A Revisit to Fear Street: “Fear Street: Prom Queen”

Given that I did a re-read of R.L. Stine’s original “Fear Street” series a few years ago, as well as a few “Super Chillers” and a couple special Trilogies within the Universe, when Netflix started releasing modern “Fear Street” films I had to review those too! And four years after the original trilogy released, we now have a NEW “Fear Street” film, this one loosely adapting the book “The Prom Queen”! So we once again find ourselves on another Revisit to Fear Street!

Film: “Fear Street: Prom Queen”

It’s been four years since Netflix debuted the campy, gory, and altogether nostalgic “Fear Street Trilogy”, a set of films that gave us a new imagining of the iconic R.L. Stine YA horror series. They were not only fun (albeit VERY different) adaptations of the books I have loved so much for so long, they also built and interesting backstory and lore for the plagued town of Shadyside and all the murder and mayhem that befalls it. So imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw that there was a brand new “Fear Street” movie coming out this year, and not only was it taking inspiration from one of my first “Fear Street” revisits on the blog, “The Prom Queen”, it took place in 1988! Not only does that reopen the door for a cursed Shadyside (as the trilogy wrapped up with an end to the curse of Sarah Fier), but it has SO MANY opportunities for homages to 1980s slasher movies and all the tropes that come with them! Suffice to say, I was STOKED.

So a quick plot summary: Somewhat similar to the book that it takes its name from, “Prom Queen” takes place leading up to and on Prom at Shadyside High, with multiple girls vying for the title, and a killer taking them out one by one. In THIS, it’s 1988, and our group of nominees are a group of mean girls, led by Tiffany Falconer who wants the title of Prom Queen REALLY badly, bad girl Kristy Renault who entered the race just to piss people off, and Lori Granger, school outcast with a tragic past. But a masked killer is taking out the girls one by one, as well as anyone who may get in the way.

To just get it out of the way, this was a little bit of a let down for me, and I’m not sure if it’s just because the momentum from the original trilogy has long since passed, or if it was just an overall less engaging film. It has glimmers of what I really liked about the Trilogy, and even has some references to it (the camp massacre in the second movie is what really sprang to mind). But I think that the problem was that it never REALLY connected to the trilogy, and it could have been just any generic slasher film. I know that that was something of a criticism of “1994”, “1978”, and “1666”, but at least in those movies they were building up a mythology for the series that DID have some references to the “Fear Street” books (the Fier Family, Camp Nightwing, the Shadyside Mall) and fit well within it. In “Prom Queen” it just felt like this could have easily been a remake of “Prom Night”. Also, talk about a missed opportunity to reference MY GAL RUBY DAY, one of the ghosties from the trilogy, who had her OWN murderous and bloody prom night! This one created a different bloody history with Shadyside Prom involving Lori’s mother, setting up a reason to want to win to remove herself from a tragic narrative, which was fine, but kind of hack. OH, and not to get into spoilers too much, but this movie also has some contradictions to the curse in regards to Shadyside vs Sunnyvale and the way that the curse doles these things out. And on top of that, I wasn’t really invested in any of the characters either, outside of Lori’s bestie Megan, who is a horror movie Goth weirdo stoner who may or may not be in love with Lori. Everyone else was fairly two dimensional, be it tragic Lori, or uber bitch Tiffany, or her lapdog girl gang. One of the things I liked best about the trilogy was that I genuinely cared about the characters, so it was extra upsetting when they were ultimately brutally murdered, and in this one I just didn’t feel it for most of the players. I honestly would have liked more from bad girl Kristy, but she was played by Ariana Greenblat who is making her own way these days and didn’t stick around too long so that it felt more like a cute cameo of a rising actress.

But, sloppiness aside, the VIBES of this movie gave me everything I needed. I thought that the costuming department and the design department was pretty spot on for a lot of the styling of the time, REALLY enjoying the looks of Megan and Kristy (what can I say, I’m a Goth/punk chick at heart), but even the more preppy and ‘in’ styles seemed pretty on point to me. Hell, just the whole feel and tropes and execution of this movie tapped into the 80s era of slasher films, with lots of gore, pretty bland characters only there to add to the body count, and melodrama melodrama melodrama. This movie knows what its references are, just take a look at the poster I picked. Full on “Nightmare on Elm Street”, 80s horror VHS sleeve panache! Even if the story itself was kinda ho hum, this is the kind of case that I’m willing to grant some leniency because of VIBES, baby.

And we once again have a GREAT soundtrack, very 80s centric, but not even necessarily only obvious 80s songs but also some less thought of ones. I mean sure, we still got things like “Hungry Like The Wolf” and “I Think We’re Alone Now” but I actively screeched in glee when they played the song “Gloria” by Laura Branigan! And what’s more, the music didn’t stop with the pop music at the time, but the instrumental tracks were tailored to sound like they were from 80s slashers at the time with a huge emphasis on synthesizers and electronica. I kept thinking about John Carpenter scores, like from “The Fog” or “Christine” (honestly the man’s whole musical catalogue) or even things like the scores to “C.H.U.D” or “Suspiria“. Or hell, even a more modern score like in “It Follows” that REALLY hit the synth wave hard, GOD that is a banging score. The music was my favorite part of this film.

So, overall, a bit of a mixed bag. Story and plot execution, meh. But candy coated slasher homage to 80s horror schlock AND books that were incredibly formative to me serving as a backbone? FUN AS HELL! I certainly won’t pass up on the opportunity for more “Fear Street” movies, especially since, given the lore and mythos, they will all be historical fiction horror, and that opens up a lot of opportunities.