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Fear Street: Prom Queen Review
Image Credit: Sabrina Lantos/Netflix
Loading...It feels weird that it’s been since 2021 when the last Netflix Fear Street movies were released, and I swear I thought it was much more recently than that. When I was looking for my rankings of them on Letterboxd, I looked over 2022 and 2023 before going back to 2021, and there they were.
Regardless, when they were released FOUR YEARS AGO (god, time comes for us all, doesn’t it?), I ranked them relatively highly on the year (also, I only aw 37 new release movies in 2021? How adorable is THAT? I think I’ve already beaten that in 2025). I thought they were an enjoyable romp with some decent acting and a great gimmick, being three full-length movies that released on a trio of consecutive weeks. If not for being a bit overly bloody and brutal, I’d have thought they were really solid entry level horror movies for teens and tweens.
Can tweens watch horror? My point of reference is skewed by parents that had me watching Jason movies when I was six. I have a niece who is coming up on five years old. How much longer do we have to wait to show her some classic horror flicks, man?
Whatever. The point is, I was excited for a new Fear Street movie to finally hit Netflix. It takes place in the same cursed city of the previous trilogy, Shadyside, and as the subtitle promises, it’s about a local race for prom queen for the class of 1988.
The backstory to Fear Street: Prom Queen is of the protagonist Lori’s mother, a one-time contender for prom queen, who was denied the title when prom was canceled after the grisly murder of Lori’s father. In the wake of that death, the whole town believed Lori’s mother was the killer, though it was never proven. And 18 years later, Lori is ready to graduate high school and is also running for the position many high school girls dream of.
In her way are her neighbor, Tiffany Falconer, and Tiffany’s group of friends, the Wolfpack… and YES! I, too, started humming the nWo Wolfpac music when that was first said. Anyway, Tiffany and her group are the school’s popular kids and bullies who have ridiculed Lori her entire life.
As the prom draws nigh, another girl running for queen is murdered by a masked stranger. And at prom itself, the death toll rises as the red-clad killer continues going after kids at Shadyside High School. Will Lori be able to survive the mayhem? And more importantly, will she win Prom Queen?!
TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS
+ It’s set in the 1980’s, so of course there are some fun needle drops and usages of music. There is one music-based scene that is so absurd and so out of nowhere, it’s the highlight of the movie for how silly it is. Admittedly, even I’m a little weary of movies using the 1980’s as a backdrop these days, but there are also SO MANY GREAT SONGS you can license for your film by doing so, and they do add a nice little bit of flare to the proceedings.
The silly scene that I mentioned enjoying is a full-fledged dance-off between Lori and Tiffany to “Gloria” by Laura Branigan. It’s just so… you’re watching this horror movie about teenagers being offed by a masked assailant, and two who have no idea the murders are going down just get into this extremely petty and goofy dance competition on the gymnasium floor. I love it. I’m not kidding, either; it’s so jarring and out-there, it’s easily the highlight of the movie.
+ The kills are gory, as they were in the original trilogy, and very visceral. If you are here for the deaths, they mostly pay off. You see a ton of blood, and you get some great effects of buzzsaws going into peoples’ faces and what-have-you. On the one hand, this does keep this from being Playskool’s My First Horror Movie for younger kids, but if you are on board as an adult, these murders will keep your attention.
– The acting is rough across the board here. It’s all very cliche. Nobody really stands out or elevates the material. It’s always my least favorite thing to call out in a movie because the actors are RIGHT THERE on screen and I feel more connected to them than I do, say, the screenwriters or editors, but everyone involved here is pretty mediocre.
They don’t have the most inspired dialogue to work with, I know, but like I said… none of the talent is strapping this screenplay on their back and carrying it to heights it might not deserve, either. I was reminded of the Fear Street trilogy and how it had performers like Sadie Sink really digging their teeth into their roles. I wish we had gotten more of that here.
– The final reveal and the climax are forced and underwhelming. After some third act improvements, it sinks the movie again. Prom Queen was a movie that was in flux while I watched it. For two acts, I had a low score in mind for the whole affair. But then, in the third, it picked up a bit, and I could have seen myself giving the film a higher grade. But when you get to the final resolution, it’s all so disappointing. It felt like the laziest out and the weakest way to try to tie together some dangling plot threads. It moved my floating score back down to where it ends up being here.
