Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025) Dir: Matt Palmer
- Ridley Coote
- May 25
- 2 min read
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When the trilogy of 'Fear Street' films, based on the books of R.L. Stine, came out together back in 2021, I ended up enjoying them a lot more than I thought I would. I found them to be a a great collection of throwback slasher mysteries, which entertained me a good deal. It was this kind of film I was hoping for when I saw that Netflix were releasing another 'Fear Street' film, this time from director Matt Palmer.
I'll start off by complimenting the film's greatest aspect, which was by far the groovy 80's soundtrack. The film was teaming with classic songs of the decade, which, nostalgic or otherwise, were great fun to listen to, and gave the film a firm 80's identity. I loved the way the film also utilised retro-style VHS and horror graphics and filters, which helped the film feel even more of the era. Aesthetically, the film was pretty good, in that sense.
However, it is from here onwards that the film took a bit of a nosedive, in terms of its quality. The writing was the major issue; the film was heavily reliant on basic and tired-out tropes, both in regards to its story and characters. There was a complete lack of subtlety, which made for some pretty cringe-worthy scenes, as well as plain repetitive ones. Instead of feeling like a homage to classic films, this felt like it was straight-up ripping them off. This felt like a 'Riverdale' spin-off film, and I mean that in the least complimentary way.
Worst of all, the film was very predictable, and, unfortunately, all the more disappointing for it. Predictable doesn't always mean bad, per-se, but the nature and execution of the twists was poor and, quite frankly, silly. I know the film wasn't supposed to be too serious, which I did appreciate, but one still has to execute its attempted subversions at least somewhat well, which this film did not.
India Fowler's leading performance was at least endearing, for the most part. Her character wasn't always written in the most sympathetic manner, but Fowler's pleasant acting meant that she was able to play off those moments relatively well, in my view. Suzanna Son's key supporting character could've been a lot better, with a few tweaks to the writing, but the actresses actual performance was fine, if not exceptional.
Fina Strazza's villainous popular girl persona was uninspired and unoriginal, and was executed in near enough the same way. Katherine Waterston was actually fairly entertaining when her character wasn't behaving in a legitimately bizarre way, whilst David Iacono and Lili Taylor both failed to make much of an impression at all.
Overall, although this film did have an entertaining vibe to it, I found its writing to be frustratingly subpar, and the lack of creativity beyond the visual aesthetics really killed my mood even more. It was such a shame, because I was really hoping that this would have a similar feel and general quality as the previous 'Fear Street' films. It's not to say that this film was totally devoid of entertainment value, but that the value provided was not anywhere near as much as I had hoped for.
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