Fear Street: Prom Queen Review
Director: Matt Palmer
Date Created: 2025-05-23 14:37
1.5
Fear Street: Prom Queen Review: Directed by Matt Palmer and inspired by R.L. Stine’s famous Fear Street books, the movie takes us back to Shadyside, the blood-soaked town. The horror movie features Ariana Greenblatt as Christy Renault, India Fowler as Lori Granger, Ella Rubin as Melissa McKendrick, Suzanna Son as Megan Rogers, and David Iacono as Tyler Torres. We also find some familiar faces amongst them, such as Chris Klein and Katherine Waterston.
The movie gets its creepy backdrop during prom time in 1988 in Shadyside High, where a squad of fashionable “it girls” fight for the throne, only to disappear one by one. What is to be a glitzy teen drama becomes a dark, killer prom night with secrets, blood, and betrayals.
Fear Street: Prom Queen Review
Having enjoyed the Fear Street trilogy a couple of years ago, I was really looking forward to this latest addition. The initial ones had this great knack of leaping through various periods of time, so it was always something new and unexpected. It was mystery, history, and horror rolled into one. So, of course, I had high expectations for Fear Street Prom Queen. But the movie failed to deliver, at least in my opinion.
Let’s start on a positive note, because yes, there were a few. I did enjoy some of the death scenes—so over-the-top melodramatic I couldn’t help but laugh a little, even as I cringed. If you’re the kind of person who enjoy gore kills just for the shock value, you’ll probably enjoy it. The makeup and effects team must have had fun coming up with those scenes. And playing around with the 80s setting was fun, with its disco-dancing prom dresses, dance lights, and oldie songs.
But aside from those superficial moments, the rest of it just felt flat and hurried. The story, if you can even call it a story, was pretty simple and full of gaps. We’ve got a new girl who enters the prom queen race, and then the other girls just start disappearing. Sounds like a bash, doesn’t it? But Netflix’s Fear Street: Prom Queen never creates any suspense and provides us with any actual reason to care about these people. Half the time, I was just lost as to who’s who, and the other half, I was annoyed with how ridiculous and unrealistic their choices were.
One of the largest issues with the Fear Street: Prom Queen film was with the pacing. The movie cuts from scene to scene without giving the viewer any chance to breathe or connect with what is happening. A massive plot revelation is discovered (and yep, I called it a mile away), but even that is wasted because it wasn’t built up. There are a few subplots that are introduced, like high school cliques and rumours, but they don’t go anywhere. It seems like the script had more ideas that it wanted to implement and just didn’t do any of them any sort of justice.
What also irritated me was the effort the film took to throw 80s nostalgia our way. I appreciate a good retro myself, but this one was phoney and not always sincere. Instead of being woven organically into the story, it felt more like the film was making a conscious effort to remind us, “Hey! It’s the 80s!” without necessarily applying the decade in a meaningful way.
Also Read: Sirens Review: Wealth, Power, and Sisterhood Enfolded in Unbalanced Storytelling
And the characters—well, I just really didn’t like any of them, to be honest. They were all fairly unpleasant, their dialogue was strained, and their behaviour made absolutely no sense at all. I kept finding myself sitting there thinking, “Nobody would ever actually do that,” and in a horror film, this kills the tension. It’s one thing for characters to be stupid; it’s another for them to be completely irrational just to advance the plot.
And then the ending, I’m not going to spoil it for you, but it wasn’t very impactful. It didn’t tie up the loose ends or have anything that you’d remember. I was just sitting there, going, “That’s it?” For a trilogy that had such a great series, this stand-alone film was a huge letdown.
Fairness would be that maybe the thought was to produce a campy, over-the-top slasher with gaudy thrills. If they were trying to achieve that, they succeeded to an extent. But even camp has to be smart, and this film lacked the charm and smarts to make it so. It was too gory with too little story to support it.
Netflix Fear Street: Prom Queen Review: Summing Up
Overall, Fear Street: Prom Queen wasn’t for me. A few decent moments here and there, but overall it was a rushed, superficial, and forgettable one. I still have a place in my heart for the Fear Street franchise and hope that future entries can take a page from the creativity and sense of mystery that made the original three such classics. But that prom night? One I could live without.
Fear Street: Prom Queen 2025 is now streaming on Netflix.
Also Read: Real Men Review: Too Confused to Matter, Too Forgiving to Feel True
