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Parents' Guide to

Fear Street Part Two: 1978

By Brian Costello, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 17+

Horror sequel has violence, gore, drug use, language.

Movie R 2021 109 minutes
Fear Street Part Two: 1978 Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 16+

Based on 7 parent reviews

age 18+

Adults only

The first sex scene in this episode alone is what determined my decision to not allow my teens to watch it. I previewed this series to determine if I would allow my teens (who love Stranger Things) to watch with us as a family. It is a hard No. The sex scene of a male extensively thrusting a girl from several explicit angles was the determining factor. Although the only nudity of the scene is of the boy’s bare buttocks while aggressively thrusting, it is absolutely uncalled for & ruins a great series for younger kids. There are other sex scenes & sexual touching also. I feel that the sexual situations in all were inappropriate in the extent it showed. It will not go over younger kids head & will bring up very sexual questions, no doubt. It’s very unfortunate bc the slasher part of the episode (and series) is really good especially the 2-3 episodes. It is very gory. Lots of blood & dead bodies, the essence of a true slasher. The gore & blood would not have resulted in my decision to not allow teens to see. I think most teens would be fine with that. There are instances of a character admitting to cutting & showing scars. Plenty of bad language, no bad words were an exception. If the sexual scenes had been less I’d have allowed my teens to watch & would have recommended age 14+.
age 16+

Very good sequel!

This is better than the first one in my opinion. There are only 2 sex scenes in the whole movie which you can fast forward. There are many gory scenes as well. If you fast forward the sex scenes and some of the gory scenes, I would say 14+ or 13+.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (7 ):
Kids say (55 ):

This movie is better than Part One, with some actual surprising twists. Fear Street Part Two: 1978 continues the parody of/homage to the "teen slasher" movies of decades past, with gratuitous everything: ax murder violence, sex, profanity, drug use. While catching their breath between moments of gory bloodshed, the teens find time to talk about not fitting in, the "mask" of normalcy the popular kids must wear to hide their not-cool love of arachnids and Stephen King, bad parents, and getting out of their lousy hometowns as soon as they graduate. Like the first one, there are genuine attempts to sincerely address what some teens of any decade must contend with (depression, coming out to conservative parents, identity and pressures to conform), and while these are likely to be drowned out by the scenes of ax murders and witchcraft, it's a worthy effort and one that separates these movies from the slasher movies they're drawing from, where the teens are little more than hedonistic soon-to-be-victims of the homicidal maniac.

While the music placement isn't as obnoxious as Part One, there are definitely some eyerolling moments. Apparently, there's a law on the books which states that any coming-of-age nostalgia movie set in 1970s America must feature "Slow Ride" by Foghat or "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult, and preferably both. It's a cliche, but it's somewhat rooted in reality, unlike the irritating conceit of forcing the good musical taste of the writers into the "brooding rebel artsy quirky nonconformist misfit" characters (i.e. Juno and Stranger Things), because, apparently, The Velvet Underground, Runaways, and Buzzcocks were just as much a part of American teen 1970s pop culture as disco, the Captain and Tenielle, and "Carry On My Wayward Son" by Kansas. Furthermore, it shows where the parody becomes self parody, and distracts from the actual nostalgia for the YA novels on which these movies were based. Regardless, this is the rare example of a sequel that's better than the original.

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