In Fear Street Part 1: 1994, the killer is as relentless as the 90s music in the soundtrack.

Based on a series of R.L. Stine novels for teenagers (the characters fool around and drop the ‘F’ bomb a lot), the Fear Street trilogy of films are set in the cursed town of Shadyside over three distinct years: 1994, 1978 and 1666. Each part of the trilogy is set in one of those years, with a common thread tying them all together.

There are over 50 books in Stine’s Fear Street saga, which director Leigh Janiak adapted into three movies. The first film takes this jumble of ingredients and tries to distill it into one cohesive storyline, with mixed results.

Fear Street: 1994 cold opens with a murder with a killer that bears a glancing resemblance to Scream‘s Ghostface killer. Such deaths the norm for decaying Shadyside, Ohio – apparently the murder capital of the United States and the dark antitheses to the neighboring town of Sunnyvale. Many of the Shadyside teens believe that this is the result of a witch named Sarah Fier who placed a curse on the town before being executed for witchcraft in 1666.

Cut to a new group of teens: Deena (Kiana Madeira), her brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.), her friends Simon and Kate (Fred Hechinger and Julia Rehwald) and her closeted ex-girlfriend Sam (Olivia Scott Welch), who has recently moved to Sunnyvale. The two meet again at a vigil in Sunnyvale for the victims of the mall killings, only for a brawl against the Shadyside students to break out. When they attempt to retaliate they cause a car accident that lands Sam in the hospital. However, before she is taken away, Sam sees a vision of a supernatural entity called Sarah Fier, who just happens to be a witch.

The following night, Deena and her friends begin to be stalked by a trio of undead killers responsible for some of Shadyside’s worst massacres, which the group figures out using the ‘newspaper clippings on a bulletin board’ trope. The teens realize that the accident disturbed the (extremely shallow) grave of the witch and that Sam touched her bones and that the undead will stop at nothing to kill Sam.

The group figure out how one survivor of a similar attack (this one takes place in the second movie, set at a murderous summer camp in 1978) eluded the killers. They try to put a similar plan into action, but as this is just the first movie in the trilogy, even if they succeed, it can’t be the end of the story, which will obviously not conclude until the end of the third movie.

It’s hard to know who is the intended audience for this movie. The melodrama between the friends is straight out of Netflix’s other supernatural show for teens, Stranger Things (and in fact there are at least two actors doing double duty by appearing in both.) But in Fear Street, the teens sell drugs, have sex and do crimes so the show is obviously aimed at an older crowd; in particular one that will enjoy the stream of clips from ’90s alt-rock hits so ubiquitous it’s like someone is looping an ‘As Seen on TV’ music compilation set commercial under the entire movie.

The movie is not as cheesy as Stine’s more famous series Goosebumps, which was made for for pre-teens and adapted into a TV series for Fox in 1995. There is gore, but not much in the way of scares; the teens always seem to be running from the killers until the climax of the film. The young actors turn in adequate performances, but the script leans into the teens’ romantic turmoil a little too much.

It’s hard to render a final judgement on Fear Street: 1994; it only seems fair to see the story through to the end by watching all three films, which will be released once a week for the next two weeks. If for no other reason, watch them and enjoy the soundtracks from 1978 and, presumably, 1666 that are sure to liven up the action.