Avis Metacritic

The surprise isn’t that it deviates from the groundrules set out in the film before it, or even the scores of horror films from in and around the decade in which it’s set. It’s that when Fear Street: 1978 is given the opportunity to fulfill the promises it’s made for itself, it does so unreservedly, with a clear sense of purpose.

Netflix’s flashy RL Stine trilogy continues with a darker Friday the 13th-aping horror that brings more shocking gore and excellent performances.

While Fear Street Part 2: 1978 still offers some thrills, it's not a cut above its predecessor.

Despite the sometimes tedious pacing and repetitive script, it’s a classic-feeling slasher that delights in gore — think Friday the 13th — and an affirming example of Janiak’s confidence behind the camera.

Fear Street Part 2 also thrives once it really gets going. There’s a certain rough patch at the start that the film thankfully shrugs off, eventually sucking us into its night-dark story of doomed youth. A potential – and potentially questionable – romance that blooms between Ziggy and Nick Goode (Ted Sutherland), the boy destined to grow up and be sheriff, is charming in its clumsiness. A side character like punk rocker counselor Alice (Ryan Simpkins) seems annoying at first, only to blossom into someone we’re actively rooting for. After two films, the real strength of Fear Street is in its characters, not its scares. No one is expendable meat here – but that doesn’t mean they won’t get ground up in the end.

In the moment, what it does do well is tease the increasingly metaphysical conclusion that is swiftly approaching, which looks to shed some of the “slasher movie” trappings and embrace the idea of a supernatural evil that resonates and repeats across centuries and generations of lives. Here’s hoping that the Fear Street trilogy can stick the landing.

A darker middle act, Fear Street Part Two: 1978 lacks the verve of 1994 but still delivers enjoyable summer camp-based bedlam. Next up: 1666.

Fear Street in general and the 1978 chapter in particular are at their best when forging their own path, which makes it a shame when they’re too reluctant to walk it.

The kills come and go with a perfunctory swiftness that suggests a condescension to the material, not a genuine affection for it. That’s why the gore feels like scant reward: There’s plenty of blood but no heart put into pumping it.

If you’re going to make a movie in which a psycho slices away at both campers and counsellors in direct homage to the age of Jason Voorhees, you need to go scuzzy or go home. A proper slasher movie should make you want to take a shower. Here, I felt sparkling clean.