Mark Reviews Movies: FEAR STREET: 1978

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | July 8, 2021

With most of the exposition and mythology and characters and premise established in the previous movie, Fear Street: 1978 does something rather daring. The sequel basically dismisses everything to which its predecessor had been building.

The surviving protagonists of Fear Street: 1994 are here, but they're only present in this installment's prologue, which picks up immediately after the end of the previous movie, and epilogue, which leads directly into what's supposed to be the final entry in co-writer/director Leigh Janiak's trilogy. Horror sequels are, of course, commonly and, to be blunt, often rightly degraded as repetitive, but this one is an exception.

The biggest shock with this one, though, isn't just that it's superior to its predecessor. By doubling back on the history of a cursed town, Janiak and co-screenwriter Zak Olkewicz open up a broader world of potential. It kind of makes one wish this series weren't coming to its conclusion, because there are so many other stories hinted at and teased by the premise.

To get the forward momentum of the series' overarching plot out of the way, we're reunited with Deena (Kiana Madeira) and her younger brother Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.), who were the sole survivors of an attack by multiple, resurrected slashers, brought back to the nightmarish town of Shadyside by the curse of a witch who was executed over 300 years prior. The other physical survivor is Sam (Olivia Scott Welch), Deena's girlfriend, who is now possessed by the witch and has a singular mind for murder.

The two hope to save Sam by finding a way to break the witch's curse, and the answer might be known by another Shadyside resident. She, played by Gillian Jacobs, survived a previous possessed killer. Now, the mysterious woman lives a secluded life behind multi-locked doors.

Until the final scenes of this film, that's the end of the tale of Deena, Josh, and Sam within this installment. The rest of it jumps backwards in time, to that summer camp in 1978, when the woman and her sister were witnesses to a slaughter.

Janiak suggested something of this sort in the first installment, when the assorted killers—including the one featured in this entry—who stalked Deena, Josh, and their friends represented different eras or subgenres of horror movies. In the sequel, Janiak goes beyond allusion and fully embraces homage.

The setting should make the specific homage apparent, but in case it isn't, the music score by Marco Beltrami and Brandon Roberts makes it even clearer upon the introduction of Ziggy (Sadie Sink), one of the sisters, when a familiar repeated, whispering hiss appears on the soundtrack. It may not be a specific bad-luck Friday at Camp Nightwing, where camper Ziggy and her elder sister and camp counsellor Cindy (Emily Rudd) are dealing with the Shadyside/Sunnyvale antagonism. It might as well be, though, in terms of Janiak and cinematographer Caleb Heymann's visual style, the melodrama unfolding between the counsellors, and the inevitable moment when Tommy Slater (McCabe Slye), Cindy's boyfriend and soon-to-be cloth-mask-wearing slasher, picks up an axe.

The plot here does connect to the one happening in 1994 (not to mention the all of the terrible stories that have unfolded since the witch's killing back in the 1600s), but it does so in indirect and clever ways. Tommy becomes possessed by the witch, as forewarned by the camp's nurse (played by Jordana Spiro), whose own daughter was also a supernaturally brainwashed murderer (She's the one, as some will recall from the first installment, with the straight razor and the ominous singing). Cindy and camp bad-girl Alice (Ryan Simpkins) try to unlock the mystery of that in the witch's underground lair, while a sweet romance between Ziggy and a young Nick Goode (Ted Sutherland), who will later become the local Sheriff, is interrupted by the horror of Tommy's brutal slaughter.

It is brutal and horrifying, and like with the previous installment, Janiak's film, adapted from R.L. Stine's book series, isn't for kids looking for goosebumps. There's an awful relentlessness to Tommy's stalking and killing here, which specifically targets Shadysiders—regardless even of age (Janiak makes the distinct decision to keep the vicious murders of children off-screen, although suggestion and sounds of those killings are just as horrific as the graphic hackings and beheadings).

The filmmaker doesn't play games with this (We get some of the usual clichés, like subjective shots from killer's perspective and sex leading to death, but since this is homage, we accept and even chuckle at such moments). There's even a surprising acknowledgment of the characters undergoing the trauma of this horror as it unfolds.

The major characters—all of them dealing with the pressures and expectations of their reputations, their families, and their hometowns—are surprisingly strong, too. Nick wants to prove himself as more than just the heir apparent to his late father's role as the area's top cop. The sneering Alice has plenty of reasons for her cynicism. As for the central siblings, the conflict between Ziggy, who rebels against everything on account of feeling cursed by everything, and Cindy, who tries to hide her own pain behind a goody-two-shoes persona, is emotionally sound and, ultimately, tragic.

Indeed, there's a real weight to the idea of a curse in Fear Street: 1978, and it's not just about some immortal, wicked witch. It's about being seen in a certain way, because of one's circumstances, or feeling as if those circumstances are inescapable. Whether or not the third and final installment of this series follows through on these ideas remains to be determined (Once again, the wait won't be long), but the in meantime, this entry is a solid, chilling, and thoughtful piece of horror.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products