The Scene staff
Ah yes, fall. That time of the year where we can ease back from our busy summer schedules and embrace the mysteries of a new season, the one that includes Halloween.
Whether it’s returning to school, indulging in personal hobbies at home or outrunning bloodthirsty urban legends, fall is the perfect time for watching horror movies.
The “Fear Street” trilogy is based on the work of R.L. Stine, who also created “Goosebumps” and “The Haunting Hour.” The three movies were released on Netflix last year. Together, they total about five and a half hours of tempting terror.
Normally, I don’t indulge in binge-watching movie trilogies, but this was an exception. “Fear Street,” while not following Stine closely, captures the spirit of his work and the attention of the audience.
The first movie, “Fear Street Part 1: 1994,” begins with Heather Watkins (played by Maya Hawke) working as a bookstore cashier in Shadyside Mall. She offers a customer a “Fear Street” book, and he rudely declines.
Heather begins closing the store, and we hear the movie’s first ‘90s song, “I Want to F–k You Like an Animal” by Nine Inch Nails. 
Heather gets pranked with a blow-up doll by her friend, Ryan Torres (David W. Thompson). Then she’s attacked by a hooded assailant with a ghost face, reminiscent of the “Scream” movies.
The subsequent fight scene also has “Scream” parallels.
Heather sustains some injuries, but she manages to escape to the mall’s food court, where she finds four corpses of people killed earlier.
The assailant catches up with her. She rips off his mask just before he kills her. Turns out, the killer is her close friend, Ryan. He is then shot in the head by Sheriff Nick Goode (Ashley Zukerman).
Transitioning to the next day, we meet the protagonist, Deena (Kiana Maderia), who is starting her day by preparing breakfast and getting ready for school. She and her brother Josh (Benjamin Flores, Jr.) discuss the recent murders at Shadyside Mall.
Their social interactions quickly reveal that Josh is a nerdy loner who’s attracted to conspiracy theories, while Deena is more social with a close circle of upperclass friends.
The Shadyside School students are bused over to the idyllic Sunnyvale School to attend a memorial service for the murder victims. There’s a confrontation and 
brawl between rival football players, causing a few injuries and leading to a car crash.
This disturbs the dead in an abandoned graveyard, bringing forth spirits of the Shadyside slashers, who had killed other people and died as part of the town’s dark past.
The slashers spend the rest of the movie trying to kill Deena and her friend, Samantha (Olivia Scott Welch). Deena seeks help from local authorities, but her concerns are dismissed.
Samantha is the primary target of the awakened dead. Deena, friends Kate (Julia Rehwald) and Simon (Fred Hechinger) and brother Josh come up with a plan to defeat the Shadyside slashers by trapping and burning them in the school. It doesn’t work.
The friends come up with a more complicated plan, which includes Samantha’s faked death and actual death by drowning, but she’s revived by CPR and an EpiPen injection.
Kate and Samantha survive, while the others meet their gory ends. The spirits of the dead are temporarily defeated, but they will resurface with others in Parts 2 and 3.
Part 1 of the “Fear Street” trilogy targets both Gen Zers and Millennials. There are frequent verbal and visual references to other iconic horror films, such as “Scream,” “Friday the 13th” and “Nightmare on Elm Street.”
The atmosphere is heavily ‘90s, from the coloring used to the AOL references to the heavily musical soundtrack with artists such as Nine Inch Nails and Iron Maiden.
As in all of Stine’s work, the plot has a clear beginning, middle and end with a twist.
The movie has a pop feel and appeal but does not avoid graphic gore with the 10 women and five men who are slain. My highlight kill was the death of Simon, who received an ax to the head.
Is it worth the hour? 100% yes. “Fear Street Part 1: 1994” is an entertaining trip through the ‘90s, filled with action, character development and lots of gore.