Netflix just released the first installment of the Fear Street film series, which sets up the next two entries with references to several Shadyville killers over the centuries; here's the timeline explained. The new trilogy is a horror fan’s dream and features an abundance of homages and Easter eggs to the biggest horror slasher films of the past fifty years. Fear Street is based on a book series by author R.L. Stine, though offering a much more gory story than his more child-friendly Goosebumps novels.
The first movie, Fear Street: 1994, introduces viewers to Shadyside, Ohio’s sinister connection to killers and possessions. Following Shadyside teens Deena, Sam, Josh, Simon, and Kate, they come face-to-face with the town’s most notorious killers after the possessing witch - Sarah Fier - tries to capture Sam and turn her into another of her minions. With Deena’s brother Josh’s deep knowledge of Shadyside’s historical massacres and the lore behind Fier, the group attempts to hold off the undead killers with foreshadowed help from former massacre survivor C. Berman.
With parts two and three being released on Netflix over the next couple of weeks, more pieces of the Shadyside puzzle will be put together. Since most of the lore is given through Josh’s messages with the mysterious AOL chat room user “QUEENOFAIRANDARKNESS” and his collection of newspaper clippings, the first-hand account of C. Berman in part two will hopefully give more background on the previous killers. As revealed so far, here’s the timeline of Fear Street’s killers and their corresponding massacres.
The opening scene of Fear Street: 1994 shows the Shadyside Mall Massacre enacted by high school graduate and mall employee Ryan Torres. He murders bookstore employee and friend Heather Watkins, who is killed in Drew Barrymore Scream fashion considering Maya Hawke was used to promote the film. When Ryan chases Heather around the mall in a skull mask, she looks around to see several other victims. After Torres’ murders make headlines, the media officially dubs Shadyside as the murder capital of America.
Ryan is the most recent Shadyside resident possessed by Sarah Fier as a result of her revenge on the town for executing her for witchcraft in 1666. Deena reads a police report that reveals Ryan killed at least nine people in the mall until a responding police officer fatally shot him while he was attacking Heather. Following Ryan’s death, Sarah Fier moved onto her next victim: Sam Fraser. In the ensuing attack on Sam and her friends, Ryan/Skull Mask is one of the minions who returns from the dead to pursue them.
The Camp Nightwing Killer is the second most recent killer who has the most connections to the 1994 characters. The killer reoccurs in Fear Street: 1994 as one of the witch’s minions sent back to kill Sam and her friends. In the summer of 1978 - sixteen years before the Mall Massacre - a masked murderer wearing what appears to be a burlap sack over his head kills twelve kids and teens with an ax and pitchfork at Camp Nightwing.
He was one of the counselors who, like Ryan, “snapped” and began killing late at night. Kate reveals her mom’s sister was present during the murders, but it appears she wasn’t one of the victims. After the events at the camp, Sunnyvale’s mayor demolished the camp to build the mall that would later host 1994’s murders. Fear Street: 1994 discloses one survivor of the 1978 massacre, C. Berman, saw the witch but survived.
Camp Nightwing is the focus of Fear Street: 1978, premiering on Netflix on July 9th. According to the premise, Camp Nightwing is segregated between the campers and counselors that come from Sunnyvale’s "safe" town and the campers and maintenance staff hail from Shadyside’s less prosperous town. The camp’s killer will bring together both sides as they uncover the towns’ sinister shared history dating back to Sarah Fier’s execution in 1666.
One of the more mysterious killers, Ruby Lane was a 16-year-old Shadyside high schooler who, possessed by the witch, murdered her boyfriend and six others with a razor in 1965. Ruby sings “You Always Hurt The One You Love” while going on her killing rampages. The Fear Street: 1994 crew first encounters her when Simon, walking on the main street, sees her sitting on the sidewalk singing the song. He confronts her, then she uses her razor to slash his leg and she has a zombified appearance that makes Simon think they’re in an updated version of Night of the Living Dead. Josh then explains that Ruby slashed her own wrists with the shaving razor after killing her boyfriend and friends, hoping (unsuccessfully) to bring the witch’s influence to an end. Ruby continues to stalk and hunt the teens in 1994 as the undead killers hunt for Sam.
Not much has been revealed about Harry Rooker, who was a Shadyside milkman-turned-killer in the early 1950s. Known (fittingly) as The Milkman Killer, Rooker murdered some of his customers - who were all housewives - with a switchblade. Josh tells Deena and the Fear Street: 1994 gang that Rooker killed his victims in 1950, though when chatting on AOL, his penpal says the milkman went on his rampage in 1953.
The information on the Humpty Dumpty Killer given by Josh and his newspaper clipping in Fear Street: Part 1 is limited, though gives a clear timeframe of the year 1935. One of the newspaper headlines notifies the public about the Humpty Dumpty killer striking again, which is the only readable information. While explicit details on the murders are unknown, the killer’s “Humpty Dumpty” moniker suggests he dismembered people so they couldn't be "put back together again."
One of the most frightening snippets of the killings from Shadyside’s past shows a young boy, Billy Barker, murdering his sleeping brother in bed. Josh's newspaper clipping gives more information into the murder, describing the event in broad terms as a deformed boy gruesomely bludgeoning his brothers to death with a baseball bat while they slept. The newspaper also reveals that Billy died after the event, likely in a way where he tried to stop the witch’s influence like the other possessed victims.
Occurring 90 years before Fear Street: Part 1, Shadyside was victim to a killer known as “The Grifter” in 1904. Details on The Grifter are almost as slim as the Humpty Dumpty Killer, with the newspaper clipping emphasizing the “Grifter Guts Girls.” The scene that displays The Grifter murdering his victims shows him wearing an odd mask while he drowns a girl in a lake, so the gutting part of his killings is unknown.
With no details other than his nickname, 1890 saw a sinister farmer who killed some Shadyside’s residents. Josh has a note that says “Farmer of Death - 1890” on his wall, though it doesn’t feature a corresponding newspaper clipping. It appears that Shadyside’s Sarah Fier curse had gone dormant for several years before the farmer, with Josh’s notes including a paper that reads, “1775-1831?” This question mark indicates no known massacres occurred during this timeframe, though Josh has a note with an illegible killer’s name for 1832.
Cyrus Miller, the pastor of Shadyside, is the first noted killer and victim of the witch’s influence. Josh informs his friends Miller killed kids and cut out their eyelids back in 1666. Miller was Fier's first victim, having been possessed by her the same year she was executed for witchcraft. Since religious American townspeople were crucial in convicting and executing people of witchcraft in the 1600s, Sarah likely possessed Miller as revenge on those who metaphorically signed her death warrant. The newspaper clipping about his murders informs that “Pastor Miller Snaps,” the same phrasing used to describe Shadyside’s killers for the next 300 years.
The second installment of the Fear Street movie trilogy will cover the 1978 Camp Nightwing Massacre, though Pastor Cyrus Miller will likely be a key figure in the third and final film which takes place in 1666. The accusations and execution of Sarah Fier will likely be revealed in the final Fear Street movie, uncovering the mystery of why she possesses normal townspeople like Cyrus Miller and Ryan Torres and the reason for her slaughter of Shadyside’s citizens.
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