WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Fear Street Part 2: 1978, now streaming on Netflix.
In Fear Street Part 2: 1978, fans were eagerly waiting to see how the Camp Nightwing killer came to be. He was seen wielding his ax to brutal effect in Part 1, so it made sense there’d be high anticipation for this take on Friday the 13th’s Jason, and it’s quickly revealed that this murderer is nice guy Tommy, but he doesn’t perform most of his kills with a mask on. It isn’t until the final act that Tommy gets his mask, and it’s due to an unlikely source.
Tommy gets dragged along when he, Cindy, Alice and Arnie find a map of what Shadyside used to be during the Sarah Fier period. They figure out where the witch’s home is and find her underground lair, where she possesses Tommy and turns him into her slasher. Arnie’s the first victim, and while the women escape, Tommy goes back to the camp, killing a bunch of teens.
Unlike most serial slashers, Tommy doesn’t choose his own mask. Instead, Fear Street Part 2 keeps Tommy’s face out there, which works for him as folks would usually run away from a masked slasher. However, Tommy disarms the victims as they think he’s one of them, leading to shocking scenes as he kills these innocents.
The mask does come eventually, with a half hour or so left in the film. Tommy’s tracking Ziggy down after he butchers Nick’s leg in the nature center, but she sets a trap for him in the mess hall. She uses fake blood — from a prank she didn’t bother with earlier — and lures him to the supply closet where she’s planning to stab him in the back.
However, Cindy breaks in from the witch’s underground tunnel at the same time, kicking the cassette player down from near the microphone. This stops the music from playing across the camp’s speakers, thus allowing Tommy to turn around when he hears Ziggy’s creaking footsteps.
In a frenzy, Ziggy stabs him in the chest, but he fights back. A struggle ensues and Ziggy ends up on Tommy’s back, pulling a burlap sack down from a shelf and placing it onto his head. Ziggy tries to suffocate him but he’s basically an avatar for the undead, surviving as she yanks it back. She eventually flees when she realizes she can’t kill him this way, but Tommy keeps the mask on.
Oddly enough, the mask seems stuck to his face because after Cindy finds him and bashes his head off with a shovel, he’s later spotted with it reattached and the mask still on as he continues his rampage with the witch’s other minions. Thus, it seems that Tommy really digs his look and that the witch may be his eyes and ears, guiding him on this bloody conquest.
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 Zuckerman, Fred Hechinger, Julia Rehwald, Jeremy Ford and Gillian Jacobs. Part 1: 1994 and Part 2: 1978 are now streaming on Netflix, followed by Part 3: 1666 on July 16.
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