But this is about Part Two. And first off I have to say I was thrilled to see Sadie Sink as a lead in this. Max in Stranger Things was a personal favorite of mine. I’m sure part of that had to do with the Kate Bush song connection. In this movie she plays Ziggy, sister to C. Berman, an inveterate troublemaker who starts this movie off on the run from other teen campers who want to hang her! The hanging doesn’t happen, but she is partially lit on fire. Man, kids can really be jerks. And then, when a counselor intervenes, the kids who literally have a girl tied up to a tree and burned aren’t the ones who get in trouble.

A great thing this series does, as it explores the story of Sarah Fier, is let the mystery and uncertainty play out. In life, nothing is ever in tidy little boxes, and the writers of these show how much they understand this. When Ziggy goes to the nurse to get her burn looked at, we find out that Nurse Lane is the mother of Ruby Lane who was a witch possessed killer in 1965. We did meet Ruby in the first movie as she chased down Simon with her straight razor. I love how they are weaving the story across multiple movies. I need to do a deeper dive on the Saw franchise, but that is the thing I loved most about it. Weaving story elements between movies. And Nurse Lane tries to kill Tommy, claiming that “One way or another you’re gonna die tonight.”

“Tonight” is the first day of the camp Color War event, pitting Sunnyvale against Shady Side. A theme that is the perpetual backdrop for these two sister cities. We don’t know why Nurse Lane had the knowledge she did, but she was correct. Cindy, Tommy, Alice and Arnie go out to search for the Witch’s House. It’s a bit more of a Hobbit hole though, with an open grave style entrance. It was fairly easy for them to find and begs the question why don’t random campers find it. Being in the witch’s house though is confusing.

Tommy’s possession takes full control of him and Arnie is his first victim. Something is calling out to Cindy from deeper in the house. Luckily, Cindy and Alice manage to collapse part of the structure separating them from Tommy. Mere moments before all this though, Alice shows Cindy some giant stones that have the name of every Shady Side killer etched

(WordPress is being stupid lately and won’t let me edit anything. I wanted to back up to my comment about weaving story elements together and point out how in the first movie we are shown a connection between sheriff Nick Goode and C. Berman. But it isn’t explained. In part two though we find out that Nick and Ziggy became friends at the camp. And in the beginning of this, C. Berman tells us her sister died at the camp. So a connection is made there, as we can now assume they bonded as survivors of the tragedy, because Nick did get close to Ziggy and was protecting her throughout.)

into them. (remember the WordPress being stupid? This is just continuing the previous paragraph.) Alice and Cindy are trapped though and Tommy is unleashed on the unsuspecting campers. Color War shows the origins of each camper, as they are split into Red (Sunnyvale) and Blue (Shady Side), and Tommy seems to care more about going after Shady Side kids. Which brings me to something I wasn’t expecting. Tommy runs around with an axe killing as many Blue kids as he can, but not really pursuing the Red ones. A concept we begin to see more hints at. The witch is pissed at Shady Side specifically, so her possessed minions are targeting them. And in a surprising turn for an American made movie, the killer is actually murdering kids!

There are twists and turns as the rest of the story plays out that I don’t want to fully reveal. But I can absolutely say that I am a fan of these. There is still the third part (1666) which takes us back to the days of Sarah Fier. And then a follow up movie, Prom Queen, that seems to not be within the Sarah Fier continuity. Although more on those will be coming soon.

Currently, this gets a 9 from me as well. Good job Netflix.