The Fear Street Universe Explained
It takes a long, long time for the truth about the Sarah Fier story to come to light, which means the people of Shadyside endure a whole lot of misery in the meantime. The very first killing spree to rock the community was a particularly vicious one, as the beloved Union County pastor, Cyrus Miller, decided to make a mockery of a children's nursery rhyme by gouging out his own eyes — and theirs too.
Miller was just the first in a string of notorious killers who helped Shadyside earn the nickname "Murder Capital USA." Other Shadyside killers who made headlines for their heinous misdeeds include Isaac Milton, a steel-masked killer; Billy Barker, a boy who bashed his own brothers' heads in with a bat; Harry Rooker, a milkman who terrorized the town's women; Ruby Lane, the singing slasher; Thomas Slater, the Camp Nightwing ax-slinger; and, most recently, Ryan Torres (David W. Thompson), the Skull Mask killer, who kicks off the action in "Fear Street" by knifing his fellow mall workers.
Somehow, the fact that these serial slayings only ever happen in Shadyside — while their neighbors in Sunnyvale, which is the Goodes' neck of the woods, enjoy the picture-perfect existence — never convinces anyone that there might be something to the cursed town concept. Turns out, being constantly inundated with the witch poem has turned most of the folks into cynical skeptics, who accept that it's all just a gloomy coincidence.
But there is one person who believes it all. See, before 1978, all of the killers who tormented the town eventually met their own bitter ends — and, more importantly, they all stayed dead. What happens at Camp Nightwing in the second "Fear Street" film changes everything. Tommy Slater (McCabe Slye) becomes the newest Shadysider to go on a rampage with his ax, but unlike others before him, Tommy is apparently impossible to kill. Making matters worse, other notorious killers from the past also come back to target Ziggy Berman (Sadie Sink) because, after her sister finds Sarah Fier's missing hand, Ziggy accidentally bleeds on it and reignites many years of mayhem.
To stop the onslaught, Ziggy has to die, but she's fortunately revived by her Sunnyvale buddy, Nick Goode (Ted Sutherland), who parts ways with her after she mentions her newfound belief in the witch curse. Since Ziggy is the only other person left alive to tell the tale, she basically becomes a social pariah and spends the next few decades alone and afraid.
