Film Review – Fear Street: Prom Queen

May 27th, 2025 | POSTED BY Allen Almachar

Shadyside just can’t catch a break. On the outside, it looks like any typical American suburban town. But when we look deeper, we see a nest of murder, tragedy, and horror. It seems no matter what that town does to move on from its sordid past, the darkness comes bubbling back up like clockwork. We saw it play out in the trilogy Fear Street (2021), incorporating a very loosely connected arc that jumped between 1994, 1978, and 1666. Being known as “Murder Capital, U.S.A.” is a reputation I’m sure most Shadyside residents would not care to embrace. Unfortunately, with Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025), the tradition of people meeting untimely deaths has once again reared its ugly head, this time in the year 1988.

The initial Fear Street trilogy wasn’t exactly a revolutionary act of cinema, but it was ambitious. Director Leigh Janiak adapted the R.L. Stine book series into a three-part meditation on what it’s like to be young, an outsider, and different. Themes of sex, gender dynamics, and inclusion upended traditional horror tropes. The result was, while imperfect, a new take on a familiar blueprint. Prom Queen does none of this. Working as a standalone entry into the Fear Street series, director Matt Palmer (who cowrites with Donald McLeary) wipes away much of what made the first trilogy work, instead taking Stine’s foundation to make a straightforward and typical ‘80s style teen slasher. By doing so, Prom Queen operates simply by the numbers. It offers its fair share of characters getting hacked to bits, but it also ends up being the least interesting installment so far.

Every person we meet feels like a horror movie cliché. Lori Granger (India Fowler) is our protagonist. Lori is a teen whose troubled family life has made her the target of ridicule from bullies. She comes up with a plan to get voted as prom queen to help clear her family name – because that sounds like a good idea, right? Helping Lori is her best friend Megan (Suzanna Son). Megan is so loyal to Lori that she would pretend to chop her hand off in class to rattle anyone that gives them grief. Standing in the way of Lori’s goal is Tiffany Falconer (Fina Strazza), a stuck-up mean girl who orders her “Wolfpack” friends to do her bidding. The narrative amplifies the rivalry between Lori and Tiffany by having them live across the street from one another, creating hilarious moments where each stare out their bedroom window at the other. The tension between Lori and Tiffany only escalates when – out of sheer coincidence – a masked killer starts picking off the students one by one. Will Lori survive long enough to reveal who the killer is and win prom queen at the same time? Oh, the drama!

In terms of look and sound, Prom Queen doesn’t recreate the ‘80s aesthetic but rather imitates it. This is a world that feels more like a parody of that time frame rather than an accurate translation. The hairstyle, costuming, and production design only give the most obvious references (Cassette tapes! The big hair! The shoulder pads!) The cinematography adds a grainy texture to the visuals. But instead of a film-like quality, the photography looks like a filter layer on top of a digital picture. The most egregious stylistic choice is in the music. The needle drops are so heavy handed that they stick out like a sore thumb. From “Gloria,” “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” to “Hungry Like the Wolf,” the soundtrack is littered with overused ‘80s pop hits. Perhaps the most mind numbing is the inclusion of Rick Asley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” That song has garnered an online reputation as a troll song – used as a click bait meme better known as “Rick Roll.” Is the movie trying to say that it is “Rick Rolling” the audience with that song?

To the film’s credit, it delivers some nifty and funny scare scenes. The design of the mysterious killer – sporting a red rain jacket, black gloves, and gold-plated mask – isn’t too far removed from what we normally see out of the genre. Most of the fun that comes from the horror is in how the production added a slap stick quality to its construction. It riffs off the notion that many characters that bite the dust in horror movies are – more or less – pretty dumb and clumsy. There are a few instances where the killer shrugs his shoulders in annoyance, bothered by how absent minded his targets turn out to be. In one instance, a character meets their demise not by any doing of the killer, but because they simply trip over their own feet. Another example has a person, whose hands have been freshly removed from their wrists, trying in vain to open a door. That garnered the biggest laugh out of me – one of the very few times.

What qualities there are quickly dissipate as the narrative sludges its way to its conclusion. In trying to replicate the style of the ‘80s slasher genre, the film accidentally picked up some if its worst attributes. This includes one note characters, a villain whose identity doesn’t make much of an impact, and a paper-thin story that only serves as a platform for the scare scenes. Whenever we move away from the horror elements, the momentum stops in its tracks. This is shown in not one, but two dance sequences. The first involves Lori and Tiffany battling each other on the dance floor, trying to outdo the other to gain favor with their class. India Fowler and Fina Strazza should be applauded for committing to the bit, because the dance itself comes off as awkward. Even more awkward is a number that Tiffany and her fellow Wolfpackers perform on stage. Donning American flag swimsuits, the girls – who we recognize as high school teens – prance around to the delight of male onlookers. Could this be a comment on the sexism of ‘80s teen horror films? Maybe, but the handling of the scene doesn’t make it seem so. Just because the Vice Principal (Lili Taylor) points out how inappropriate the dance is, doesn’t justify it appearing in the movie in the first place.

Overall, I mostly like Fear Street. There are tons of avenues to explore, and no shortage of R.L. Stine books to mine from. The way things are going, it seems Netflix is set to make this an ongoing series, even if it doesn’t follow the approach of the first trilogy. Hopefully, future installments will add a little more flair and creativity than Prom Queen. It has the pieces of the era it wants to imitate but does nothing unique with them. It’s not enough to simply do what has been done before. If that’s the case, what’s the point of watching something we’ve basically already seen?

Donald McLeary, Fear Street, Fear Street Part 1: 1994, Fear Street Part 2: 1978, Fear Street Part 3: 1666, Fear Street: Prom Queen, Fina Strazza, India Fowler, Lili Taylor, Matt Palmer, Rick Asley, Suzanna Son