WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Fear Street Part 2: 1978, now streaming on Netflix.
Although Jason Voorhees is known for donning a white hockey mask and wielding a machete, that wasn't always the case for the seemingly immortal serial killer. Debuting as a vengeful child trapped in a man's decomposing body, Friday the 13th Part 2 showed a killer who relied on his camp surroundings for murder weapons and slasher disguise.
Similarly, Netflix's Fear Street Part 2 gives fans a Voorhees-inspired serial killer named the Nightwing Killer. Set in the late '70s, the R.L. Stine-based horror film pays a strong homage to the iconic Friday the 13th sequel in a variety of ways. But, the most inspired is in dressing its killer -- a possessed Tommy -- in blood-soaked flannel and arming him with an axe and sack over his head. Choosing to portray this stage of Voorhees' killing life also creates a fun parallel between Mrs. Voorhees and Shadyside's determined witch, Sarah Fier.
Friday the 13th, at its heart, is based around a mourning mother who has blamed her son Jason's drowning on the negligence of his camp counselors. Fueled by rage that her son could die as counselors were off having sex, she unleashes a murder spree at Camp Crystal Lake. Although she's beheaded at the end of the film with a machete, her death seemingly awakes her dead son to rise again. All we see of Jason then is a decomposing, naked body trying to drown its final girl, Alice. Jason returns five years later in Part 2 to a nearby training camp to avenge his mother's death. He seemingly hears calls of her voice stating, "Kill, mommy, kill." Her decomposing head and the machete that killed her are set on an altar as he hacks, strangles and stabs his way through camp counselors.
Being dead for so long, however, has left him without any tools for murder weapons, so all he has is what he finds on the campgrounds: rope, a pointed arrow tip, a kitchen knife and an axe (his favorite by the film's end). He dons a mask that is made from the pillowcase of his murder victims.
Fear Street Part 2: 1978 is set, for the most part, in 1978 at Camp Nightwing. The year and camp are iconic in the fictional town of Shadyside for the horrific massacre that happened there -- an overt nod to Friday the 13th. Early in Part 2: 1978, camp counselor Tommy is warned that he won't survive the night. He is then attacked by Nurse Lane, the mother of Ruby Lane, who is still grieving over her daughter's killing spree and suicide. Nurse Lane is convinced that her daughter was possessed by Sarah Fier and after researching the origin of the witch's curse believes that Tommy is doomed. She saw his name on a wall that's supposedly where Fier's spirit is housed. Off the bat, this entire scene reads like a deeper, loving nod to Friday the 13th, with Nurse Lane evoking a similar deadly determination to protect others -- even if it means killing a camp counselor to get there.
However, unlike Friday the 13th, this scene is just meant to subvert horror fans' expectations. While she fully intended to kill Tommy, Nurse Lane wasn't on the verge of a murder spree like Mrs. Voorhees so much as earnestly thinking that killing one life might save the fate of many at Camp Nightwing. Instead, Tommy is summoned by another dead entity -- Sarah Fier -- to be her murderous minion, feeding her blood which keeps her spirit alive in Shadyside.
Tommy picks up a nearby axe as his weapon and after being almost strangled with a burlap sack, decides to wear it as his serial killer look. Even after he's beheaded, Tommy comes back to life and chooses to keep the sack on his head. Although it's only alluded to in Friday the 13th: Part 2, both immortal serial killers are portrayed as mindless minions attached to a darker, vengeful force that wants their children to kill -- bloody altars and all.
Directed and co-written by Leigh Janiak, the Fear Street trilogy stars Sadie Sink, Kiana Madeira, Olivia Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Darrell Britt-Gibson, Ashley Zukerman, Fred Hechinger, Julia Rehwald, Jeremy Ford and Gillian Jacobs. Part One: 1994 and Part Two: 1978 are available now on Netflix. Part Three: 1666 will premiere on July 16.