Fear street: Prom Queen, crowned worst movie in the franchise 

The summer of 2021 Netflix released Fear Street directed by Leight Janiak. This horror mystery trilogy based on R.L. Stine’s books was released in the span of three weeks, all becoming well received movies and garnering a strong fan base. 

Fear Street: Prom Queen follows Lori Granger, an underdog-like character who lives in Shady side, who’s just been nominated for prom queen and hopes to win so she can redeem her family’s legacy. She soon realizes there will be more to worry about than being prom queen as the nominees go missing throughout the night. 

Taking inspiration from many cult-classic slasher films like Halloween, Prom Night, and Scream, the film features a masked killer pursuing the characters along with the use of a “final girl” horror movie trope where the last surviving female character confronts the killer.

The film has been hotly anticipated, but fans who were hoping for more of the same, should know that things are different this time around. The new film is directed by directed by Matt Palmer who took a different approach to the franchise by focusing on just one-story line as well as emphasizing the movies slasher genre. 

The main subjects of the previous Fear Street films were the recurring curse that has plagued the people of Shady Side Ohio since 1666 and the teenagers working together to break the curse. However, Prom Queen doesn’t carry any of these themes. Instead, there is not much of a mention of the previous films. Series characters such as Sarah Fier, a witch who was accused of cursing Shady side, is absent in the new film. And there is no mention of Shady side vs sunny side, good vs evil trope of the rest of the series. The only references are little easter eggs you must look out for such as graffiti and a small memorial of the 1978 camp Night wing massacre.   

Something enjoyable about the movie was the casting being diverse as well as recognizable. We get to see actors such as David Lacono, known for his role in HBO’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” Katherine Waterson, and Ariana Greenblatt, who many fans were excited to see in the movie. However, Greenblatt’s character being the opening kill doesn’t even get a chase seen like Maya Hawks character in Fear Street part one. Making her exciting role in the movie a miss and a waste of a popular and talented actress. After that, the rest of the deaths in the movie felt rushed, lacking suspense, and were just there for shock value. 

The movie is full of random scenes that serve no purpose in progressing the plot of the film. The dance battle between our protagonist Lori and antagonist Tiffany is pointless to the story, and the cheesy one-liners give us even more reasons to dislike the movie.  

The characters were mostly all shallow and lacking character development. At some point in the movie Lori puts eyeliner on and becomes a totally different person, more confident, loud, and outgoing compared to her quiet personality in the beginning of the movie. But besides Loris’s eyeliner transformation, there are not many changes throughout the film and all characters maintain their core values. However, we see Ella Rubin’s character Melissa McKendrick, one of the most dynamic characters in the whole film, stand up to her bully friend Tiffany, only to then die in the next scene. Furthermore, Tyler Lori’s love interest dies right after he tells her how he feels about her so I’m noticing whenever a character becomes more dynamic, they must be killed off.  

For a horror movie, the pacing was quite slow. Having the plot twist at the very end and only adding the “witch’s sign” in the end credits and making it seem like a lousy attempt to connect the film to the rest of the franchise. And as the movie reaches the end, the killer is revealed in a Scooby-Doo-style unmasking. Also, the reveal of the other killer was lackluster and predictable adding to this movie’s blandness.  

The film taking place in 1988 was semi accurate to the decade, including many popular songs from the 80s like “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics and “Hey Little Sister” by Billy Idol, making the soundtrack the most authentic thing about the film. None-the-less, many were disappointed in the lack of “authentic 80s style” such as the hair being more like today’s hair styles instead of the big 80s hair and crazy makeup associated with that time. Some even say that it felt more like an 80s-themed prom than an 80s prom. 

Fear Street: Prom Queen is a movie that had the opportunity to be great if they followed what made the Fear Street franchise popular in the first place. But, failing to do so made this movie a mediocre watch full of unnecessary scenes, shallow characters, and a predictable plot that relied on unsurprising tropes, making this film a corsage of cliches.  

Cover Image: Netflix