'Fear Street Part 1: 1994' Trailer: The Witch Is Back In The First Part Of Netflix's Horror Trilogy

The dream of the '90s is alive on Fear Street. The teen-centered tales of terror from Goosebumps artisan R.L. Stine have become a trilogy of terror for Netflix, which will drop the first of three Fear Street movies this week. Each film is set in the same town during a different era, and first up, we're going all the way back to the olden days – 1994. The '90s setting gives director Leigh Janiak plenty of opportunity to riff on the 1990s slasher boom that kicked off with Scream. But there are plenty of supernatural elements lurking in the shadows, too. Watch the latest trailer for Fear Street Part 1 – 1994 below.

Horror is a cannibalistic genre – it eats itself alive, and recycles the past, over and over again. We've been in the midst of a very referential era, where modern horror films are heavily indebted to horror from the '70s and '80s. But we might be on the cusp of a change – a change that asks, "Hey, remember the '90s?" The 1990s saw something of a rebirth of the genre, triggered by the surprise success of Scream in 1996. This was both a blessing and a curse. It was great to have horror back in the limelight again, but Hollywood, being Hollywood, tried too hard to emulate the Scream formula. That meant we got a lot of '90s horror trying to be quirky and meta. The '90s slasher craze gave way to the War on Terror-influenced torture porn period, and for a while there, it felt like the '90s horror films had slipped into a kind of netherworld – a place where they're ignored or forgotten.

But what's old is always new again, eventually, and it feels as if filmmakers are ready to start going back to the '90s well. There's a new Scream movie on the way next year – but before we even get to that, we'll have Netflix's Fear Street trilogy. The three films are inspired by the work of R.L. Stine, and the first entry – Fear Street Part 1 – 1994 – is clearly going for a Scream-ish vibe.

In Fear Street Part 1 – 1994, "A circle of teenage friends accidentally encounter the ancient evil responsible for a series of brutal murders that have plagued their town for over 300 years. Welcome to Shadyside." The cast includes Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Julia Rehwald, Fred Hechinger, Ashley Zukerman, Maya Hawke, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Jordana Spiro, Jordyn Dinatale, and Jeremy Ford. Look for it on Netflix July 2, 2021.

As for the rest of the trilogy, here's the good news: you won't have to wait long to see where this is going. At one point, Fear Street was destined for the big screen, and the plan was to release the three films over a period of months. The Netflix release, however, will unfold with a new entry dropping every week until the conclusion.

Here's what's left.

FEAR STREET PART 2: 1978

Shadyside, 1978. School's out for summer and the activities at Camp Nightwing are about to begin. But when another Shadysider is possessed with the urge to kill, the fun in the sun becomes a gruesome fight for survival.

The cast includes Sadie Sink, Emily Rudd, Ryan Simpkins, Mccabe Slye, Ted Sutherland, Jordana Spiro, Gillian Jacobs, Kiana Madeira, Benjamin Flores Jr., Ashley Zukerman, Olivia Scott Welch, Chiara Aurelia, and Jordyn Dinatale. You can find it on Netflix July 9.

FEAR STREET PART 3: 1666

The origins of Sarah Fier's curse are finally revealed as history comes full circle on a night that changes the lives of Shadysiders forever. Starring Kiana Madeira, Ashley Zukerman, Gillian Jacobs, Olivia Scott Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Darrell Britt-Gibson, Sadie Sink, Emily Rudd, Mccabe Slye, Julia Rehwald, Fred Hechinger, Jordana Spiro, Jordyn Dinatale, Elizabeth Scopel, and Randy Havens. Hitting Netflix July 16.