I was underwhelmed by Fear Street Part 2: 1978 because it was exactly the same movie as Fear Street Part 1: 1994, except that the cast and location changed (the second movie switched to Camp Nightwing and an earlier time period).

And I think that that’s expected if you’re dealing with the typical movie where your fortunes ride on box office returns, not when right off the bat your trilogy of movies is shot exactly in the fashion that the producers seemingly intended.

The third movie goes back in time to 1666, where we meet Sarah Fier and see what caused her to curse the town of Shadyside, never mind the ongoing series of murders that seemingly have been going on for decades.

We learn that while there’s definitely a curse on Shadyside, though it isn’t Sarah Fier that’s responsible for it.

This is where the YA (Young Adult) origins of the material are betrayed because while I appreciate the effort that seems to have been put into the story, if it were handled in a more mature manner I think that it would have been much more effective.

And, while I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be horror for YA audiences, I grew up watching movies like was watching movies like The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) or Arnold (1973), which is to say horror movies (I know at the time that I probably shouldn’t be watching them but there was no such thing at the time as horror skewed toward younger viewers, and if there was I probably wouldn’t be too interested in seeing it).

I think that much of what people have to do – never mind younger people – are way too much monitored these days and relatively harmless methods of challenging boundaries are challenged.

Besides, I think it’s not a bad thing for people to realize what they’re seeing on screen isn’t real though what can happen (and did in my case) is that after initially being somewhat freaked out you begin to see the practical effects underpinning the visuals, and the art that it very much is.