Fear Street: Prom Queen
Writer/Director: Matt Palmer
Based on The Prom Queen by R.L. Stine
Cast: India Fowler, Suzanna Son, Fina Strazza, David Iacono, Ella Rubin, Chris Klein, Ariana Greenblatt, Lili Taylor, Katherine Waterston, Brennan Clost
When filmmaker Leigh Janiak released a trilogy of films based on R.L. Stine's beloved Fear Street novels in the summer of 2021, they lit up the horror world. Here were three movies, drawing from a wide range of horror influences, that delivered all the raw teen emotions and goopy gore that Fear Street conjured in our heads. They were a home run, so it was understandable, and exciting, when Netflix announced more.
Now, almost four years after the original trilogy, Fear Street is back with Prom Queen, an adaptation of Stine's novel of the same name that's about, you guessed, a slasher attacking during a hotly contested prom queen race. It's certainly, on the surface, got everything you could want from a Fear Street story, including gory kills, local lore, and a twisty whodunit element within the slasher story. But as much as those elements are there, they never quite shine, even when Prom Queen is going all out to try to force some glimmer of energy into the scene. Despite the presence of a game cast and some memorable kills, Prom Queen can never live up to its Fear Street predecessors, and it can't help but be a letdown.
The film centers on Lori (India Fowler), a student at Shadyside High School who's running for prom queen despite feeling like the whole school is bound to vote for the resident popular mean girl, Tiffany (Fina Strazza). Tiffany's got a squad of friends, also prom queen candidates, ready to do anything to make sure she's elected. She's got an ambitious mother (Katherine Waterston) and a father (Chris Klein) who's a member of the Shadyside faculty. It looks like a sewn up race, especially as Tiffany keeps reminding everyone about a local tragedy involving Lori's parents years earlier, which ruined that particular senior class's prom.
But despite her place as the school's resident social pariah, Lori's trying her best to make the prom count. She's going with her best friend, the horror-obsessed Megan (Suzanna Son), she's got her eye on a cute boy (David Iacono), and she's genuinely hoping to wipe away some of the stigma surrounding her family by proving herself on the senior prom stage. Of course, that's all before a mysterious killer in a mask starts picking off prom queen candidates and anyone who gets in the way, all in brutal fashion.
Again, all of the elements of a solid slasher are here. Proms were made for horror, as films like Carrie and Prom Night have already proven, and Prom Queen throws things back to the late 1980s for an extra pop of period detail (the soundtrack is a legitimate jam) and retro fun. The killer has a distinctive, unsettling look, the movie doesn't hold back on gore, and there's that whodunit element to set up a grand reveal at the end.
In practice, though, all of these tropes and style points can only buoy the film so much. The script, co-written by director Matt Palmer and Donald McLeary, is crawling with predictable, repetitive dialogue, and while Palmer's camera buys the movie style points, the cast can only take the words they're given so far. In this 90-minute movie, at least three scenes are devoted to Tiffany tearing Lori down on account of her family's past, as though the film thinks we've forgotten the stakes and need reminded when, again, the whole thing is over with in an hour and a half. Characters frequently turn on each other in ways both big and small, and rather than milking that for mean girl drama, the film just sort of forgets these dramatic elements (one of Tiffany's friends, for example, has decided to run for prom queen by printing out fliers, in defiance of Tiffany's wishes) in favor of pushing ahead to the next essential piece of plotting to make the killer reveal work. And that reveal, once it finally arrives, sort of lands with a thud. Much like the jokes the film peppers in to try to lighten the teen horror load. At one point in this movie, which takes place in 1988, Roxette's classic hit "The Look" blares over the speaker system at the prom as part of a key sequence ripped straight out of Mean Girls, and while I love the song, something about it nagged at me. Sure enough, a quick bit of research later and I was reminded that "The Look" wasn't released until January of 1989, months after this movie takes place. It's not a big deal, but that little music nerd factoid is emblematic of the way Prom Queen works as a piece of storytelling. It all feels like a first draft, like no one thought to expand on any character arcs, tighten any dialogue, or shave off the rougher edges and loose ends. It all just spools out like so many intestines, splattering across the floor carelessly and without focus. The cast is solid, the concept is good, but Prom Queen doesn't do the Fear Street movies proud.
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