‘Fear Street Part Two: 1978’ has a great look, thin story

“Fear Street Part Two: 1978” (Netflix) boasts slick but evocative production design as it takes its three-part story back in time without adding much to it. It has more engaging characters than in “Part One: 1994” as we meet a new crop of teen victims at Camp Nightwing.

So it’s the superior of the first two entries, and it will have me dutifully returning in a week to cap off the trilogy. And without a sense of dread. Both in the sense that it’ll be watchable, and in the sense that I won’t find it scary.

Engaging young heroines

Co-writer Zak Olkewicz is the new name on “1978,” joining returning director/co-writer Leigh Janiak and story-writer Phil Graziadei.

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The writing team’s best arc brings rival camp counselors Cindy Berman (Emily Rudd) and Alice (Ryan Simpkins) into a cave that features Satan-worshiping ephemera, mysterious red moss and one showstopping Lovecraftian creation.

Aboveground, Cindy’s kid sister Ziggy (Sadie Sink, who has a Britt Robertson quality) deals with a ton of Sunnyvalers who hate her Shadyside guts – including underused Sheila (Chiara Aurelia from “Cruel Summer”).

They’re free to take it out on Ziggy because, for one, it’s 1978 and bullies can get away with crap, and two, it’s time for Color War ’78. On the plus side, Ziggy might be hitting it off with Nick Goode (Ted Sutherland).

Off-putting violence

If “Part One: 1994” tapped into “Scream,” this one taps into “Friday the 13^th.” (In both cases, those movies came out two years after these films’ events.) But only in the broadest sense. This entry illustrates in brutal fashion how tame those Jason Voorhees flicks are.

Tween campers get slaughtered with an ax. Granted, it’s out of camera range, but the squishy sound effects leave no doubt what’s happening to these innocents. So, like the first entry, “1978” isn’t appropriate for young viewers.

Yet the “twists” are aimed at the age group of R.L. Stine’s YA “Fear Street” books. One is so telegraphed and goofy the writers should be ashamed; another did catch me by mild surprise; a third barely qualifies as a twist because the 1994 versions of the relevant characters weren’t clearly defined to begin with.

In all three cases, they don’t add to the story, only to how we see the characters.

Setting aside the issues of “appropriateness” and “target audience,” “1978’s” violence leaves a viewer feeling as dirty as if we were in that cave with Cindy and Alice.

The bonding story of the two counselors – proper Cindy and drug-experimenter Alice – is genuine. So is the spat between the sisters, with Cindy imagining a bright future is possible for a Shadysider and Ziggy being decidedly cynical.

Missing scares, mystery

There’s something unsavory about the mix of good character growth and slasher-movie killings in “1978.” It’s like the “Screams,” but dialed up to 11. That saga comments on the genre. Here, the murders are beautifully staged but crass entertainment, and that feels wrong.

That feeling might be interesting to explore except that the killings have no lasting impact on me. This is because of other problems: These “Fear Streets” aren’t scary, and they lack a mystery vibe. The history of Sarah Fier haunting the area was explained in Part One; weirdly, the storytellers act as if it wasn’t.

The 1978 trappings, from the look to the soundtrack, are impeccable. Staging, mixing and scoring (courtesy of genre veteran Marco Beltrami) are professionally done.

This veneer is incongruously wiggy. It’s too bad a gritty “Friday the 13^th” filter can’t be applied with the click of a button.

Having a talented young cast actually adds to this incongruity. I’d like to follow them into other works where they won’t necessarily get chopped to bits.

But as for “Fear Street Part Two: 1978,” oddly, it’d be better if it was worse.

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