Premise: The trilogy continues where it left off. There’s even a ‘previously on’ montage. The survivors of the massacre back in 1994 continue their quest to break the Curse of the Witch of Shadyside by speaking to one woman who survived a previously mentioned massacre at Camp Nightwing in 1978. This is her story. DUHDUH!
Spoilers ahead.
What I Liked: Yet again the acting is great. There’s a lot of emotional beats that scream kings and queens have to hit to keep the audience engaged, and we had our share of queens here. Sadie Sink (ZiggyBerman), Emily Rudd (Cindy Berman), and Ryan Simpkins (Alice) were phenomenal. Every horror movie needs a final girl(s) to sell the story, and those three sold it for me. They switched from fear to survival like powerhouses.
The thing that make the camp-themed slasher films of ol’ so much fun was the shattering of innocent camp past times (swimming in a lakes or color wars) with the harsh reality of adulthood. We don’t live forever and children aren’t always safe. So naughty camp counselors get hacked. Dopey slow children don’t make the cut either. Fear Street banks on nostalgia of this theme to some success (i.e. camp counselor boning rather than doing their jobs, brief nudity, shady movie monster wielding an ax), BUT…
What I Didn’t Like:…. just because the elements are there (See: boning counselors, brief nudity, and ax-wielding murderer), it needs to be put together right. Fear Street loses points in several occasions.
The soundtrack (While great) didn’t always deliver the chills needed to elevate the fear. Several times in the film, the music was used to juxtapose the action, but it didn’t work because we had one too many chases and fight scenes for any particular one to stand out as epic.
The bullies who bullied are protagonists never really get what’s coming to them, which baffled me because what was the point of intentionally make the viewer dislike a character NOT for them to fight back like hell or die gloriously. It appears the Shadysiders were the sole target of the witch’s curse, which stands out like a metaphor for what this “curse” is doing. It’s almost like somebody is intentionally projecting their wickedness onto others. (That’s a hint to what I think is really going on here.)
Another area that I found lackluster was the massacre. There’s plenty of good old fashion hacking in this film, but it never ratcheted to the level of its predecessor. Several deaths during this camp nightmare were done with great creativity. However for a “rated R” film, I guess I wanted more, which sounds awful and calls to question how desensitized I am. Camp kids were tastefully offed off screen with blood splatters to give the illusion. Why not just show me? Really sell the horror of it all.
Ultimately what kills this is the lack of mystery. In Part One, we were already told of this camp massacre. We even saw our movie monster give chase to our Part One Protagonists. We know there’s a survivor, whose true identity I guessed immediately, because the story wasn’t really hiding it. Without that bit mystery of who actually survived the camp, the whole thing feels like a filler, an episode meant to fluff up the real story: how Sarah Fier came to lose her hand and why the town is cursed. Because we already knew some details, the mystery was lost and I as a viewer was easily distracted from the screen unlike in part one.
Overall: Though the film doesn’t stand on it owns, that wasn’t the intention. It purposefully adds to the Fear Street world/mythology/anthology. Though I feel that Part 2 is not as great at Part 1, it’s one of Netflix’s top streamed last week. If you must piece together where and how this curse works, it’s worth a watch. Like a good trilogy, Part 2 ends where Part 3 will beginning (with several familiar faces playing new characters). I look forward to the story of Sarah Fier and her missing hand back in 1666. I’m ready for the truth. Look out for my review of Fear Street Part 3!