Well, like a dog returning to the kitty litter tray, it appears I did indeed come back for seconds. After all how could I possibly resist the Pavlovian dinner bell of Netflix's very own attempt at a slasher series? Even if it is glaringly inauthentic.
I don't want to harp on this kind of thing for too long (or maybe I do, harping on things is my bread and butter) but the fact that they're treating this whole thing almost like a TV series with recaps and teasers at the beginnings and ends shows that these people really don't know too much about the genre. I mean trying to string together a coherent narrative arc in a series of slasher movies? It's like trying to insert a Shakespearean sonnet into 'Lemon Stealing Whores', you're about a million miles from the point.
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| 'I do sayeth, my Lord; I pray to the Heavens that the ladies of the night refrain from stealing our lemons.' |
All slasher sequels as a rule begin by contradicting or outright rendering redundant the continuity established in the previous film. Continuity is for Transformers movies, my friends. If you don't understand that, you don't understand slasher cinema.
I will begin by saying, however, that the second instalment, 'Fear Street 1978', is a mild improvement over its predecessor if only for the slightly less goonish characters on display. But trust me, even with that caveat, the goonery is still strong with this one.
We begin with a recap of the previous film in which very little of anything significant happened. The world was deprived of a couple of goons, the sheriff wandered around looking confused and Deena became another entry in the Lesbian couple domestic violence stats. Following this, Deena - apparently indifferent to the fucking stab wound to the gut she received not minutes earlier - tracks down C. Berman, one of the only survivors of the Camp Nightwing Massacre of 1978. Initially she reacts as anyone would to a pair of teenagers driving up to their house with another teenager tied up and seemingly suffering a drug induced rage fit in the trunk of their car, and tells them to ram their witch bullshit up their arse.
After what has to be the least convincing declaration of love I've ever heard in a movie since... well 'Lemon Stealing Whores', Berman invites them in and tells them the story of Camp Nightwing as Deena seeps blood and stomach acids on to the carpet.
Welcome to Camp Nightwing; where 'Carry On My Wayward Son' and 'Cherry Bomb' are played on repeat to remind you that we are indeed in the 70s. No refunds.
Once the actual story starts we are introduced to the main character, Ziggy. She's basically a 70s version of Deena; moody, irrational and generally a doomer about everything; especially living in Shadyside because apparently no one here has ever heard of public transport. Seriously, hop on a bus to Hollywood and suck off Harvey Weinstein. Maybe you can get a bit part in 'The Burning.'
Cindy, Ziggy's sister, is the total opposite. She's a prim and proper Christian lass who's trying to better herself; much to the chagrin of her former friend and punk girl, Alice, who frequently lambasts her for not getting high off her tits on amphetamines every day. Of course, much like Sam in the previous film, Cindy eventually succumbs to the doomer gooner mindset and laments not spending more time with her friend injecting heroin into her eyes and getting fucked in the back of trailers by caffeine addled truckers.
You know, contrary to popular belief, slasher films have always been a conservative subgenre. You skinny dip too much, you engage in too much pre-marital sex, you drink and get high too much; you end up butchered by a masked human panzer tank. You exercise a bit of restraint and you might just survive. 'Fear Street' seems to be advocating the opposite. Do what you like, you're fucked anyway. The subversive goon screenwriter strikes again.
And at the end it's revealed that C. Berman - the woman who has been relaying this whole story to Deena and her brother - is in fact (gasp) Ziggy! Uh... wait... I thought that was apparent from the beginning. I assumed from the very start that Berman and Ziggy were the same person. Why is this film treating me like a fucking moron? Again.
Like I said near the beginning I did actually enjoy this one a fair amount more than the first. Part of that might be because I was drinking, but at the same time this film is an improvement over the first in a few ways. First of all, despite the doomer label I place on her, Ziggy is a bit more likeable than Deena, if only because those around her are genuinely worse. Her and Nick Goode, the future sheriff of Shadyside, actually have some decent chemistry on screen and so there's a bit more to root for here than in the previous film where the relationship between Deena and Sam seemed controlling and rife with issues.
The film seems to put more effort into trying to make it look like the period it's set in rather than simply blaring a medley of 70s hits at us, although the latter still occurs. The trouble is a lot of the same issues crop up again. Most of the scenes are poorly built up although again improved from the last instalment. And once again the town itself, as a background character, is neglected. We constantly hear about how shit it is to live in Shadyside but we're never really shown why. It's just shit and that's all. To top it off most of this film isn't even SET in Shadyside, it's set in a camp on the outskirts between Shadyside and rival town Sunnyside. Thus, outside of the witch curse stuff, we're never really shown in what way Shadyside differs from other small towns in terms of its oppressive nature. We never see what makes it uniquely terrible and so when the girls spend most of their time towards the final act bitching about how their lives suck it just comes off whiny.
Yes Alice, blame the town for all your problems. It's totally not because you smoke anything with a hazard symbol on it and hop on every pole with a pulse attached. This film is all tell and no show.
As for the over-arcing lore... what over-arcing lore? There's really not much to this. The witch possesses people and goes around indiscriminately butchering innocents. Again this would be perfectly fine if it weren't for the fact that it's trying to convince me that there's some kind of complex mystery surrounding this that warrants a back to back film trilogy. There's a bunch of stuff about how the witch's hand needs to be reunited with her body and that way the curse can be stopped but that's really the only bit of pertinent information we're given in this entire two hour movie.
This entire film could have been reduced to, at most, a twenty minute flashback sequence. It may be more enjoyable than the first one but it's somehow also more redundant. Slasher movies are generally useless; they're cinematic schadenfreude. You watch them because it's fun to watch idiots get distracted by bullshit as life suddenly catches up with them. And by life, I mean Kane Hodder. And yet somehow this managed to be more redundant than the average slasher flick.
Congratulations, Netflix. I'm proud of you.
Overall Quality Rating - 2.5/5
Same rating as before but I add a 0.5 for the overall improvements. It honestly is just a two hour version of what would normally be a ten minute flashback for all the info it actually gives us. Everything else is just showing the kids in the camp being killed (that we don't care about) and we already knew that happened so it really doesn't contribute much to the story arc.
Idiot Rating - 3/5
There are a fair amount more fun moments in this film that surpass the first one. A lot of the deaths are just axe murders but one or two stand out as particularly brutal and funny. One that stands out for me involves a decapitation in an outhouse. How the killer ends up with his sack mask from the first film is also notable. At least notable in how hilariously banal it is. Basically Ziggy puts the sack over his head during a scuffle and he just decides he looks fly and keeps it on despite clearly not being able to fucking see. Add to this a hysterical bargain bin Danny Elfman style incidental soundtrack and you have a medium level Idiot Movie.
Also big pulsating cave scrotum.
I'm DeadEye and yes, I'm coming back for thirds.
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