Psychotronic Cinemavision: Fear Street Prom Queen

Set in 1988 in the cursed town of Shadyside, the story follows Lori Granger (India Fowler), a high school senior with a troubled family history. Determined to redefine herself, Lori enters the race for prom queen. Lori’s only real friend is stoner Megan Rogers (Suzanna Son) who also has a penchant for playing gory practical jokes. Lori’s mother, Nancy (Katherine Waterston) is believed to have murdered her father before their own Senior Prom years before and the stigma of this has ruined both Lori and Nancy’s lives.   Making her life even more hellish is Tiffany Falconer (Fina Strazza), the popular mean girl who commands her posse of friends known as “the Wolf Pack” and who takes every chance she can get to bring up Lori’s mother’s past. To make matters worse, Lori also has a crush on Tiffany’s boyfriend, Tyler (David Iacono) who also seems to reciprocate her feelings. All of the other Prom Queen contestants are more popular than Lori, and she knows her chances of winning are slim, but she needs to do something to spark a change in her life.  However, the competition turns deadly as fellow candidates are brutally murdered by a masked killer in a red raincoat.

Fear Street: Prom Queen is a 2025 slasher film directed by Matt Palmer and co-written with Donald McLeary. Based on R.L. Stine’s 1992 novel The Prom Queen, it serves as a standalone installment in Netflix’s Fear Street franchise. The film was released on Netflix on May 23, 2025. The film received mixed reviews, on Rotten Tomatoes, only 32% of critics gave it a positive review and Metacritic gives it a score of 44 out of 100.  Some critics appreciated its nostalgic homage to ’80s slasher films, complete with synth-heavy soundtracks and vintage fashion. However, others criticized it for a lack of originality and depth, describing it as a “witless pastiche” with unengaging characters.  While there is no confirmed sequel to Fear Street: Prom Queen, author R.L. Stine has indicated that at least three new Fear Street movies are in development and it’s unclear whether these will be direct sequels, connected to the 2021 trilogy, or entirely new stories within the universe.

The film was enjoyable and well performed.  The storyline was intriguing, although a bit cliched and not offering anything new. India Fowler, Suzanna Son, and Fina Strazza all do a great job playing their respective roles.  The film has a good mix of likeable and unlikeable characters and some of them switch sides throughout the film, which gives a bit more depth to the story.  It feels like an old 80s horror film including a not so well choreographed “dance off” scene.  I, personally, love this specific era of the horror genre and this film gave me a good nostalgic feeling. There are some nice twists and turns to the story, but for the most part it is somewhat predictable.  There are times that the film gets a little gory, but it really isn’t too visually disgusting.  This wasn’t an amazing film but overall, it was still an enjoyable watch.