‘Fear Street: Prom Queen’ review – A painfully awful slasher

Being a die-hard fan of the classic Fear Street books, I have to put my feelings aside whenever assessing these “adaptations”. They’re not made for me, someone who’s read and devoured R. L. Stine’s literary series since I was a wee preteen. And after watching Leigh Janiak’s objectively better-made and better-told trilogy from a few years back, I learned that fact quickly and made my peace. Even so, it’s hard not to feel disappointed with Fear Street: Prom Queen. This total reworking of the 1992 novel, Stine’s The Prom Queen, is bewilderingly awful. Change the original story? Fine, that’s to be expected, but now director Matt Palmer and his co-writer, Donald McLeary, have turned the fun and enjoyable source material into another generic, soulless slasher for the streaming era.

Because new slashers feel obligated to be set in the ’80s nowadays, Prom Queen chucks the book’s then-contemporary setting of ’92. The Newton Brothers’ Strangers Things-esque music reinforces this false notion of 1988 at every turn, but it’s such a trite score that you tune it out soon enough. Then come the needle drops, which aren’t as out of control as they were in Janiak’s movies, yet they feel less useful or necessary here. It’s just a way to fill the silence and, once again, remind you: This is the ’80s! Your love of these songs should help ease the pain.

With only the mildest connection to the previous movies to consider, we then settle in for a standalone story about Lori Granger (India Fowler), a supposed outcast at Shadyside High. Her mother is said to have killed Lori’s father, and now the daughter is the school freak. It’s the exact sort of cursory personal trauma that modern horror movies can’t help but insert. You’d figure a homicidal maniac would be enough trauma to deal with, but no, Lori needs a “real” reason to live; she needs to survive so she can stop being miserable about her family’s legacy and move on. The worst part here is, Prom Queen trauma-dumps without really dealing with the subplot in any substantial way, apart from the inevitable connection to the killer.

After she’s nominated for prom queen, underdog Lori and her fellow competitors are targeted and picked off by the antagonist. Palmer is taking ample cues from Alice, Sweet Alice and the original Prom Night, however, he doesn’t know how to use them in a way that’s not blunt or awkward. The initial set of kills is so mechanical in execution, not to mention suspenseless. Most of the time, the victims just stand there as the raincoat-clad assailant walks up to them with an axe, shop tool, etc. No amount of over-the-top gore can make up for this absence of tension.

As if the phoned-in, limp horror element wasn’t bad enough, then we have to meet and stay with the horribly written characters for another hour. Lori has no personality other than drab, even when given the chance to shine in that embarrassing-to-watch dance-off with her bully (Fina Strazza). It’s just these two uncoordinated white girls flailing to Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” and, my god, I wanted to die. As for everyone else, including Strazza’s aforesaid mean girl, it’s a head-scratcher as to how these characters are still being written. One-dimensional, constantly cruel and rude, and just asking to be killed. It’s as if the director and writer hate their own characters.

I smelled a turkey was on our hands after Prom Queen began dishing out promotional material that referenced better horror movies. It showed a lack of faith in itself, and the only way to get people on its side was to force nostalgia. Well, I don’t fall for that kind of strategy, sorry to say, and I looked at the movie on its face. And my, what a terrible face it has. Production values look appropriate for most Netflix fare these days — that’s not a compliment — yet, there’s an undeniable dearth of style to this whole shindig. It’s shot so blandly and rotely.

The state of slashers has me concerned, as of late, but nothing I’ve seen this year, at least so far, has terrified me as much as Fear Street: Prom Queen. And that’s not because it’s scary; by no means is this by-the-numbers, dead-eyed slayfest frightening. My dread has more to do with the fact that this movie will probably be liked and accepted, regardless of its mediocrity. For this movie, something that is so emblematic of everything wrong with filmmaking today, is one of the worst of 2025.

Fear Street: Prom Queen is now streaming on Netflix.