Fear Street: Prom Queen (dir. Matt Palmer)

by Jack Martin | May 23, 2025

Certificate: 18

Running Time: 90 mins

UK Distributor: Netflix

UK Release Date: 23 May 2025

WHO’S IN FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN?

India Fowler, Suzanna Son, Fina Strazza, David Iacono, Ella Rubin, Chris Klein, Ariana Greenblatt, Lili Taylor, Katherine Waterston, Brennan Clost

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Matt Palmer (director, writer), Donald McLeary (writer), Kori Adelson, Peter Chernin, August Linn and Jenno Topping (producers), The Newton Brothers (composers), Márk Györi (cinematographer), Christopher Donaldson (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

In the town of Shadyside, a high school prom is overshadowed by murder…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN?

Prom is a surprisingly popular go-to for horror movies, and for a good reason. What better time to destroy the promising futures of several teenagers than a night designated for dancing, sparkling dresses and tuxedoes, and spending time with closest friends? The likes of Carrie, The Prowler, and most explicitly Prom Night all recognised the poetic potential of slaughtering teens in their prime, especially on the then-best night of their lives, and so did author R.L. Stine whose 1992 horror novel The Prom Queen, the fifteenth entry into his Fear Street book series, similarly took the promises of prom and chopped them into several pieces.

Naturally, the book has now become a film, designed as a standalone follow-up to Netflix’s 2021 trilogy of adaptations, and Fear Street: Prom Queen – as directed and co-written by Matt Palmer – revels once more in that twisted view of prom which often makes for gory slasher entertainment, even if the movie itself isn’t able to shine as brightly as those other examples.

We once again find ourselves in the cursed town of Shadyside, this time in the year 1988, with just two days to go until the high school prom. It’s all that the local teens can think about, especially the growing line-up of candidates to be named Prom Queen, among them the mean popular girl Tiffany Falconer (Fina Strazza), and Lori Granger (India Fowler) whose dark family history has tainted her overall reputation amongst her peers. But when the big night finally arrives, it’s quickly overshadowed by a masked figure who’s targeting the Prom Queen candidates and murdering them in brutal fashion, until the two prime competitors are left.

It’s all incredibly familiar if you’ve ever seen a slasher movie before, especially one set at prom. The film carries pretty much every prom movie trope imaginable, from the spiked punch bowl to the puritan adult chaperones to a DJ playing nothing but 80s hits (the latter of which honestly gets a pass here, seeing how it’s set in the 80s, and also the fact that there are some certified bangers on the soundtrack), to of course the catty and eventually deadly rivalry between teen girls seeking to wear that plastic tiara by the end of the night. In a sense, Palmer doesn’t seem too concerned about rewriting this formula, as his film is intended to be as much of an homage to movies like Prom Night and its subsequent sequels as Stine’s original book was. As a matter of fact, Fear Street: Prom Queen serves as something of a love letter to that era of horror, with over-the-top gore effects, a synth-heavy score -courtesy of The Newton Brothers – and even a poster of Lucio Fulci’s Zombie plastered on a character’s wall, who themselves is heavily into creating their own brand of Tom Savini-style prosthetics and putting them into practise in the classroom or even the dance floor.

It’s one thing to be an homage to these kinds of movies, but it’s another to actually be its own movie on top of all that, and Fear Street: Prom Queen isn’t unique enough to truly stand out among the very films it’s constantly paying tribute to. Many of the characters – played by actors who are clearly well beyond high school age in an amusing distraction – are stock high school types, whether it’s the (seemingly) good-hearted jock making googly eyes with the main protagonist (who of course is wearing a white dress to symbolise their purity or something), or the impossibly cruel clique of popular girls who at times make the Plastics and the Heathers collectively look like the teens in The Breakfast Club, with little dimensions among them to really care as and when they’re in danger of being killed. Speaking of which, even the masked killer is somewhat unmemorable, for despite a couple of moments where they actually do appear to be quite physically intimidating, they act no different than your average cloaked murderer, not to mention that it’s pretty easy to deduce who is actually underneath the disguise (hint: it’s almost always among the biggest names within the ensemble cast).

Even if it isn’t narratively distinct, Fear Street: Prom Queen does at least have a bit of fun when it’s allowed to be the kind of slasher we all want it to be. Lacklustre killer aside, the kills themselves are impressively gruesome, as Palmer incorporates some strong practical effects to scenes where characters are offed with the likes of guillotines, buzzsaws and electrical wiring, all as guts are sliced open while heads and other appendages are chopped off with an axe. There are also some memorable performances, including Fina Strazza who oozes evil at every available opportunity as the nasty popular girl who fittingly feels like one of those bullies from 80s teen movies that go way too far in dishing out their sadistic brand of cruelty. India Fowler also makes for a likeable lead, while Red Rocket breakout Suzanna Son has a few good moments as her best friend, and they share a sweet chemistry that one could almost mistake for something more than platonic if the filmmakers were brave enough to make it official.

Ultimately, the film is what you’d imagine it to be, ticking all the boxes of a prototypical prom-set slasher while calling attention to other movies with similar set-ups that you could be watching instead. It’s throwaway and sometimes redundant, but Fear Street: Prom Queen has a little bit of juice to keep it going into the wee hours of the morning.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Fear Street: Prom Queen pays fair homage to an era of prom-set slasher movies while struggling to work as its own addition to the subgenre, ticking off every prom and slasher trope on record while focusing on stock characters and an unmemorable villain, despite some decent gore and a few engaging performances.