An effective and knowingly silly throwback slasher, Fear Street: Prom Queen is the best instalment of the R.L. Stine based horror franchise yet. A no frills, but maximum fun “dead teenager” movie, Fear Street: Prom Queen tells a tightly packed, unencumbered story in the same fashion of the 1980s B-grade slashers it’s trying to emulate. This isn’t high art, but as late night snack viewing or slumber party fare, it’s satisfying sugar rush cinema.
The Shadyside High School Class of 1988 are gearing up for the Senior Prom. Candidates for Prom Queen this year are mostly friends of likely winner and resident mean girl pack leader Tiffany Falconer (Finn Strazza). Her dad (Chris Klein) is a teacher at the school, and her mother (Katherine Waterston) has been carefully grooming her for social success and popularity. But the unlikely front runner leading into prom night is a rebellious, outspoken, but well liked weed dealer (Ariana Greenblat). And then there’s the final candidate and biggest underdog Lori Granger (India Fowler), a likeable and kind everyday teen who always finds herself the object of Tiffany’s ridicule. Lori doesn’t seem to stand much of a chance, but in the lead up to the big night, an axe wielding, slicker wearing killer is killing all of the candidates (and their unfortunate doofus boyfriends, where applicable) one at a time. Has Lori’s tragic family history come back to haunt her? Has the school’s pious Vice Principal (Lili Taylor) finally snapped? Who wants the teens of Shadyside dead (again)?
Director and co-writer Matt Palmer (Calibre) doesn’t overthink things, but even the somewhat obvious reveal of the slasher and their motivations (mostly due to the film’s whittling down of suspects as it goes) doesn’t dampen the frequently gory fun. After a rocky start where our heroine explains all of the characters and the lay of the land in very quick, wordy succession, Fear Street: Prom Queen falls into a genre suitable groove and continues its forward momentum for a lean, fat free 90 minutes. Although the script from Palmer and Donald McLeary can get repetitive by reiterating the same several plot points over and again, the establishing of characters worth rooting for (Fowler’s strong, likeable final girl, Suzanna Son as Lori’s punk rock bestie) and jeering (especially Waterston’s absolutely pitch perfect portrait of an aging mean girl) works wonders.
Most of the budget set aside for 1980s period trappings in Fear Street: Prom Queen look to have gone towards hairspray and a soundtrack full of recognizable hits, but what matters most is how Palmer nails the tone of such a slasher from the era, and he does so better than any of the films in the trilogy that preceded this instalment. Palmer and his cast know precisely the kind of movie they signed up for, and that the concept of a prom night killer isn’t anything new. So instead of pretending to be something it isn’t, Palmer’s film sets out to be the best version of itself possible, which comes with its own sort of nobility.
There’s neon, big hair, Waterston rocking a hilarious windbreaker/tracksuit combo, ludicrously creative kills, nicely edited montages, a nice synth heavy score from The Newton Brothers that makes the cool decision to be more like Goblin and Tangerine Dream than John Carpenter for a change (with some serious Sorcerer vibes at times, which is nice, even though it’s not a horror film), and Palmer is never above mining some gruesome kills for comedic value (including a riotous bit involving a doorknob) or just getting silly for the heck of it (most notably during a hilariously sudden and awkward dance off sequence). Some deep cut references to the likes of Killer Party and Alice Sweet Alice (among many others) also caters to horror fans of a certain vintage who might otherwise feel like they’re too cool for a deliberately retro slasher. And to keep knowing viewers on their toes in a type of film that they’ve likely seen and loved before, Palmer proves adept at offering plenty of kills that happen with little to no warning.
Maybe being a fan of this kind of disposable entertainment means my bar for this sort of thing is low, but I would always rather watch an entertaining film that goes slightly above modest expectations than something that falls short of a cinematic chip shot by merely going through the motions. Fear Street: Prom Queen is the kind of film that if I had seen it back in the VHS era, I would have fond memories of it today. As a modern riff on those same tropes, the highest praise I can give Fear Street: Prom Queen is that it nails the vibe of watching something on premium cable at one in the morning on a weekend. And I think that’s precisely the kind of praise I think everyone was going for here.
Fear Street: Prom Queen premieres exclusively on Netflix on Friday, May 23, 2025.
