WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Fear Street Part 1: 1994, now streaming on Netflix.
Fear Street Part 1: 1994 isn’t your typical slasher film. The opening scene subverts the genre, and the film soon introduces a supernatural element to its killers. Back in 1666, a woman named of Sarah Fier cursed Shadyside before being hanged as a witch. Ever since, she has repeatedly returned to possess normal people and turn them into killers.
Although Fear Street Part 1: 1994 only shows three of the witch’s henchmen, it details a long list of her murderous influence on Shadyside. Here are her many minions.
Ryan Torres
Ryan Torres committed his murderous actions in 1994, shown in the opening moments of Fear Street’s first installment. Ryan worked at the Shadyside Mall with his friend Heather, but one night, as he and Heather were closing their stores, Ryan went crazy.
Wearing a skull mask and a black, hooded robe, Ryan stalked Heather back to the bookstore where she worked. There he pulled a giant knife and tried to stab her with it. Heather desperately tried to flee but soon met he demise. Just before she died, though, Heather was able to remove Ryan’s skull mask, revealing his identity to viewers. A second later, Ryan is shot in the head by the town sheriff. Ryan's rampage was dubbed the Mall Massacre and claimed seven victims.
Camp Nightwing Killer
Besides Ryan Torres’ Mall Massacre, Shadyside’s most recent killings happened over a decade prior in 1978. During a hot summer at Camp Nightwing, one of the counsellors snapped after being possessed by the witch. During the yearly “Color War” activities, the killer had covered his face with a makeshift mask and began murdering children in the late hours of the night. He used an axe and a pitchfork to brutally kill 12 victims, and responding EMTs described the scene as “a bloodbath.”
There was, however, one survivor who was resuscitated after being stabbed in the chest with a pitchfork. C. Berman claimed to have seen the witch, and although she survived the incident, she warns Deena at the end of Fear Street Part 1: 1994 that the witch will always come back. The story of the Camp Nightwing Killer will be told in Fear Street Part 2: 1978.
Ruby Lane
The first minion that Deena and her friends encounter other than Ryan is Ruby Lane. Simon saw her sitting on a sidewalk and tried to talk to her, but Ruby responded by trying to kill him with a shaving razor. When the witch called on Ruby in 1965, she murdered her boyfriend and her friends using that same shaving razor. Then, she turned the razor on herself and slashed her wrists, bringing her body count to a total of eight.
In a fitting twist of irony, Ruby went around doing the witch’s bidding while she sang a song titled, “You Always Hurt The One You Love.” It seems that the witch has a sense of humor.
Harry Rooker
Harry Rooker was the Milkman Murderer, possessed by the witch in either 1950 or 1953. Josh tells Deena the former date when explaining Shadyside’s history, but while on an internet chat earlier in the film, he typed that the Milkman Murderer struck in 1953. Rooker’s victims were his customers, specifically the housewives to whom he delivered milk. When the witch called upon the scar-faced man, he pulled a switchblade knife and butchered seven of the women.
Humpty Dumpty Killer
Details on the Humpty Dumpty Killer are sparse, and that might be because the people of Shadyside only had limited details as well. All we have is a brief mention from Josh and a newspaper clipping from 1935. The headline on the paper reads, “Body Parts Found: Humpty Dumpty Killer Strikes Again!”
So, it would seem this killer's actions weren't limited to a single night of violence. Rather, the witch seeming convinced him to kill over a period of time and dismember them as he went. Then, he would causally leave body parts strewn around town for people to find. Because of his mysterious modus operandi, his identity and his kill count are not recorded.
Billy Barker
The witch does not only possess adults to do he bidding. Billy Barker was only a young child when he was compelled to kill those closest to him. He took a baseball bat and brutalized his whole family in their own home.
A newspaper headline from 1922 described the event: “Deformed Boy Bashes Brothers’ Heads While They Sleep.” The clipping explained that Billy was teased for his appearance, but before the familicide, he had not been violent in any way. However, when the witch compelled him, he had no way of holding himself back. Apparently, Billy wound up dead after the attack, although the newspaper does not specify how he died.
The Grifter
Like the Humpty Dumpty Killer, details about this killing are slim. What we do know is that one of Josh’s newspaper clippings read, “Grifter Guts Girls.” As Josh reads that headline from 1904 to Deena and her friends, we see a person in what looks like an old welder’s mask -- presumably the grifter -- drowning someone in a body of water. Perhaps this killer drowned the girls then gutted them -- but that still doesn’t serve to identify him.
The fact is that his name might be all the details anyone had. A grifter is someone who is known for swindling people on a small scale, so if that is the only name that the newspaper could attach to the killer, he must have not been well known to the Shadyside townsfolk.
Cyrus Miller
Cyrus Miller was the pastor at Shadyside’s church when Sarah Fier was still alive. After she was hanged for her witchcraft, Miller was the first one that she possessed, and that is fitting because Miller likely had a role in condemning her as a witch in the first place.
The newspaper clipping from 1666 read “Pastor Miller Snaps” after he killed a bunch of kids and cut their eyes out. Since the third installment of Fear Street is set in 1666, Pastor Miller should to be a key player in that film. So, we are likely to find out a lot more about who he was and what he did when the final film in the trilogy releases.
Samantha Fraser
Although they have some issues at the beginning of Fear Street Part 1, Sam is Denna’s girlfriend. Deena was mad that Sam had moved to Sunnyvale with her parents to get away from Shadyside. Their first time seeing each other in a while was at the vigil that Sunnyvale held after the Mall Massacre. Unfortunately, the vigil didn’t go very well, and a fight broke out between the two towns’ football teams.
Afterward, some Sunnyvale players followed the Shadyside bus home, taunting the players, with Sam was in the car. Deena, a band member, tried to dump Gatorade on the car out of the back door of the bus. However, she inadvertently caused the Sunnyvale players’ car to crash. Later, they all found out that after the crash, Sam had gotten out and stumbled upon Sarah Fier’s grave, disturbing the witch’s sleep and cursing herself. Most of the film is about Deena and her friends trying to keep Sam safe from the witch. By the end, though, they fail, and Sam is the latest in Sarah Fier’s laundry list of henchmen.
Directed and co-written by Leigh Janiak, the Fear Street trilogy stars Sadie Sink, Kiana Madeira, Olivia Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Darrell Britt-Gibson, Ashley Zukerman, Fred Hechinger, Julia Rehwald, Jeremy Ford and Gillian Jacobs. Part One: 1994 is available now on Netflix, followed by Part Two: 1978 on July 9 and Part Three: 1666 on July 16.