In anything but the slasher genre, the second film tends to flop because creators will either try to replicate the first film or go so far away from the source material that it doesn’t connect with fans. But the slasher genre sometimes surprises with films like Scream 2 or Friday the 13th Part 2 or even the cult love for Rob Zombie’s Halloween II. While Fear Street Part 2: 1978 doesn’t quit hit the highs of the first film, it still knows its intent and manages to bring it home in a mostly good-verging-on-great homage to the late 70s/early 80s horror films it apes.

After an opening that picks up immediately where the first one ended, 1978 gives full attention to C. Berman (Gillian Jacobs) as she attempts to help siblings Deena (Kiana Madeira) and Josh (Benjamin Flores Jr.) find a cure for Deena’s possessed love Sam (Olivia Scott Welch). C. Berman survived a massacre in 1978 and so she sits down to tell our heroes her story and how she survived while her sister did not. Trading the 90s aesthetic for a nostalgic and warm lens for the 70s, 1978 quickly introduces Camp Nightwing, a summer camp that has the same socio-economic conflicts that erupted in 1994 between the affluent Sunnyvale and the downtrodden Shadyside.

Ziggy Berman (Sadie Sink) is introduced running for her life from a group of Sunnyvale kids who believe she stole from them. Her face connects with Will Goode (Brandon Spink)’s fist and she finds herself dangling by her tied up wrists from the hanging tree by Will and Sheil (Chiara Aurelia), the latter of which says Ziggy’s possessed by the witch and burns her with a lighter. Luckily Will’s brother Nick (Ted Sutherland)--who will eventually become Sheriff Goode--shows up and stops the “witch” burning.

As Ziggy deals with bodily threats of violence, her sister Cindy Berman (Emily Rudd) is arm-deep in moss growing in the camp’s outhouses, complaining about how much there is to clean while scrubbing away with her boyfriend Tommy (McCabe Slye). Cindy is the opposite of Ziggy and it’s here that the story by Phil Graziadei (and screenplay by Zak Olkewicz and director Leigh Janiak) smartly plays with conventions. Both of the sisters are from Shadyside but, like the central drama in 1994, they deal with it in different ways. Ziggy embraces the moniker that the Sunnyvale teens give her. She’s scrappy and petulant and doesn’t try to be anything else.

Cindy, meanwhile, takes on the qualities slasher fans think make up the final girl. She’s virginal, slapping Tommy’s hands away when he reaches for her rear. She’s straight-laced, or a “snitch,” as her once-friend Alice (Ryan SImpkins) calls her. She’s soft-spoken and moral; when a curse word eventually leaves her mouth, her friends seem more surprised by that than the axe-wielding killer that chases them. But in one of the film’s more intriguing narrative beats, we learn that this is a facade she puts up to the world in order to be accepted by the Sunnyvale brats. And the narrative starts to slowly pick apart that nostalgic final girl motif that viewers expect.

Unlike the first film, the actual slasher portion of 1978 feels a bit rote. Like 1994, we know who the killer is as he gets possessed by the spirit. And like 1994, the narrative explores the Sarah Fier curse and adds some wrinkles to the story. While the body count seems a bit larger and puts kids in danger (the kills are off-screen), none of the kills have the same impact as the already infamous bread slicer. Yet the way 1978 expands on the mythos introduced in 1994 and introduces (or re-introduces) characters either mentioned or explored in the first film was fantastic. In particular, meeting Mary Lane (Jordana Spiro), Ruby Lane’s mother, and seeing how her daughter’s killing spree affected her, worked perfectly. Getting some additional information on the Goode brothers and seeing the tragic way the relationships between the sisters and Nick Goode played out was also a nice touch.

So while the slasher portion of Fear Street Part Two: 1978 failed to live up to the subtly subversive first film, Janiak’s direction and the way the narrative deepens the mythology made this a fun and inventive sequel.