Fear Street: Prom Queen
Review by Ryan Michael Painter
In 2021, Netflix released a trilogy of horror films under the banner of Fear Street. Based on the adult horror series from R.L. Stine (the creative force behind the more family-friendly Goosebumps franchise). All three films take place in the fictional town of Shadyside, the blue-collar neighbor to the idyllic white-collar utopia of Sunnyvale.
The first film took place in 1994, the second 1978, and the third installment took us back to 1666. Each film was a nostalgic tribute to the horror films of the 1990s, 1980s, and the period witchcraft subgenre.
This week Netflix gives audiences the fourth entry in the Fear Street franchise, Fear Street: Prom Queen (had they stuck with the original title formatting it would have been Fear Street: Part Four – 1988).
88 Minutes, Rated R
Written by Matt Palmer, Donald McLeary, R.L. Stine
Directed by Matt Palmer
Synopsis:
Welcome back to Shadyside. In this next installment of the blood-soaked Fear Street franchise, prom season at Shadyside High is underway and the school’s wolfpack of It Girls is busy with its usual sweet and vicious campaigns for the crown. But when a gutsy outsider puts herself in the running, and the other girls start mysteriously disappearing, the class of ’88 is suddenly in for one hell of a prom night.
As the title suggests, this stop on the anthology treadmill takes us back to Shadyside High School for the true horrors of prom. Told from the perspective of Lori Granger (India Fowler), an outsider who to either impress or connect with her mother decides to run against her neighbor, the ever-so-popular Tiffany Falconer (Fina Strazza). Though a Shadyside resident, Tiffany and her crew embody the Sunnyvale arrogance (if not their tax bracket).
Prom Queen, like the previous films, sticks to high school and horror tropes. There’s nothing here that isn’t telegraphed. That said, I really enjoyed the first three films. Those films were overseen by Leigh Janiak who co-wrote and directed all three films. Her absence is felt as Prom Queen feels a touch lazy. The cast is amiable, but the script and direction feels less like a tribute and more like a fuzzy photocopy.
I’ve watched quite a few horror films over the past few weeks and Prom Queen is far closer to the lackluster Clown in a Cornfield or Until Dawn than it is to the far more inventive Sinners and The Ugly Stepsister. What is worse is that I revisited Maxxxine, Ti West’s ode to the 1980s, the same night I watched Prom Queen. Maxxxine might be the least innovative of West and Mia Goth’s X trilogy, but it is leaps and bounds more ambitious and exciting than Prom Queen.
Prom Queen isn’t bad. It’s just too content to mirror other horror films without displaying its own sense of self. Janiak’s films were built from the same materials, and she still made a trilogy of films that were delivered with a sense of care and attention to detail that feels missing here. I’m perfectly willing to believe in zombies, vampires, demons, and whatnot, but there are real world inconsistencies in this film that were too jarring.
Bring Janiak back and I’ll be interested again.
Fear Street: Prom Queen is available to stream on Netflix on May 23 and stars Darrin Baker, Rebecca Ablack, Ilan O’Driscoll, Damian Romeo, Dakota Taylor, Eden Summer Gilmore, Brennan Clost, Cecilia Lee, and Ryan Rosery.
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