Fear Street Part 2: 1978 Review

 

Fear Street Part 2: 1978 is a slasher film and the second installment of the Fear Street Trilogy. The movie is produced by Chernin Entertainment and distributed by Netflix. Fear Street Part 2: 1978 is written by Leigh Janiak, Phil Graziadei, and Zak Olkewicz and directed by Leigh Janiak.

The story is it's 1978 in Camp Nightwing, and everyone is enjoying being at the bright and sunny camp. Soon things start to take a turn for the worse, when horrible things start to happen around the camp. The campers soon discover it has something to do with a shared history between Sunnyvale and Shadyside, now the campers from both towns must band together before it's too late.

Initial Reaction

Now I always had an intention of reviewing this movie because it's part of a trilogy. But what made me really want to watch it was part one was actually pretty good. Like I said in that review, there's a mythology going on and I wanted to see more of that.

Cons

I've got nothing to say. Let's move on.

Middle Ground

The only slight issue the movie has is a rehash of mythology, what I mean by that is during 1994 we learn a lot about why things are the way they are in Shadyside. Here, they really do tell us things we already knew, but thankfully we are told more about the mythology regrading what's wrong with Shadyside. So I think even though it was just a tiny problem, the writers made up for it by telling us things we didn't know later on in the film.

Pros

One thing that I absolutely loved about this movie was the huge Friday the 13th vibes this movie was giving me. They took all of the familiar things from that franchise and put it into here. The camp setting, the camp counselors doing quite a lot of naughty stuff when they think nobody is around, and of course we got mask killer. So being a fan of that franchise I loved how 1978 was basically a tribute. What also made the movie quite is much like Fear Street Part 1 nobody was save in this. Doesn't matter who you are or what age group you belong in, if the psycho with the axe has you in his line of sight, you're most likely gonna die. Another thing I enjoyed from this film were the performances. Especially from Sadie Sink and Emily Rudd who play the sisters Christine (aka Ziggy) and Cindy Berman. Those two had such great chemistry and really nailed it with this broken family relationship. I also want to give credit to McCabe Slye, I won't tell you who he plays because it's kind of a spoiler, but let me just say the role was he in, nailed perfectly. Whenever the camera focuses on his face, the look in his eyes are very terrifying. And my biggest praise I can give this movie and this was very much a welcomed surprise, is the character development. They were a lot more fleshed out than I thought they would be. We get to know so much about them, from backstory to why they turned into the people they are now.

The Fear Street Trilogy has yet another banger with part two. It had a great Friday the 13th vibe going for it, yet again counting the theme of nobody being safe in this series, good performances, and really good character development. The only slight issue was there was a little bit of repeating what we already know about the mythology, but in time we do get something new.

My final rating is Great.

Fingers cross that Fear Street Part 3: 1666 is just as good if not better. So, that's going to do it for me. Come back on Thursday, Jul 15th for my A Look Back at review of 1996's Space Jam. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day, and if you liked the first movie, definitely check out this one.