"Fear Street Part Two: 1978" Film Review

"Fear Street Part Two: 1978" Film Review

Rating: 2/5

By: Nathaniel Simpson

    Following the massive success from its predecessor, "Fear Street Part Two: 1978", which was released a week after the first film, was a slower, disappointing movie to follow up. Instead of the non-stop slasher horror that was present in the first film, this movie focuses more on slower, drawn-out interactions between the main characters that just felt boring and redundant after a while.

    Set almost twenty years before the events of the first movie, we follow a younger version of C. Bergman from the first film (played by Sadie Sink) as her and her sister go to camp. When her sister's (Emily Rudd) boyfriend is possessed by the evil witch Sarah Fier, he goes on a killing spree at the camp, and no one is safe. 

    A common theme I noticed about slasher films that take place at a camp is that they are incredibly slow and focus more on the sexual relationships between the characters rather than the actual killings themselves. I personally do not like this as when I sit down to watch a slasher film, that is exactly what I'm expecting; not teenagers having sex for most of the runtime. Even though this film is toned down on the sexual content compared to films like "Friday the 13th", it still moves very slowly and feels like we don't get anywhere in the entire two hours. 

    Compared to the first film which moved at breakneck speed and never giving us a chance to breathe, this movie focuses more on character interactions. However, the characters aren't very lovable, besides Sink's and Ted Sutherland's characters. It's honestly very boring and too drawn out when we are watching the older teenagers try to escape the cave they are stuck in.

    However, when we do see the killer take action in the film, it is very well done and delightfully gory. We never really see a younger child perish throughout the film, but it still leaves a bad feeling in your stomach knowing that a young kid is getting hacked to death by the axe-wielding maniac. 

    From the trailer for this film shown at the end of part one, it seems as if we are promised to see more of the killers that were hinted at in the first film. Yet, I think we saw even less of them than we did in the predecessor of this movie. This is one of those cases where the trailer promises too much, and we are left feeling extremely disappointed when the credits roll. And that's how I felt throughout this entire movie - disappointed.