What’s up, I’m dos Santos and this is Ulven Reviews: movies and series from all over the world and all eras. Today let’s talk about Fear Street: Part two – 1978.
Still in 1994, Josh and Deena meet C Berman (played by Gillian Jacobs), the only survivor of a camp massacre in 1978.
She tells them the story protagonized by two sisters: Ziggy Berman (played by Sadie Sink) and Cindy Berman (played by Emily Rudd).
Cindy and her boyfriend, Tommy (played by McCabe Slye), found a map with a supposed location of the former house of the witch who cursed the town.
Together with Alice (played by Ryan Simpkins) and Arnie (played by Sam Brooks), another couple, they journey through the forest trying to find this place.
Meanwhile, in the camp itself, Ziggy together with Nick Goode (played by Ted Sutherland), who later became the town’s sheriff, are trying to protect the kids from the massacre caused by the witch’s curse.
Fear Street, now, part two 1978. As I did with the first review let’s isolate the movie just a little bit. Forget about part one and part three, and judge the film just by itself.
Just from that, we can say Fear Street Part two is a very solid movie. It’s fun, has scary and gory moments, and a little bit of comedy, as well. I would say the funny moments are less present than in the previous film. Despite being less frequent, the humor is very well done here as well.
The general mood of the film is more dense, more serious, there are much more traditional horror elements to this film. It’s scarier and has more emotional impact, especially, because the violence hits closer to the core characters of the film.
Not only the horror is more intense in this part two, the romance – or the fucking scenes, to be more specific – are much more intense than in the previous one. Which is nice, gives more of a raw feeling. I think I talked about this briefly when I reviewed Bacurau. And, by the way, there’s no one fucking and kissing while there’s danger out there. They fuck and kiss thinking everything is okay and normal.
The nostalgic component is present in this movie, as well. It’s both an homage to the old movies of the 70s, the old slashers, and it’s also a great reconstruction of that era. The costumes and settings are flawless to compose this feeling, this environment, and then there’s music, but I’ll talk about that later by the end.
Well, in summary, I would say isolated part two is a better movie than part one, but the truth is the two complement one another. I can’t wait for part three to tie everything up. I’m even thinking about re-watching parts 1 and two before watching part three tomorrow.
Yesterday, when I was editing the video for part one I noticed some major foreshadowing that I couldn’t notice before because I haven’t watched part two yet. To make things clearer I’ll give an example.
There’s a shot of a very important tree in the first movie. The first time I watched, I couldn’t care less, because it was just an establishing shot in my mind. After watching part two, I saw the same shot and went “Oh shit! Now I get it”. So watching parts one and two, and then tying everything up with the third, I think I’ll have a lot of these moments.
Now let’s get into the characters.
There’s no character I dislike. I would say the character Sheila (played by Chiara Aurelia) would be a disgusting person if she was real, but as a character, she is quite nice, to be honest. She’s the bully who helps us empathize with the protagonist, and she gives some nice comedic moments, as well.
The Berman sisters are great! I love seeing Cindy’s character arc, and I love how proactive Ziggy is in everything, even to save her nemesis.
Another one to highlight is Alice. She’s a junkie and has an attitude, especially towards Cindy. It’s clear they have a rough past between them. Like the sisters, she has a lot of moments of proactivity and also has a great character arc.
Since the movie’s action is divided in several places we don’t have much of these tree together, but it would be amazing if we did.
This trio is also my highlight regarding the acting. Their performances are amazing! I didn’t know Emily Rudd previously, and seeing her character in the beginning, I thought she was just gonna be another disposable character, but with the development of her character she put on a show. She’s flawless!
Sadie Sink is probably the most remarkable of the movie. Since I didn’t watch Stranger Things, I only knew her from Eli. She was nice there as well, but only here I could see her range and potential. She is clearly a rising star.
And Ryan Simpkins was a glad surprise. I also knew her previously from the movie The House (comedy movie with Will Farrell). She has a lot more to do here on Fear Street since her character is much more complex and compelling. And she didn’t disappoint, I love her performance.
I would also like to point out how McCabe Slye changed his performance from one phase of the character to the other. Two completely different characters and he did that very well.
And jumping from his character, I think is the right moment to address something I forgot to talk about in the first review, special effects. And when I’m talking about special effects I mean the shit I can see, not the shit you need a documentary to know that is there.
I’m very ignorant about special effects. The only thing I know about it is from watching one video or another from the Corridor Crew channel.
So, shit we can see! The gore is crazily good. I absolutely love it, it’s flawless. The killings with the ax are very cool and it’s even more gruesome than real killings with an ax. For example, I already saw videos of cartel members dismembering women alive with an ax. The context is awful, of course, but visually is not that impactful.
When making a movie, the professionals have to know when to enhance reality a little bit, otherwise, you won’t impact the viewer. And the people in Fear Street, both in part one, but especially in part two, executed this perfectly.
Staying in the visuals, I already talked about the costumes and the settings, now the cinematography. I don’t have too much to add from the first installment. The style of camera work that I liked in the first is still present here, but I can’t remember much of that drastic and colorful lighting that I loved in part one.
Similar to the cinematography, there’s a lot I already talked about regarding music in the first review. However, I said I will bring some more examples, and I will bring my favorite of both movies.
At the beginning of the movie, I believe when C Berman is beginning to tell her story to the kids, they play The Man Who Sold The World by Nirvana, which is probably the only Nirvana song that I like and it’s not even an actual Nirvana song, by the way.
After C Berman tells her story, when we are about to get back to her, the song playing is The Man Who Sold The World, however, this time, since we’re in 1978, the version playing is the original version by David Bowie.
It’s such a small detail, but that gives some more dimension to the movie. I love this type of little thing, it demonstrates the care the filmmakers had with every detail of the movie.
Fear Street: Part two – 1978 is another great movie and it’s even better when we attach the two first installments of this trilogy together. I’m hoping that the third one don’t disappoint us. I’ll give Fear Street: Part two – 1978 again 8 Moons.
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Thanks for watching see you in the next video.
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