Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025)
Directed by: Matt Palmer
Premise: Based on the book by R.L. Stine. The competition for the title of prom queen at Shadyside High School turns deadly.
What Works: The previous Fear Street trilogy established sibling towns Sunnyvale and Shadyside whose communities are plagued by tragedy. Prom Queen takes place in Shadyside and the film has a sense of history. The high school administrators try to force the student body and the community into a better future but the desperation is obvious and futile. Prom Queen riffs on 1980s teen slasher films. The filmmakers of Prom Queen shake up the formula a bit by setting about half the film at the high school dance and the movie ends with a late reveal that incites an extended final sequence. Storytellers usually avoid multiple climaxes but in this case it works and the secondary ending adds some surprises to an otherwise predictable movie.
What Doesn’t: Prom Queen recalls the teen slasher films of the 1980s like Prom Night, The Slumber Party Massacre, and Slaughter High but it’s not clear what the filmmakers were trying to achieve. Prom Queen is set in 1988 and it follows the basic formula of slasher films of that time but it falls short as a replication. It does not have the nastiness or sleaziness of those films. It’s sexless and everything looks too digital and clean. The costumes look like contemporary actors at a retro party instead of fashion native to the time. If Prom Queen is supposed to be a sendup like Student Bodies or The Final Girls it has no wit or insight into the movies it’s satirizing. The characters are all obvious types. Everyone is exactly the kind of person they are initially presented to be and the mean girl banter is daft and lacks passive aggression. It’s also just not very scary. The lighting is not moody enough and the violence isn’t executed in a way that creates suspense.
Disc extras: Available on Netflix.
Bottom Line: Fear Street: Prom Queen is a disappointment especially when compared to the quality and storytelling of the 2021 trilogy. It doesn’t work as an homage to 1980s slasher films nor does it offer much in the way of scares.
Episode: #1070 (October 26, 2025)