Director – Matt Palmer, Screenplay – Donald McLeary & Matt Palmer, Based on the Fear Street Books by R.L. Stine, Producers – Kori Adelson, Peter Chernin & Jenno Topping, Photography – Mark Györi, Music – The Newton Brothers, Visual Effects Supervisor – Mathew Giampa, Visual Effects – Scanline VFX & Soho VFX, Special Effects Supervisor – Duncan Orthner, Prosthetics Supervisor – Steve Newburn, Production Design – Nick Bassett. Production Company – Chernin Entertainment.
Cast
India Fowler (Lori Granger), Suzanna Son (Megan Rogers), Fina Strazza (Tiffany Falconer), Katherine Waterston (Nancy Falconer), Lili Taylor (Vice Principal Dolores Breckinridge), David Iaconio (Tyler Torres), Chris Klein (Dan Falconer), Ariana Greenblatt (Christy Renault), Ella Rubin (Melissa), Rebbecca Ablack (Debbie), Ilan O’Driscoll (Linda), Ryan Rosery (Chad), Darrin Baker (Principal Weyland), Damian Romeo (Judd), Joseph Chiu (Spider), Dakota Taylor (Bobby), Luke Kimball (Devlin), Eden Summer Gilmore (Claire), Brennan Clost (Gerald), Cecilia Lee (Harmony), Tom Keat (Freddie), Dale Whibley (Jimmy), Christopher Maccabe (Stoker)
Plot
It is nearing Prom Night of 1988 at Shadyside High School. Among the contenders for prom queen, the bitchy Tiffany Falconer is tipped to be the favourite. Also in contention is Lori Granger. Lori is not expecting to win due to her family history where her mother was suspected but never charged with killing a boyfriend from Sunnyvale. As the prom gets underway, a masked killer in red appears and begins killing the prospective prom queens and their associates.
Fear Street is a series from horror author R.L. Stine that extends to some 160+ books spread over fourteen different series. The setting of the books is the neighbouring towns of Shadyside and Sunnyvale, while the stories (which are spread out over multiple ongoing series) deal with hauntings and assorted supernatural phenomena, as well as mundane mysteries.
The books were adapted a trilogy of Netflix-released films with Fear Street 1994 (2021), Fear Street 1978 (2021) and Fear Street 1666 (2021), each of which were released a week apart. All three were directed by Leigh Janiak and concerned the same town in different eras of time and were connected by the resurrected spirit of Sarah Fier, who was persecuted as a witch in the 17th Century.
Fear Street: Prom Queen is a follow-up. Unlike the other three films which were not adapted from any specific works, it is a sequel to R.L. Stine’s book The Prom Queen (1992). Leigh Janiak has dropped back to an executive producer position, while the director’s chair is inherited by the British Matt Palmer who had previously made one feature film with Calibre (2018), a well-reviewed piece about a horrible hunting accident.
Rival prom queens (l to r) Tiffany Falconer (Fina Strazza) and Lori Granger (India Fowler)
Fear Street: Prom Queen is a homage to the Slasher Film. Both Fear Street 1994 and Fear Street 1978 were slasher homages but ones where the series’ overarching plot structure about a resurrected witch dominated. This is a loose sequel that takes place in the same locale of the twin towns of Shadyside and Sunnyvale. A piece of graffito in the bathrooms mentions the name of Sarah Fier but she has no more part in the story than that.
There have been many deconstructions, parodies and homages to the 1980s slasher ever since Scream (1996) and sequels. A great many of these explicitly homage the original 1980s era of the slasher film be it in terms of stylistic recreations of the style and era to the casting of actors from the original films – from Hatchet (2006) and sequels, Lost After Dark (2015), 13 Fanboy (2021) and especially works like The Final Girls (2015) and Last Girl Standing (2015). Fairly much any slasher film made after the 2000s could fall into this category.
The basic plot of Fear Street: Prom Queen is a rehash of Prom Night (1980), one of the key films from the original 1980s slasher heyday, which had Jamie Lee Curtis facing a masked killer stalking students on prom night, although both films differ substantially when it comes to the unmasking of the identity of the killer. Although I would argue that Prom Queen makes a far more substantial use of the whole prom night slasher idea that either Prom Night or its remake Prom Night (2008).
Ella Rubin stalked by the killer
There have been perhaps far too many slasher homages and copies for Prom Queen to have much originality, but it is capably well made. For one, it is well cast – well above the average for such films with the recognisable names, Katherine Waterston, Lili Taylor and to a lesser extent an unrecognisably middle-aged Chris Klein, standing out. The script does a solid job of twisting and turning as it steadily eliminates the various prom queen contenders, before bringing everything together very nicely for the end reveal. There are also some very gory kills with the most memorable of these being the despatch of Damian Romeo with a buzzsaw straight to the face.
You also have to commend the film for getting its homage to the 1980s era dead on target. The theatre of the town is showing Phantasm II (1988), while Miracle Mile (1988) is also mentioned on the billboard. The background is filled with posters of Johnny Depp, Patrick Swayze and Prince, even of the Italian zombie film Zombie – Flesh Eaters (1979). And the soundtrack overflows with 80s hits from Billy Idol, Eurythmics, Bananarama, Duran Duran, Tiffany, Rick Astley and Laura Branigan.
R.L. Stine has published over 400 books since 1986 and is listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s top-selling children’s author. Stine’s works have also been adapted to the screen as the tv anthology series The Nightmare Room (2001-2); the films Superstitious (1999), When Good Ghouls Go Bad (2001) and Mostly Ghostly: Have You Met My Ghoulfriend? (2014); the tv series Eye Candy (2015); the film Goosebumps (2015) and its sequel Goosebumps 2 (2018); and the film Zombie Town (2023).
