WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Fear Street Part 2: 1978, now streaming on Netflix.
Fear Street Part 1: 1994 set the precedent that Shadyside has a history full of monstrous killers. They were all normal people who were possessed by a witch on her quest for revenge against the town. Fear Street Part 2: 1978 continues the story by going into the past and showing exactly what happened to one of killers shown in Part 1. Things were mostly normal at Camp Nightwing until Tommy became a killer.
Leading up to the big Color War -- where campers from Shadyside and Sunnyvale separate and compete in a night of activities and games -- weird things start to happen. Cindy and Tommy -- the perfect, responsible couple -- are doing all of the work while most of the other counselors are skipping out on their tasks. But while the two are cleaning the mess hall, Tommy is attacked by the camp nurse.
Nurse Mary Lane, the mother of the deceased and murderous Ruby Lane, comes out of nowhere with a kitchen knife. She says, “I’m sorry, but I can’t save you. I saw your name. I saw it on the wall. One way or another you’re going to die tonight,” and she goes after Tommy. A struggle ensues and the nurse is knocked out as she and Tommy wrestle to the floor. Tommy hits his head on a bench, is still visibly shaken afterwards and later starts to hear voices. Everyone believes that Nurse Lane just snapped for some reason, but many of the campers make fun that the witch made her do it.
Later, Tommy and Cindy go to look for a reason that Nurse Lane could have snapped in the infirmary, and they find Mary’s journal. It has the Witch’s Mark on it and a map of the camp with markings and references to the witch. While investigating, they are caught by two more counselors, Alice and Arnie, who decide that it’s a good idea to go and investigate the place that is marked as the witch’s house.
When they find the place, the four teens enter the house’s cellar and find much more than they bargained for. They see the Witch’s Mark carved into stone and a recently lit candle. As they start to investigate, the group separates into different rooms. It’s then that Alice shows Cindy a list of names carved into a wall of stone -- the latest entry is Thomas Slater. Cindy and Alice go to find their boyfriends, confident that someone must be playing a joke on them, but they are sorely mistaken. They walk in just in time to see Tommy taking an axe to the middle of Arnie’s forehead. Arnie, however, is only the first in a night full of gruesome and bloody murders.
Unlike Sam in Part 1 of the Fear Street trilogy, Tommy’s possession was not a case of the witch needing to track down a particular target. This was Sarah Fier coming to take her revenge on Shadyside like she periodically does. Her targets seem random, but they are always good and normal people, who become murderous psychopaths, ready to kill at her bidding. Tommy would have turned even if Nurse Lane hadn’t attacked him. He never had a chance because his name was already engraved on the Witch’s Wall – cursed to become the Camp Nightwing killer.
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.