Movie Info
Movie Name: Fear Street Part 2: 1978
Studio: Movie Studio
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): July 9, 2021
MPAA Rating: R
Finally add some more blood and carnage to the series!
Sam (Olivia Scott Welch) has been possessed following their fight for survival from victims of Sarah Fier’s endless rampage against the people of Shadyside. Deena (Kiana Madeira) and her brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.) realize that the only hope could be the person who survived Sarah’s rampage in 1978…Christine Berman (Gillian Jacobs). From Christine, they learn a tale of two sisters Ziggy (Sadie Sink) and Cindy (Emily Rudd) who found themselves at Camp Nightwing in 1978. When Cindy and the other counsellors discovered the long lost home of Sarah Fier, the horror growing under the camp was about to erupt…and Sarah Fier was about to claim a new victim.
Directed by Leigh Janiak, Fear Street Part 2: 1978 is a slasher horror movie. Released on July 9, 2021 a week after Fear Street Part 1: 1994, the movie is the second part of the Netflix horror trilogy based on the series of books by R.L. Stine which were published beginning in 1989.
I thought the first Fear Street was rather sloppy. There were a lot of extraneous characters, underdeveloped storylines, and worst of all, it wasn’t very scary. Fear Street Part 2: 1978 does show an improvement upon the first entry, but it still has a ways to go to being great. Due to story aspects a minor ******spoiler alert****** is in effect.
Psycho Killer qu’est-ce que c’est…run, run, run, run, run, run, run away!
The umbrella story needs work, but the 1978 story is better. There are a lot of characters and not all of them are necessary. Often, horror movies need fodder to be murdered and it feels like Fear Street Part 2: 1978 has a lot of fodder that end up being rather non-descript (it feels like many could have been boiled down into one or two characters especially since the murderer targets many of the “generic” campers anyway). The core story is the relationship between the sisters and that does relatively work. It is heart of the story despite the story’s efforts to bury it.
Sadie Sink and Emily Rudd do a nice job as the “bad girl” and the “good girl” sisters. There is a good chemistry between the two which was necessary to make them believable as family who are willing to die for each other. I like Ryan Simpkins as the scrappy Alice, but feel her character was brought in a bit too late. Ted Sutherland is a too good to be true Sunnysider counselor, and McCabe Slye gets the distinction of being the film’s killer.
The best sisters do everything together
Throughout Fear Street Part 1: 1994, you saw a bunch of great Fear Street killers…and the movie lands on one of the least inspired and interesting looking ones. Despite a ho-hum killer, the movie has a lot of play with the 1978 theme (especially with a ton of music), and in general, the movie feels a bit more ruthless and bloody than the previous film…something that was necessary. There are a bit more jumps, but it still feels like there needed to be more sheer terror.
Despite being a movie trilogy, Fear Street still feels a lot like a TV show which isn’t really a compliment. It has a toe in the American Horror Story style of horror while trying to be darker. I know it is trying to be a vintage slasher in many ways, but there is something that I can’t quite put a finger on as to why it misses the mark. It is much closer in this entry, but it feels like a PG-13 movie mentality trapped in an undercooked R-Rated movie. It needs to go one way or the other. Fear Street Part 2: 1978 is followed by the final entry Fear Street Part 3: 1666.
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