Fear Street Part 1: 1994 age rating: Is the Netflix movie appropriate for kids?
By Sabrina Reed
Horror isn’t a genre that’s typically indulged in by children when it comes to both live-action and animated media. Their chills and thrills are often found on the page in series like the storied Goosebumps by R.L. Stine along with the author’s other works like the books that inspired Fear Street Part 1: 1994.
But what’s fit to print isn’t the same as what’s appropriate to show a child. Reading about how someone was stabbed, no matter how talented the writer, won’t have the same visceral impact as seeing it happen. The written word is evocative but to a point when it comes to the graphic nature of imagery.
As such, what’s deemed suitable for children as readers changes when it comes to visual mediums. So, while the Fear Street trilogy is based on books geared toward a young adult audience, the movies aren’t for kids.
They’re for older teens and will likely have crossover appeal for adult horror watchers, as well.
Fear Street Part 1: 1994 age rating
The Fear Street movies all have an R rating which shouldn’t be surprising as it’s not typical for horror films to skew toward lower ratings. The genre is inherently scary because it delves into lore, violence, and often blood and gore.
Though Fear Street Part 1 has earned its rating not only for its graphic depictions of murder but also its lean into topics and themes typically explored in teen content. There’s casual drug and alcohol use, innuendos, sexual encounters (though not graphic), homophobia, use of slurs, and strong language.
Elite this film is not. Think of it as more in the vein of Riverdale if Archie and the gang were allowed to curse more colorfully, there were buckets of more blood, and murder happened at a quicker clip.
Fear Street Part 1: 1994 premieres Friday, July 2 on Netflix.