Fear Street 1978: Every Easter Egg & Reference In Part 2

Like its predecessor, Fear Street Part 2: 1978 features a variety of Easter eggs and references to horror movies, books, and notable personas of the ‘70s. The three-part horror film series on Netflix is directed by Leigh Janiak and based on a book series of the same name by Goosebumps author R.L. Stine. The events of each film are surrounded by the lore of Shadyside’s curse by a witch named Sarah Fier who was executed in 1666 and possesses Shadyside residents to exact her multi-century revenge.

Fear Street’s second installation features largely an entirely new cast with a few cameos from characters like Deena and Josh from Part 1. Taking place 16 years before Fear Street: 1994, Fear Street Part 2 focuses on the Camp Nightwing Massacre in 1978, following Shadyside sisters camper Ziggy (Sadie Sink) and counselor Cindy (Emily Rudd) Berman, along with fellow Shadyside counselors Tommy, Alice, and Arniem Sunnyvale ally Nick Goode, and Sunnyvale rivals Will and Sheila. Aside from the towns’ rival socioeconomic disparities, the camp faces a warring tragedy once Tommy is possessed by Sarah Fier and goes on a killing rampage on Shadyside citizens.

While most of the slasher movies that came before involved brutally gory deaths of the older teens and adults, Fear Street: 1978 was notable for taking the horror to the next level and slaying its young tween campers, albeit in off-screen deaths. No one is safe besides the Sunnyvaler’s in the second installment of Fear Street, breaking away from implied horror rules of films past while still paying homage to their inspirational elements. Here are all of the Easter eggs and film references included in Fear Street Part 2.

Friday the 13th

The most obvious slasher film homage from Fear Street Part 2 is to the classic 1980 horror summer camp movie Friday the 13th. The main villain in the latter is Jason Vorhees (and his mother), a figure hooded with either a hockey mask or burlap sack over his head to cover his face. The burlap sack on the serial killer in Fear Street 2 is an Easter egg to Friday the 13th Part II, where Jason wears the same burlap mask. Once the killer goes on their rampage, both films’ campers must hide and evade the ax he wields in the dark of night. There’s also a stoner-type counselor in both, a stuck-up alpha-male jock, and the main camp counselor named Alice, though Friday the 13th’s Alice ended up being the final girl instead of a murder victim.

Stephen King

The acclaimed horror author becomes one of the first uniting tools for Shadyside and Sunnyvale when Ziggy and Nick mention they both love his books. Ziggy comments about how it doesn’t seem like his character considering how scary and unlike the clean-cut Sunnyvale type she would expect of him the novels are, to which Nick replies he’s an extremely popular author. Chatting about Stephen King is the way Ziggy and Nick realize they can let down their hometown stereotypes and actually fall for each other as just themselves. When first discussing their shared love for Stephen King, Nick mentions his other favorite is Salem’s Lot, which was one of King’s only other published books at the time the movie takes place besides Carrie.

The Shining

Ziggy and Nick talk about Stephen King novels several times, even alluding to The Shining when Nick says he hears King’s next book is supposed to be good. Fear Street Part 2 also gives a visual nod to The Shining when Tommy goes on his killing rampage and starts breaking down the bathroom door with an ax, which is an homage to Jack Torrence tearing apart the bathroom door to try to kill Wendy. Running around with an ax to murder friends and family in the dark while possessed by another entity is also a signature of The Shining that Fear Street isn’t the first to copy.

Carrie

Another Stephen King product that Fear Street: 1978 pays homage to is Carrie, particularly the scene in the book/movie where the titular character gets pig’s blood dumped on her at the prom. In Fear Street Part 2, the situation is referenced when Ziggy and Nick set up a trap for Sheila in the bathrooms where she originally plans to dump red paint on her head, but Nick suggests a bucket of bugs instead. Ziggy and Carrie are also similarly targeted by the popular kids with graffiti; Ziggy’s bed is defaced by “Ziggy is a witch b*tch” and “Ziggy sucks c*cks in hell,” which is similar to Carrie being called “Scary Carrie” and having her grave defaced with “Carrie White burns in hell.”

Halloween

While Fear Street Part 1 featured tracking shots reminiscent of the in-the-distance Michael Myers in Halloween, Fear Street Part 2 takes the homage a bit further. When Sarah Fier’s minions begin to attack Ziggy and Cindy, the young Shadyside killer Billy Barker bears a resemblance to Halloween’s masked murderer Michael Myers. While Barker’s newspaper clippings in the first movie reveal he was a child with a facial deformity, the visual compositions of Fear Street: 1978 make him appear to be wearing a white mask that resembles Michael Myers’. Similarly, the Milkman Killer appears in a Halloween-inspired Michael Myers tracking shot where a seemingly white-masked, blue jumpsuit-wearing, knife-wielding killer walks towards Cindy and Ziggy.

David Bowie

One of the most overt references to a figure of the ‘70s is Ziggy Berman’s name, which is a direct homage to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust stage moniker from 1972 to ‘73. When Deena and Josh go to visit C. Berman, she reveals her dog’s name is Major Tom, which is a reference to David Bowie’s song “Space Oddity.” The parallels of Ziggy’s name and C. Berman’s dog being Bowie references are also hints to C. Berman’s real identity as a grown-up Christine “Ziggy” Berman instead of the expected Cindy Berman. David Bowie’s name is also referenced on a label while Fear Street plays Nirvana’s cover of his song “The Man Who Sold the World.”

The Exorcist

Fear Street: 1978’s plot does deal with possession, though many of the film references come from slashers instead of demonic, Satanist presences. Nonetheless, The Exorcist (1973) does find a way into Fear Street Part 2: 1978 through a small Easter egg. When Ziggy’s bed is defaced with graffiti by Sunnyvale campers, one line written on her wall says “Ziggy sucks cocks in hell,” which a direct reference to The Exorcist when a possessed Regan tells Father Karras his mother “sucks cocks in hell.”

About The Author

Jordan Williams
(816 Articles Published)

Jordan Williams is a Movie/TV Feature Senior Staff Writer for Screen Rant. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies.

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Jordan is based in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring the natural beauty the PNW has to offer. She runs on coffee and classic movies, taking pride in having watched every film on AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list and every Best Picture Oscar winner.

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