Fear Street Part 2: 1978 isn’t exceptional, but it does exactly what it needs to. The sequel-prequel stars two sisters, Cindy (Emily Rudd) and Ziggy (Sadie Sink), who no longer get along because of their broken family. Their father left them for a new woman, and their mother became an irresponsible drunk, leading to the threat of losing their house. For the summer, Cindy takes a job as a counselor at Camp Nightwing, hoping to save up for college and escape their cursed town, Shadyside. She also has to cope with Ziggy rambunctiously running around the camp, fighting her bullies, and resenting her. Sounds pretty normal, right?
Let’s get into this sisterly drama—Spoilers below!
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The movie starts with Ziggy being tormented by some camp bullies who believe she’s possessed by “the witch” (the entity responsible for the mass murders) due to her standoffish attitude and quick temper. The bullies hang her by her hands from a tree where the witch was murdered and nearly kill her by setting her on fire before camp counselors Nick (Ashley Zukerman) and Kurt (Michael Provost) intervene.
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The situation isn’t necessarily resolved, but Kurt still threatens to kick Ziggy out of the camp. However, Nick steps in and vouched that she wouldn’t, and Kurt begrudgingly accepted. Afterward, Ziggy and Nick share a tense conversation before she heads to the infirmary to get patched up. When she arrives, she notices that the office is empty, with a book open on the nurse’s desk with a cryptic message and an occultist symbol. Before she could further investigate, the nurse comes in to treat her wound and goes on a creepy rant about her daughter, Ruby Lane, who murdered seven people despite having no troubling mental health history.
Ziggy takes her words seriously and tries to talk to Cindy, who quickly dismisses her upon discovering that she had gotten into trouble again. The two exchange hurtful words, escalating to Cindy’s disowning of Ziggy and Ziggy’s warning to Cindy about her impending demise.
We loved how raw and authentic their sisterhood felt. The hatred the two claimed to have didn’t seem genuine, as they frequently asked about each other. Deep down, they were grappling with the pain of being abandoned by both parents (in different ways) and the devastation of losing sight of one another. When everything started to crumble, they couldn’t leave each other behind, and it was beautiful to witness their choice to die together. Even though Ziggy doesn’t actually die, which felt like an odd choice, the sentiment remained. We don’t have enough stories where sisters are allowed to be angry and ugly to each other without judgment, before slowly starting to see the error of their ways. We do wish they both lived, but maybe it was for the best structurally. Fear Street Part 1 and 2 are connected in a satisfying way, and we can’t help but enjoy it.
Some things we didn’t like were the forced romance between Ziggy and Nick, the missed opportunity to experience the characters or the camp longer, and how boring the kills were compared to the first movie.
Overall, Fear Street Part 2: 1978 gorgeously demonstrated what it means to love your sister and be loved by her. Maybe your soulmate is actually your sister—mine is!
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