Shadyside serial killers are back in “Fear Street: Prom Queen,” which was released May 23 on Netflix as a stand-alone sequel to the “Fear Street” movie trilogy.
Set in 1988 between the first and second “Fear Street” movies, the film follows Lori Granger (India Fowler) as she runs for prom queen of Shadyside High School against her school’s mean girls. Things quickly go astray as mysterious masked killers hunt down the prom queen candidates one by one.
As a fan of the original “Fear Street” movie trilogy released in 2021, I was excited to see yet another Shadyside slasher unfold. However, with uninteresting characters and a stale plot, “Prom Queen” ultimately fell flat. This isn’t to say the movie is terrible, but that it paled in comparison to the “Fear Street” trilogy.
In horror films, a key aspect of the movie’s watchability for me is the killer. An interesting and scary horror antagonist can make a bad scary movie captivating.
In the original “Fear Street” trilogy, there were countless murderers that kept the audience on the edge of their seats. The Camp Nightwing killer, who wielded a bloody axe and ran full speed at his victims, left me genuinely unsettled. Other killers, like The Grifter with his leather mask or Ruby Lane with her eerie songs, were creepy and convincing.
Unfortunately, the “Prom Queen” killers were anything but creepy and convincing. Donning rubber red cloaks and goofy-looking masks, the pair crept up on their unsuspecting victims in a boring and predictable manner, popping up behind them to deliver the killing blow. With the original “Fear Street” killers, the costumes looked gritty and realistic. In “Prom Queen,” the tacky cloaks looked overly commercial and not at all frightening.
Another downside of this movie were the characters, who I failed to connect with or root for. Spoiler alert — a lot of the characters are murdered throughout the film. While some of those kills were gory and gross, they ultimately failed to invoke any emotion in me and felt boring because the movie had given me little reason to care.
In the original trilogy, I was rooting for several main characters, like Ziggy Berman (Sadie Sink) and Sarah Fier (Kiana Madeira). They were flawed, relatable and human and I genuinely enjoyed seeing them on screen.
“Prom Queen” had the opposite problem. The characters felt generic and cookie-cutter. The schools’ coveted mean girl, Tiffany (Fina Strazza), seemed stiff and cliche. Even Lori didn’t give me a reason to cheer for her. In almost every scene, she was either getting bullied by the mean girls or pining after a guy with a girlfriend. It felt as if her character was dependent on everyone around her, and I didn’t see much of her personality.
I was most anticipating the plot twist that I was sure would be the redeeming quality of this movie. And while the twist was good — I honestly did not expect it — it was lame compared to the shocking twist seen in the trilogy.
The twist ending, which was revealed in the final installation, “Fear Street: 1666,” was what made the trilogy stand out to me and solidified it as more than a campy slasher series, but instead a series with a genuinely great plot and well executed concept. It wove each movie together beautifully and while “Fear Street” obviously played off other slasher tropes, the ending made it original.
The overall plot and final twist of “Prom Queen” ultimately felt anticlimactic. I was hoping for much more involvement of the original trilogy, and although there were a few nods sprinkled throughout — like “Sarah Fier lives” scrawled across the bathroom tiles in one scene — I think there was much more that could have been done. Even the post credit scene, which ties back to the main villain of the trilogy, could have been more elaborated on.
In my opinion, the downfall of “Prom Queen” was its inability to live up to the original “Fear Street” films. “Fear Street: Prom Queen” should have centered on one of the many killers introduced in the trilogy. Most of the killer’s backstories are a mystery, so telling the story of one of them would have enhanced the first three movies while also providing new characters and plot.
“Prom Queen” is another cheesy teen movie with uninteresting characters and a subpar plot. However, the 80’s songs dispersed throughout and the easy-to-follow plot were some redeeming qualities that helped me forgive the film’s many flaws. While the movie certainly won’t win Best Picture, it’s still an okay-enough, light-hearted slasher to watch on a rainy day.
