Moviefone Editorial

Tag: Leigh Janiak

20 Best Horror Movies From Women This Year

As we head into spooky season, here’s a guide to a wide variety of new horror films from female filmmakers to get your skin crawling. With such a rich crop of startlingly original titles from filmmakers with bold visions and unique points of view, there’s bound to be something for everyone’s particular penchant. Whether you’re looking for mind-blowing body horror, creatures like vampires, witches or ghosts, or just good old fashioned blood, guts and gore – something wicked awaits you.

Bingo Hell – directed by Gigi Saul Guerrero

Adriana Barraza in ‘Bingo Hell’

The fifth installment in the anthology Welcome To The Blumhouse, Gigi Saul Guerrero’s film stars Oscar-nominated actress Adriana Barraza as Lupita, the lynchpin of a group of elderly persons living in the slowly gentrifying enclave known as Oak Springs. When the owner of the community center mysteriously disappears and the bingo hall is taken over by a huckster named Mr. Big (a wonderfully slimy Richard Brake) promising suspiciously big payouts, Lupita rallies the group to fight back. Filmed in New Orleans, Guerrero’s gruesome, wry film is perfect for fans of ‘The Outer Limits.’
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Black as Night – directed by Maritte Lee Go

Asjha Cooper, Frabrizio Guido and Mason Beauchamp in ‘Black As Night’

Written by Sherman Payne, Maritte Lee Go’s addition to Welcome To The Blumhouse follows awkward teenager Shawna (Asjha Cooper) as she tackles body issues and battles vampires over one fateful summer. When her mother falls victim to a gang of vampires preying on the most vulnerable residents of New Orleans – drug addicts and the unhoused struggling after Hurricane Katrina – Shawna vows to not only avenge her death, but put an end to their bloody reign in the Big Easy forever.
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The Blazing World – directed by Carlson Young

Zena Grey, Erika Cimino, Carlson Young, Brianne Tju and Alice Carroll Johnson in ‘The Blazing World’

Loosely inspired by Margaret Cavendish’s 1666 satirical, proto-science fiction of the same name, Carlson Young’s fantasy horror-thriller had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Young stars as Margaret Winter, a self-destructive young woman still reeling from her twin sister’s accidental drowning, who returns home only to find herself in an alternate dreamlike dimension where her sister may still be alive. Udo Kier, Dermot Mulroney, Vinessa Shaw round out the film’s impressive cast.
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Bloodthirsty – directed by Amelia Moses

Lauren Beatty in ‘Bloodthirsty’

Co-written by mother-daughter team Wendy Hill-Tout and Lowell Boland, follows indie musician Grey Kessler (Lauren Beatty) as she battles her anxiety while working on her sophomore album. When mysterious producer Vaughn (Greg Bryk) offers his mansion and services, Grey is elated. However as his abusive process pushes her into the darker recesses of her psyche, she finds herself transforming in more ways than one. Shot on location in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the result is a unique, transfixing, and gore-filled twist on the werewolf genre.
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Candyman – directed by Nia DaCosta

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in ‘Candyman’

Co-written with Win Rosenfeld and producer Jordan Peele, Nia DaCosta’s entry into the Candyman franchise, first adapted from by Clive Barker’s “The Forbidden” in 1992 by Bernard Rose, picks the story back up twenty-seven years after the events of the first film. Chicago-based visual artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) finds himself drawn to the urban myth of Candyman and the Cabrini-Green housing project. Little does he know his connection to the lore runs deeper than just the power of artistic inspiration. Although critical reception was split, after its initial release DaCosta became the first American Black woman director with a number one at the box office.
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Censor – directed by Prano Bailey-Bond

Niamh Algar in ‘Censor’

Set at the height of the Video Nasty controversy in the early 1980s England, Enid Baines (Niamh Algar) works as a censor for the British Board of Film Classification. Years early Enid’s sister went missing and is presumed dead, but when Enid discovers an old exploitation film that parallels the events of her sister’s disappearance, she becomes obsessed with finding the woman she believes may be her long lost sister. Shot on a mixture of 35mm, Super8 and VHS, Bailey-Bond’s film is a visceral and disquieting debut.
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Fear Street Trilogy – directed by Leigh Janiak

Ted Sutherland and Sadie Sink in ‘Fear Street’

Set in 1994, 1978, and 1666 respectively, the trilogy relates the twisted relationship between the communities of Shadyside and Sunnyvale as it unpacks the curse of Sarah Fier, a witch who was burned at the stake. Inspired by the iconic book series by R. L. Stine, director Leigh Janiak infuses a fresh new point of view by centering the films on a queer love story, while mainting plenty of gore.
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Knackningar (Knocking) – directed by Frida Kempff

Cecilia Milocco in ‘Knackningar (Knocking)’

Directed by Frida Kempff and written by Emma Broström, the film stars Cecilia Milocco as a woman named Molly who is recovering from a nervous breakdown after experiencing an extreme loss. After checking out of a psychiatric ward and moving into a new apartment complex, she begins hearing mysterious knocking sounds. Paranoia sets in when no one in the mysterious complex believes her.
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Lucky – directed by Natasha Kermani

Brea Grant in ‘Lucky’

The life of self-help author May (Brea Grant) spirals out of control when she finds herself battling a mysterious faceless assailant night after night. When no one seems to notice or care, she is pushed to her physical and psychological limits as she attempts to rid him from her life for good. Kermani and writer-star Grant’s incisive look at the terror of just being a woman in this world will linger in your mind long after its flashy finale.
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The Manor – directed by Axelle Carolyn

Barbara Hershey in ‘The Manor’

Also part of Welcome To The Blumhouse, writer-director Axelle Carolyn’s gothic thriller stars Barbara Hershey as Judith Albright, a woman who moves to Golden Sun Manor assisted living after suffering a mild stroke. While fighting for her agency, she begins to believe there is a sinister presence haunting the residents of the manor. Teaming up with fellow resident Roland (Bruce Davison), the two attempt to escape their confines rather than succumb to the evil forces surrounding them.
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Martyrs Lane – directed by Ruth Platt

Kiera Thompson in ‘Martyr’s Lane’

While living in a remote vicarage with her parents and surly older sister, 10-year-old Leah (Kiera Thompson) meets a strange girl in tattered angel wings while playing in the woods. Each time the girl visits Leah finds new clues to an old mystery that may cause her family’s fraught dynamics to unravel completely. Although she doesn’t quite stick the landing, with this film writer-director Ruth Platt offers a unique twist on the ghost story genre.
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Phobias – directed by Camilla Belle, Joe Sill, Jess Varley, Chris von Hoffmann, and Maritte Lee Go

Martina García in ‘Phobias’

In this anthology film each director brings a unique phobia to graphic life. Using a frame narrative to connect the five entries, their stories cross paths at a government testing facility where a crazed doctor attempts to weaponize fear. Watch out for a chilling performance from Macy Gray.
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The Power – directed by Corinna Faith

Rose Williams in ‘The Power’

Set during power outages caused by a miners’ strike in early 1970s London, the film centers around Val (Rose Williams), a nurse in training. Spending her first night working in the East London Royal Infirmary in near total darkness, she begins to suspect there is something sinister lurking in the walls.
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Saint Maud – directed by Rose Glass

Jennifer Ehle in ‘Saint Maud’

After a critically praised debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019, writer-director Rose Glass’s psychological horror debut finally hit stateside earlier this year. Having recently converted to Roman Catholicism, hospice nurse Maud forms an unhealthy obsession with a former dancer in her care (Jennifer Ehle). Featuring a shocking finale, Oscar-winner Danny Boyle is among the film’s most ardent supporters, calling it “genuinely unsettling.”
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Slaxx – directed by Elza Kephart

Romane Denis in ‘Slaxx’

In this horror-comedy, co-written with Patricia Gomez, writer-director Elza Kephart tackles the real life horrors caused by fast fashion. As a possessed pair of jeans goes on a killing spree inside a hip boutique overnight, new hire Libby McClean (Romane Denis) fights to escape the denim demon.
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The Stylist – directed by Jill Gevargizian

Najarra Townsend in ‘The Stylist’

One day a lonely hair stylist (Najarra Townsend) who works from home snaps and kills a client (Brea Grant), leading her down a path of continued bloodlust that changes her life forever. Praised for its sharp comedy and stylish kills, Gevargizian’s film is a welcome entry into the slasher canon.
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Titane – directed by Julia Ducournau

Agathe Rousselle in ‘Titane,’ directed by Julia Ducournau

In this Cannes Palme d’Or-winning flick Alexia, a showgirl (Agathe Rousselle) at a motorshow with a titanium plate implanted in her head from a childhood crash, gets impregnated by a Cadillac and goes on a serial killing spree. On the run from the cops, she impersonates the long lost son of a fire chief named Vincent (Vincent Lindon). Equally as tender as it is disgusting, Ducournau is the reigning queen of body horror with heart.
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Things Heard & Seen – directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini

Amanda Seyfried in ‘Things Heard & Seen’

Based on the novel “All Things Cease to Appear” by Elizabeth Brundage, Berman and Pulcini use the philosophies and mysticism of Swedish pluralistic-Christian theologian and scientist Emanuel Swedenborg to put a new spin on the ghost story genre, while also exploring the dynamics of a fatally toxic marriage. The impressive cast includes Amanda Seyfried as Catherine, James Norton, Natalia Dyer, Karen Allen, and F. Murray Abraham.
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Violation – directed by Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli

Madeleine Sims-Fewer in ‘Violation’

Playing both the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival and the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, this Canadian horror-drama follows Miriam (Madeleine Sims-Fewer), a traumatized woman on the edge of divorce who returns home for the first time in years. After her estranged sister and brother-in-law betray her trust, she seeks revenge in a most deranged and vicious manner. Praised for its rage and intensity, Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli’s film is a bold take on the revenge genre.
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Witch Hunt – directed by Elle Callahan

A sink test scene in ‘Witch Hunt’

Set in a version of contemporary America where witches are real and witchcraft is illegal, a teenage girl (Gideon Adlon) faces her own prejudices as her mom (Elizabeth Mitchell) begins offering assistance to the orphaned children of witches seeking asylum in Mexico. While the metaphor isn’t always in the best taste, Callahan’s film continues the tradition of using the witch genre as a mode to express cultural criticism.
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October 11, 2021
Director Leigh Janiak on Fear Street, Lauds Kathryn Bigelow

Fear Street directed by Leigh Janiak

(L to R) Actors Ted Sutherland, Sadie Sink, and Leigh Janiak on the set of ‘Fear Street Part 3: 1666’

A graduate of NYU and the University of Chicago, Leigh Janiak made her feature film debut in 2014 with the horror film ‘Honeymoon’ starring Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway as a newlywed couple whose lakeside getaway quickly takes a sinister turn. Janiak has also directed episodes of the ‘Scream’ television series, and developed the original pilot for the Amazon YA show ‘Panic.’

Inspired by the YA horror book series of the same name by R.L. Stine, the ‘Fear Street Trilogy’ consists of three films: Fear Street 1994, Fear Street 1978, and Fear Street 1666 all set in the towns of Shadyside and Sunnyvale. As lore has it, a witch named Sarah Fier put a curse on the town of Shadyside and every decade or so, a normal citizen goes on a killing spree.

1994 is set on the eve of the most recent massacre, 1978 looks back at a summer camp tragedy, and 1666 takes viewers back to where it all began. With odes to slasher cinema, as well as America’s penchant for witch hunts and systematic economic inequality, Janiak’s take on the material adds a subversive, queer spin to familiar horror beats. The films also serve up plenty of gore sure to satisfy fans of slasher cinema and the book series alike.

All three parts of the ‘Fear Street Trilogy’ are now streaming on Netflix.

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Leigh Janiak spoke to us about her new movie trilogy. Warning: this interview contains mild spoilers for the entire trilogy.

Moviefone: Were you a fan of the ‘Fear Street’ books growing up?

Leigh Janiak: I was a teenager in the 90s, so reading Fear Street was very much part of my teenagedom. I was a big fan. I remember going to the public library, and they were on a carousel. I loved the fun of the covers, and there was always this insane shit happening in them.

MF: My brother had a million of these books. I’m wondering how you distilled them into a cohesive story for the trilogy?

Janiak: We ultimately looked at this giant breadth of work that R. L. Stine had created and said, how do we do this? Because we were making the three movies and doing it at once, we felt like we needed a connected mythology narrative more so than the books live in. So what we decided to do was try to be true to the spirit of the books, the sort of fun, subversive, edgy nature of them. That we tried to infuse into every scene and the whole vibe of the narrative.

MF: Did you always know you were going to make them hard R?

Janiak: Yeah, definitely. That was something from the very beginning. I felt like if you are doing slasher movies, you need to live in an R-rated world. I think there is a lot of good horror that lives in that PG-13 space, but slashers, to me, you’ve got to see blood, you’ve got to see guts, you have to see lots of dead people. So that was important to me generally for the tone of a slasher movie. I was also thinking about my experience reading the Fear Street books as a teenager. They felt crazy to me. They felt R-rated. I actually don’t think they are. It’s funny. I was just re-reading one of them a couple of weeks ago and realized these are not as insanely violent as I remember. They are, but my point is, I was living in this world of the memory and experience of how intense they felt to me, and then trying to be true to the sub-genre of slashers.

MF: I loved the gruesome sequence at the end of 1994. How did you come up with the head in the bread slicer? That was disgusting in the best sense.

Janiak: One of the fun parts of making 1994 across the board was thinking about, for me, taking this image of suburbia and destroying it. Making it rotten. When we were choosing where our locations and different set pieces would be, we let the kills grow from there. So the grocery store was a really important set piece. When I was a teenager, one of my first jobs was I worked third shift at a Super K-Mart. So, I was working from like 10pm until 7am. This was over the summer, not when I was in school – and it’s crazy that my parents let me do this. So I had this image of these late nights at the grocery store, and I was so excited when it felt like it could work into our final showdown set piece of 1994. We looked around and were like it makes sense that you would go to a grocery store, and they need drugs, which was what they were doing there. But when that plan goes wrong, what other things can we use? And what is the most insane thing? Like you, I love a good gross kill, and we started thinking about the bakery and that area and were like, can a human head do this? What would that be like? That’s where that came from.

MF: I was expecting Kate to be saved and when she wasn’t, I was like, “oh my god!”

Janiak: It was hard to kill her and to kill Simon because I think we ended up really loving them. I felt like we loved them on the page, but Julia (Rehwald) and Fred (Hechinger) did such a good job making us care for these characters. Ultimately it was like, okay we’re killing characters who will hopefully be beloved, but we also need to have real stakes, and real reminders to the audience that brutal shit is happening in Shadyside and there is emotion behind this, and we’re only in the first act of our bigger movie. We’re at the end of movie one, but we’re in the first act of the trilogy. It made sense to do it, but it was shocking to a lot of people.

MF: I love the credit at the end for the CGI flies. I was wondering where the names came from?

Janiak: So Paul was my VFX supervisor and Christina is my VFX producer. Guillermo is for Guillermo del Toro. Guillermo was so kind and watched early cuts of the first and second movie. I hadn’t yet done a director’s cut of the third movie. It was funny because he was like, “I feel like you need this unifying thing you see every time you see the killers.” We had played around with versions of what that could be in prep and in development. We had flies that were built into movie three, just kind of reflecting the rot of the world and what was happening. He was like, “maybe like a fly or something like that.” and I thought, yes, perfect. So he gave us this brilliant idea and is fully responsible for introducing that idea. So I thought it would be cool to name the fly after him.

MF: I love that the trilogy is centered on two queer women. I read that you had wanted to center this on the kind of character who would normally die in these movies. Where did that idea come from?

Janiak: Part of that I had asked myself when I was approached by the producers to do the project was why should we be revisiting the slasher subgenre? For me, it was about wanting to make something that wasn’t just home and wasn’t just nostalgia. I wanted that to be part of it, for sure. Part of the fun of making the three movies in three different time periods is to be able to send a love letter to those films that I grew up watching and that I love. But also I wanted to be able to justify the experiment. To do something new. To me, there was this world of Shadyside and Sunnyvale we ended up creating of the haves and have-nots. Shadyside is full of characters that have been marginalized and told by society that they are other and felt like they were never going to get out of this world. So that to me was what became special about ‘Fear Street’. That we could have characters that usually would die much sooner in movies and give them a place in the sun as protagonists and as heroes of the story.

MF: How did you find your cast? Did you do any chemistry reads?

Janiak: Obviously there are like a million characters across the three movies, and I worked with my amazing casting director, Carmen Cuba. She introduced me to a ton of new people and new faces that I hadn’t seen before. Olivia (Welch) who plays Sam and Kiana (Madeira) who plays Deena I had come across when I was working on a pilot a year before.

MF: For ‘Panic’?

Janiak: Yeah. I had cast Olivia in ‘Panic’ and I had come across Kiana also in that audition process. Kiana ultimately wasn’t right for one of the roles in the pilot, but when I saw her read I was like, “if ‘Fear Street’ gets off the ground…” because we were still in the prep/development phase. But I thought if we got the green light she is Deena. I felt that. So when we started casting again, they were the ones for me. We had a lot of talented actresses and we had chemistry reads with other women as well, but it was this funny thing because you see them separately, but it’s not until they get into a room together and you’re like “oh, they are so cute.” They actually have this very sweet, organic, sexy vibe between them. It was really exciting when they came together.

MF: How did you decide on 1994 and 1978 for the two slasher entries in the trilogy?

Janiak: When we first were coming up with what era each film would be in, we knew we wanted something in the 90s. Originally there was a discussion of should it be earlier in the 90s? I think my first pitch actually called it ‘Fear Street 1990’ and then as me and my fellow writers started building the world, we realized 1990 is a weird year for that. It’s straddling the classic heyday slasher films of the 80s and then the 90s, but we’re not really living in a here nor there world. So by putting it in 94 we felt like we could be revisiting the 90s slashers like ‘Scream,’ ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer,’ ‘The Faculty,’ with kind of more self-aware, sarcastic characters. Then we thought by shifting into the 70s, the filmmaking could also be different. That way we could be in very distinct eras of slasher.

MF: I really loved the way that you used covers of songs from the 70s in 1994, and then you had the original versions in 1978. I thought that was a really smart way to show the way that all those characters are connected through history, and so are the songs.

Janiak: I love that you are talking about that. No one has asked me about that. The Nirvana version of ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ and the Bowie version were both built into the script for movie two from the first draft. One of the things I like personally is the idea of generational trauma and people reliving mistakes and this idea of fate and soulmates and how do we fix our past and these cycles of time. So being able to look for music that could round out those themes and show this is what it was like here and this is what it was here was just so cool. The Bowie version and Nirvana one, obviously, that song ends up holding thematically a bigger place of importance in the trilogy. Once we started getting into it, we thought that ‘Sweet Jane’ would be amazing to use for the 1994 because the Cowboy Junkies version is awesome, and then when we got to 1978 I was like, “Oh fuck we’ve got to do Velvet Underground.” I think those are the only ones that we did, but I kept thinking there’s got to be more. I’m happy you brought that up.

MF: What is your favorite Easter egg for fans of the book you put in the films?

Janiak: There’s endless little things here and there throughout. My favorite nod at the books was more meta. It’s not even something direct. I love that we start the whole movie with a comment on horror novels. Then that the book ‘First Evil’ – which uses the actual covers from one of the cheerleader ‘Fear Street’ ones – saves Heather (Maya Hawke) in that first moment when she gets stabbed, and then those books are what Deena ultimately creates for her bulletproof vest in movie three and that ultimately saves her. That’s my favorite way of saying yes these books are amazing and I love them and horror will save us all.

MF: I love that the bookstore was B. Dalton. That was the bookstore in the mall where my grampa lived when I visited in the 90s. Why did you choose that bookstore instead of any of the other chains?

Janiak: I grew up in a suburb outside of Cleveland, and B. Dalton was the bookstore in the local mall. It was that and a Spencer’s Gifts, which was ultimately what Wheeler’s was taking inspiration from. It was very fun. I got to relive my childhood and create this world, which was more fucked up than my actual teenagedom was. It was so surreal walking into that set.

MF: Can you recommend another film directed by women for our readers to seek out?

Janiak: It’s interesting. I think back to being a kid and even frankly much later into being a teenager than I care to admit, that I wasn’t really aware of female directors. I think that that’s one of the things that it is so important and cool about the strides that Hollywood is making now, to be more inclusive and to have more women directing, specifically in the genre space. I think that opens up the world to young women. For me, my favorite female filmmaker is Kathryn Bigelow. I watched all of her movies as they came out. ‘Near Dark.’ ‘Point Break,’ which I think is one of the most brilliant movies ever made. ‘Strange Days.’ I love all of them. ‘Zero Dark Thirty.’ ‘The Hurt Locker.’ Those early ones that she was doing, because they live so much in what was a more traditionally masciucline space of action and genre, she was and continues to be super inspirational to me.

The Hurt Locker directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Anthony Mackie (L) and Jeremy Renner (R) in ‘The Hurt Locker,’ directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Kathryn Bigelow has directed ten feature films and countless episodes of television. She made history when her 2009 film ‘The Hurt Locker’ won Best Director and Best Picture at the Academy Awards – the first time a film directed by a woman had won either top prize. This feat was not repeated until Chloé Zhao’s film ‘Nomadland’ took both prizes earlier this year.
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July 16, 2021
The Fear Street Cast & Director Discuss the Netflix Trilogy

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An adaptation of R.L. Stine’s Fear Street books has premiered on Netflix as a trilogy of movies; ‘Fear Street Part One: 1994,’ ‘Fear Street Part Two: 1978,’ and ‘Fear Street Part Three: 1666.’ All three of these movies have been directed by Leigh Janiak, and cast members across all three movies include Gillian Jacobs, Sadie Sink, Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Ashley Zukerman, and Darrell Britt-Gibson. The cast and the director recently sat down with us to talk about the movie trilogy.

First up, Leigh Janiak talks about making the trilogy.

Moviefone: I have been looking forward to talking with you and I know we’re not going to have anywhere near enough time for everything I want to know. Okay. So start off, why make a trilogy? Did you ever talk about it being a series?

Leigh Janiak: For sure. So my producer, Peter Chernin had this idea that he wanted to release a trilogy all in the same year. That was his jumping off point. That was the jumping off point that they approached me with. And then I thought that sounded awesome.

I was also like, “How do we do this? Why do we do this?” I think traditionally, with a trilogy, you get to have that time period where audiences are just hungry for more of the same world. So with this, when we knew we were going to be releasing it very close together, it was how do we do this?

And that I think ended up lying in this hybrid between movie and what is traditionally television and creating this new type of content and experience. So, there was always discussion of what are we doing here? And then it was us free ourselves from labels and live in this new space where the narrative is guiding us.

MF: So then, how did you attack the R.L. Stine Fear books to adapt into these movies?

Janiak: That was also very daunting because there are hundreds of those books. They’re amazing. As a fan, I was like, “What are we doing here? How are we going to do this? There’s so many of them.” And basically what we ended up doing was looking back and saying, “How do we preserve the spirit of these books and what we all love in them?”

The subversive nature of it, the fun of them. And then also let us have a mythology that makes sense for this three movie structure. And so that’s what we did. We chose things that we were going to keep nodding to, the Goode family, the Fear family, which exists in the Fear Street sagas a lot. And then still do something new and preserve the fun of the books the whole way.

MF: So you ended up with these three movies, all in different time periods. What was your visual style to blend all three movies together?

Janiak: That was interesting because it was like, “What do we do? How do we make these movies feel different and be real to the era that they’re depicting and that they’re supposed to take place in?” So there was a lot of discussion of the movies of those times and how do we want the visual approach to evolve? And do we need something that’s the same across all three? And what we ended up doing was the thing that was the unifying element was our characters.

And so we were allowed to change the world that we’re living in as far as color and camera and style, but our characters are always still grounded in their reality and carrying us through emotionally. So, yeah.

MF: Were there specific horror movie tropes that you wanted to avoid?

Janiak: Yeah, I think the biggest one was just having it be a bunch of straight white people. I think that that was the biggest trope that I was like, “We can do something else here.” We have an opportunity with this world of Shadyside that is about people who have been victim of oppression for generations and have felt like they were other and marginalized based on race or sexuality or socioeconomic status and give them their moment and say that this is true to what the world is. So why shouldn’t they be in these horror movies too? And why shouldn’t they live past 15 minutes?

MF: So I think that’s the great message of this movie. So it’s fun, and it’s a horror movie, but there’s great messaging. And so what great message were you really trying to get across?

Janiak: I think that’s exactly. It was that there’s a world where people can survive and live in these horror movies and deserve their moment in the sun, outside of what we traditionally see.

Next up, Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, and Benjamin Flores Jr. talked about their characters.

Moviefone: Kiana, What is the relationship between Deena and Sam?

Kiana Madeira: The relationship between Deena and Sam is the heart of the entire trilogy. They love each other, and they’re willing to do anything and everything to fight for each other and to be together. And I think that’s really what drives the entire story forward.

MF: Olivia, are you a fan of horror movies?

Olivia Scott Welch: Yeah, I’m a huge fan. I am a huge, huge fan of horror movies. It’s always been my favorite genre, and I’ve seen so many of them. And so it was very exciting to be part of this.

MF: I just want to know. I know it’s acting, and I know there’s lots of people on sets, but is there ever a time when you’re filming these scary movies that it’s actually scary to you?

Madeira: Yeah, I think sometimes when, we were just saying earlier, that it’s really funny because all of the stunt performers and stuff, everyone’s friends. And we’re all friends, and everyone can goof around and stuff. But then sometimes when they call action, and you got yourself hyped up. And then someone starts running at you with an ax. You’re like, “Ah. Oh no.” Your brain takes over and is like, “You need to get out of here.” And then they call cut, and then Lloyd would take off his mask and be like, “Great job.”

Welch: Yeah.

MF: I’ve always wondered about that. Benji, now Josh, he’s like the superhero. He is the one who saves the day, and I love him. I love his personality. So describe Josh for me.

Benjamin Flores Jr.: Josh is basically a loner, typical loner guy, but it’s really more than that. He just really is trying to figure out who he is. What does he want to do? What’s his purpose? What’s he really like? Who does he like? And as he’s trying to find that, he dives into a lot of different things, a lot of conspiracies, a whole bunch of things, video games. But these conspiracies really start to hold over him as they start to make more sense. And as he starts to piece the puzzle together, he starts realizing like, wait a minute, these might not just be conspiracies. I might actually be into something. And that basically just leads to the journey we all go on to try to stop the curse in Shadyside. And through that process, Josh finds itself along the way. He starts off as this loner guy, just not very talkative, but then he, through the movie, builds a personality up.

MF: All three of you could play characters in two of the different movies in different time periods. What’s the preparation for that like?

Madeira: We all worked with a dialect coach to play our characters in 1666. She was amazing. Her name’s Charlotte Fleck. And from the very beginning of when we started filming, even the 1994 movie, we would have private coachings on the weekends over Zoom. So we were able to really get dipped into our characters even way before, months before, we started filming the 1600s movie, which I think really helped us, one, learn our lines because we were constantly working on the dialect, and also feel connected to these characters in a way where we didn’t have to put on the accent. It was really just part of the world. And I think that really helped us a lot.

Gillian Jacobs, Ashley Zukerman, and Darrell Britt-Gibson talk about how their characters fit in to the story.

Moviefone: Gillian, how is C. Berman living in 1994?

Gillian Jacobs: When we first meet this character, she is living by herself. It’s really her and her dog. She has a pretty solitary existence, but she really goes on a journey over the course of these three films. So it’d be amazing for audiences to see the journey that all of these characters go on. And my character is just one of them.

MF: How close to the Fear Street books is this trilogy and are you a fan of R.L. Stine?

Jacobs: I read R.L. Stine growing up. I read Fear Street growing up. So for me, this has the essence of Fear Street without being a literal adaptation of any one book. So I thought Leigh, our director, did an amazing job of making it feel entirely familiar to someone like me, who grew up reading it, but it’s also a unique story told in three parts.

MF: Ashley, a running theme through the movie is like good versus bad, the haves and the have-nots. So where does sheriff Nick Good kind of fit in, in this story?

Ashley Zukerman: I think what we learned is that he’s someone who has been the beneficiary of being on the good side of the tracks, of growing up in Sunnyvale, and hasn’t ever really engaged with the question of what it is he’s benefited from. And I think one of the questions that, hopefully, he will get asked as the films progress, is will he come to terms with that, and what might he do when he does?

MF: Okay. Darrell, I feel like I want to know so much more about Martin than I do. Tell me about Martin, and did you create any backstory for him? Because, I want to know more.

Darrell Britt-Gibson: Leigh and I came up with a couple of different variations of a backstory for Martin. He has a bit of a nomadic sort of energy to him, so I think he just ended up in Shadyside. He’s a fun character because he sort of sees what’s happening as an audience is seeing it happen, because he does not have the backstory and the history of the town and the people that everyone else does. So I think it’s really interesting that the way that he views everything that’s happening and how wild everything is in this town. I also wonder, he maybe wishes that he went like more town, two more towns over, because they’re crazy in Sunnyvale and Shadyside.

MF: They are absolutely crazy. Darrell, I know it’s acting, but they are very scary movies. Is there ever a time, onset when you’re filming, that ever actually feels scary?

Britt-Gibson: It’s so funny when you see that the films are so scary, but we laughed on set more than any other set I can remember being on. I think that, that’s just a testament to Leigh creating this environment that is, we are making this very scary thing, but it’s also like, real life is fun. And the cast is so awesome. And so it just created this sort of environment where we all just had so much fun and we all enjoyed each other in a genuine way, which is so special, especially in this industry where that sometimes that’s not the case.

Finally, Sadie Sink talks about the second part of the trilogy, set in 1978.

Moviefone: What’s the Shadyside Myth?

Sadie Sink: Yeah. The Shadyside Myth. Basically, so there’s a town called Shadyside, there’s a town called Sunnyvale. And good things always happen in Sunnyvale, bad things always happen in Shadyside, to say the least. And Shadysiders have started to believe that there’s a curse that is cursing their land, that dates back all the way to 1666 from a witch named Sarah Fier. Some people think it’s a bunch of nonsense, some people think it’s real. And over the course of the three movies, you start to see that there’s a little bit of truth to this Shadyside curse.

MF: Which takes us to Camp Nightwing because these kids from these two towns congregate there and it just mimics what goes on all year long.

Sink: Pretty much. So Camp Nightwing, that’s where the second movie takes place, and it’s in 1978. So it was super fun to film. Yeah. You’ve got your Sunnyvalers, you’ve got your Shadysiders, and the divide between the two of them is very clear and there’s definitely this very intense rivalry between the two towns, which is really fun to see play out. But yeah, I mean, really, it was fun seeing all the Shadysiders and the Sunnyvalers and just that really intense rivalry between the two.

MF: It took me back to the many horror movies, maybe from the ’70s, that took place at camp. It’s like a horror movie trope.

Sink: Yeah, totally. Definitely, there’s a lot of inspiration taken from those classic ’70s slasher films.

MF: What was the preparation like for you for this movie? Did you do a lot of these stunts yourself?

Sink: I didn’t realize how many stunts I would have to do. And then I think on my first or second day, then I realized that it would be very physical. But yeah, I knew there’d be a lot of running and stuff. So I prepped for that and just built up that stamina. And as I started filming, it just got easier and easier, and I really started to enjoy those stunt-heavy scenes.

MF: I love Ziggy. I mean, I think she has just this great personality. Can you describe her for me?

Sink: She’s pretty aggressive. She’s not everyone’s cup of tea, I guess. She’s a little bit standoffish at times. She’s considered a little bit of an outsider. She’s definitely an easy target by some of the crueler Sunnyvalers. But she doesn’t really take it from anyone. And she’s wise beyond her years, and she’s had to mature a lot faster. And I think just at the heart of it, she really just wants to be seen and understood. She wants people to listen to her. She wants her sister to listen to her. Yeah. So it was really a pleasure of being able to play her.

MF: She also develops a summer romance there at camp.

Sink: Yeah, she does. So she develops a little bit of a crush on an older camp counselor, which makes sense for her.

MF: From the wrong town, I might add.

Sink: From the wrong town. I mean, she’s going to do the opposite of what people tell her she should do. So she gets herself into a little bit of a situation there. And I think that’s just at first, she’s very against it. And then once Nick starts to bond with her and see her in a way that no one else has been able to see her that entire summer, or maybe in her entire life, she’s really drawn to him. So it’s nice to see that compassion in her and play with those lighter sides of Ziggy.

The ‘Fear Street’ trilogy is now streaming on Netflix.
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July 13, 2021