Based on the book series by R.L. Stine, Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025) is directed by Matt Palmer, who wrote the script alongside Donald McLeary. It stars India Fowler, Suzanna Son, Fina Strazza, Ariana Greenblatt, Ella Rubin, Katherine Waterston, David Iacono, Lili Taylor, Chris Klein, Rebecca Ablack, Damian Romeo, Darrin Baker, Ilan O’Driscoll, Luke Kimball, Tom Keat, and Christopher B. MacCabe. The story follows Lori Granger (Fowler), an unpopular “nobody” who’s unexpectedly nominated as the senior prom queen. Although this initially seems like the perfect opportunity to improve her social standing, Lori soon realizes that she and the other nominees have become the target of a masked killer. As they disappear one by one on prom night, Lori and her estranged, stoner best friend, Megan (Son), set out to stop the killer and save their school before it’s too late. 

The younger cast members struggle to provide memorable performances. That being said, the performances they do provide feel serviceable in the context of how basic and unoriginal the characters are written. Not a single character transcends the clichés of their given archetype, which makes the whole thing frustratingly predictable. I’m fine with these kinds of core archetypes if the script uses them to subvert our expectations eventually, but that’s just not the case here. Thankfully, the script seems somewhat aware of the fact that these are stock characters, and therefore doesn’t waste time needlessly establishing their various quirks and motivations. Instead, the film quickly submerges the viewer in its slasher movie mayhem, taking the more traditional genre route of kills > characters. It features some surprisingly creative kills that maintain a certain level of fun because our connections to the victims are either negative or non-existent. Real or not, it’s never fun to see someone you like get hacked to pieces, but it can be fun to see a deserving asshole get their commpupance (especially when it’s not real). 

The film is extremely cliché in almost every way, and mostly just feels like another remake of Prom Night (1980). That being said, as a fan of the genre, I appreciate the film’s sense of efficiency within such familiar constraints. For example, it often avoids drawn-out chase sequences that inevitably end in death. Creative kills in these kinds of movies are fun, but not so much so that they justify boring ten-minute chase sequences leading up to them. The audience has played that game countless times before, so it’s nice that this script skips right to the good stuff. This also saves time and allows the film to build a satisfying body count. For better or worse, this is a movie all about the kills, so it’s nice that it features a lot of them. This also allows the film to feature multiple red herrings/suspects. Despite eventually taking the most predictable direction possible, the script initially does a great job of making the viewer second-guess their assumptions. The problem is that as soon as it becomes clear an individual isn’t the killer, the script either kills them or abandons them altogether. Killing them off makes sense for the genre, but abandoning them is just plain lazy. For example, Lori’s best friend, Megan, is framed as one of the story’s most important characters, but is then completely forgotten about in the climax. This would have been fine if the character wasn’t presented as such an integral element of the story, but she is, so it creates a strong feeling of “unfinished business.” 

Overall, this is an extremely familiar teen slasher romp that offers almost nothing new. It’s little more than a modern knock-off of Prom Night (1980), but it does feature some impressively efficient editing. Yes, we’ve seen this story countless times before, but the filmmakers seem to be aware of it. Instead of delivering something original (which would have been preferable), they’ve provided a streamlined slasher experience that features everything horror fans love about the subgenre, while trimming most of what they hate. It plays like a greatest hits album, but the kind featuring songs that are so clean, overplayed, and popular, they’re impossible to enjoy. C