Fear Street...(2021)

We have now taken in both 1994 and 1978. The first was entertaining enough, the second just predictably disappointing enough.

This is Netflix's much-heralded 'Film Trilogy Event' so we still have 1666 to look forward to. 

I've glimpsed blather in the media suggesting that these films represent an exciting 'subversion' of the slasher genre, in part because the individuals getting slashed are perhaps not the ones the audience might initially anticipate as the designated expendables.

This is however largely based on arbitrary narrative choices, such that the occult affliction only applies to the nice people living on the scuzzy side of town and not the more affluent dickheads next door. That, and a transparent piece of subterfuge with one character's first name. 

The whole twin-town class warfare sub-plot is under-explored to say the least. 

And there are some extremely familiar and tired old tropes that are trotted out shamelessly here — such as actors approaching thirty playing high-schoolers and the commonplace witch's curse, plus the persistent and somewhat prurient emphasis on violence against young women. (The just about off-screen hacking to death of children is also disturbing.)

Also, if you want to know how 1978 looked and felt, watch Jaws 2 once more. This is a pretty poor simulcrum.