayal of trust sends her down a dark, vengeful, bloody and very righteous path in the powerful movie.
6. “Fear Street Part I: 1994”: Shadyside friends Kate (Julia Rehwald, far left), Simon (Fred Hechinger) and Deena (Kiana Madeira) investigate a witch’s curse on their town in the first homage-filled, super-fun chapter of Netflix’s trilogy reinventing the teen slasher.
5. “Saint Maud”: There are plenty of disturbing goings-on when a deeply religious hospice nurse (Morfydd Clark) tries to save her client’s soul and deals with her own dark backstory in director Rose Glass’ unholy and twisted film.
4. “Honeydew”: When their car breaks down, Riley (Malin Barr) wonders about their strange host’s home cooking while her boyfriend Sam (Sawyer Spielberg) chows down in a rural thriller that crosses “Hansel and Gretel” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
3. “Werewolves Within”: Like “Clue” meets “The Howling.” Josh Ruben’s enjoyable whodunit features Sam Richardson as a naive but goodhearted forest ranger new to a small Vermont town who has to catch a killer among the various kooky residents.
2. “Come True”: The intriguingly freaky and very clever sci-fi thriller centers on a troubled teen (Julia Sarah Stone) who sees disturbing dreamscapes at night and enlists in a sleep-disorder study, when the darkness of her subconscious arrives in reality.
1. “The Vigil”: Yakov (Dave Davis) is hired by his old rabbi to watch over the body of a recently deceased community member and has to survive a night tormented by a demon in a spectacular chiller steeped in Jewish lore and historical connections.
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Janiak wants to capture the excitement of a younger generation who begged their parents to rent an R-rated movie or turned on the TV late at night to watch something they shouldn’t.
“There was so much excitement in pushing the envelope of what was allowed.Hopefully, that exists with these movies, too,” Janiak says. “I don’t know if I should be saying this, but I hope that little 10- and 11-year-olds are like, ‘Oooh, I’m going to really scare myself here, but I’m doing it!’ ”
With theaters back up and running, and Hollywood returning back to normal, it’s time to catch up on the must-see movies of the year so far.
Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar for his astounding portrayal of a man wrestling with dementia and a gradually decreasing hold on reality in “The Father.”
Here’s how it ranks against the rest of the best movies of 2021:
20. “The Water Man”: Hoping to help his ailing mom, young Gunner (Lonnie Chavis, with Amiah Miller) searches for a mythical figure in the forest said to hold a key to immortality in director David Oyelowo’s old-school family adventure with a 1980s sensibility.
19. “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar”: Kristen Wiig (left) and Annie Mumolo are middle-aged BFFs who stumble onto a plot to take out a Florida vacation spot in a bizarro comedy featuring killer mosquitoes, a helpful water spirit and the very earwormy song “I Love Boobies.”
18. “Honeydew”: After getting stranded in the middle of nowhere, Riley (Malin Barr) wonders about their strange host’s home cooking while Sam (Sawyer Spielberg) chows down in a rural thriller that’s a gory mix of “Hansel & Gretel” and “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”
17. “Zola”: Stefani (Riley Keough, left) involves her new friend Zola (Taylour Paige) in some seriously shady dealings in director Janicza Bravo’s bonkers but empowering comedic thriller based on A’Ziah King’s infamous Twitter thread.
16. “Plan B”: Strait-laced Sunny (Kuhoo Verma, left) and her rebel BFF Lupe (Victoria Moroles) are South Dakota high schoolers on an epic trip to find a morning-after pill in director Natalie Morales’ fun and heartfelt one-crazy-night caper.
15. “In the Heights”: Anthony Ramos plays a New York bodega owner who dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic in Jon M. Chu’s infectious movie musical version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway show.
14. “Raya and the Last Dragon”: Young warrior Raya (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran, left) teams up with legendary water dragon Sisu (Awkwafina) in an epic and sassy animated fantasy adventure for youngsters not yet ready for “Game of Thrones.”
13. “Come True”: The intriguingly freaky and clever sci-fi horror thriller centers a troubled teen (Julia Sarah Stone) who dreams of disturbing dreamscapes at night and enlists in a sleep-disorder study where the darkness of her subconscious arrives in reality.
12. “Quo Vadis, Aida?”: A UN translator (Jasna Đuričić) fights for her family’s safety while dealing with inept Dutch officials and ruthless Serbs rounding up Muslims in the excellent and harrowing Oscar-nominated Bosnian war drama.
11. “Night of the Kings”: A jailed pickpocket (Bakary Koné, center) is forced to become a storyteller in a prison run by its inmates in director Philippe Lacôte’s absorbing drama, which pays tribute to the oral tradition of the tale-spinning West African griots.
10. “The Mitchells vs. the Machines”: The Mitchell family – Katie (from left, voiced by Abbi Jacobson), Linda (Maya Rudolph), Rick (Danny McBride) and Aaron (director Mike Rianda) – team up with some screwed-up robots in the joyful animated comedy.
9. “Judas and the Black Messiah”: Daniel Kaluuya (center) plays influential Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in director Shaka King’s timely period drama, which functions as political thriller and historical vehicle.
8. “Cruella”: Emma Stone gamely plays Disney villainess Cruella De Vil as a young London designer in 1970s punk-rock London who tussles with a chic and ruthless fashion icon in an intriguing, colorful exploration of nature vs. nurture.
7. “Riders of Justice”: Mads Mikkelsen (far right) is a soldier who comes home to take care of his daughter (Andrea Heick Gadeberg) and exacts vengeance on the street gang responsible for his wife’s death in the brutal and heartwarming Danish action-comedy thriller.
6. “The Sparks Brothers”: Edgar Wright’s rock doc chronicles the five-decade career of Sparks, how the art-pop band was huge overseas but never in America, and what keeps brothers Russell (left) and Ron Mael passionate and still together today.
5. “The Vigil”: A Jewish New Yorker (Dave Davis) of lapsed faith takes an all-night job that turns into a battle for his soul thanks to the arrival of a demonic dybbuk in a chiller that scares up serious religious mythos and haunting historical connections.
4. “Together Together”: A 45-year-old bachelor (Ed Helms) unlucky in love but who badly wants children, hires a 20-something barista (Patti Harrison) to be his surrogate in Nikole Beckwith’s feel-good pregnancy dramedy.
3. “Summer of Soul”: Sly and the Family Stone perform at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival in the splendid new documentary, directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and featuring a slew of never-before-seen performances from the event.
2. “I Care a Lot”: Rosamund Pike plays a conniving conservator who bilks aging clients out of their money in the dark crime satire, a genre-exploding effort that’s awash in ethical quandaries and severely lacking in good guys.
1. “The Father”: Anthony Hopkins stars as an elderly London man with dementia trying to make sense of his constantly shifting reality in writer/director Florian Zeller’s immersive character study and exceptional drama.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 25 years after ‘Scream,’ Netflix’s ‘Fear Street’ trilogy reinvents the teen slasher again
