Franchise Review: The Fear Street Trilogy + Fear Street Prom Queen

Fear Street Prom Queen isn’t bad because the prior films of the Netflix horror franchise are masterworks of horror. Though they certainly look as such in comparison which is an unintentional power Prom Queen has. 

What the original Fear Street franchise, directed entirely by Leigh Janick, has in spades is a mix of modern day earnest love for horror, specifically slashers of the late 80s and early 90s, and a paranormal mystery taking light hearted notes from 90s horror thrillers and classic 1940s haunted mysteries. Fear Street’s trilogy mystery is loud of course; blaring itself on our screens and lacking in any subtlety or atmosphere reminiscent of the true gothic but goodness, isn’t it still fun? 

Fear Street 1994, 1978, and 1666 lack any pretension or pretense. The mystery of Shadyvale’s curse of continuous carnage and the looming would-be witch Sarah Feir may not be as dreaded and knuckle-biting as The Innocents or The VVitch but Fear Street isn’t trying to impersonate Jack Clayton or Robert Eggers. Neither in goal, intention, or visual style. 

Janick understands what they want Fear Street to be from starting in 1994 to finishing in 1666. Their more emotionally sincere and less high brow take on the source material suits R.L. Stine’s own young adult horror stylings. 

The Fear Street trilogy plays more in line with modern horror blockbuster stylings, specifically the Wes Craven flare of the audience feeling let in on the joke. Fear Street isn’t satirical in the same way Scream or New Nightmare were, but neither are they overly full of homage and nostalgia. Rather, they have a strong visual style, and once again that earnest air to them. You watch and know Janick and her team are genuine fans of fun, fleshy, gory horror films. They aren’t filled to the brim with references or Easter eggs to films long past like Stranger Things rather they hold hands with films of the past. 

There is a reason why The Slasher is arguably the most mainstream of all horror sub-genres perhaps alongside The Monster Movie. There is a comforting familiar formula to them that is routine yet exciting. They are often not challenging the audience with heavy narratives of introspection, nor open-ended ambiguity. They make for great amusement park horror rides, brief scares that excite but don’t necessarily linger under the skin. 

Fear Street as directed by Janick is not worse for embodying more of a blockbuster style of storytelling than its horror peers. There is no identity crisis in the trilogy, each knowing exactly what it wants to be and accomplishes those goals with enthusiasm and a strong visual style. So much so one can’t help but enjoy the amusement park ride these movies are. 

To their further benefit the films feature a decently strong cast across all three movies. While no one actor is giving an Emmy level performance many aren’t only believable, but likable in their roles. Some even give down right great performances. Emily Rudd, best known now as Nami from Netflix’s live action One Piece adaptation, is a standout in 1978. Delivering what is, in my opinion, the best performance of the trilogy. The cast at large in each movie also has good chemistry with each other, selling the relationships that are at the heart of the series. 

This is, ultimately, one of Fear Street 1994, 1978, and 1666’s greatest strength as a trilogy alongside Janick's slick direction. 

The characters may not be especially unique in their design, but they are highly motivated and their motivations are rooted in their relationships with each other. The screenwriting team of Janick with her collaborators: Phil Graziadei, Zak Olkewicz, and Kate Trefry understand that by convention it can be difficult to get the audience on the side of the victims over the titular killer or in this case killers. All of which have their own identifiable flare, and weaponry. Audiences may have their favorite Final Girls, but it is much harder to make us care about the blood letting characters in a two hour runtime or less. Clearly knowing this, the screenwriters play it smart, centering the protagonist of Deena's motivation to resolve the mystery and drama by connecting her not just to her opening cast of characters, but characters of the generations past.

Deena, therefore, is not simply saving the young woman she loves, but is getting retribution for all the previous characters who weren’t final girls and boys, who have suffered under the weight of the Shadyside curse. 

By placing Shadyside as the underdogs the audience is already primed to root for their success, their success in this case is resolving the curse. By the end of 1994 we not only want the characters to survive, we want the lovers of Deena and Hannah to escape the curse so they may be together. Hannah isn’t just a victim, she is going to become another killer. This flips the script, the story isn’t just one of young attractive people being killed by another masked murderer, but an on-going seemingly endless cycle of suffering. 

1978 builds upon that sense of suffering, with new characters of Cindy, Ziggy, and Alice most pointedly. The rivalry between the cursed Shadyside, and the rich and thriving Sunnyvale continues to reveal its roots and echoes the subtext of class divide. Sisters Cindy and Ziggy, played by Rudd and Stranger Things Sadie Sink respectively, are the core of 1978. Their relationship is already fraught with tension and conflict leading the audience to long for reconciliation. That doesn’t happen, which adds to the tragedy of the Shadyside curse. 

So while the mystery itself isn’t the stuff of legends, nor does it have the atmosphere of higher brow fare, the fact the characters are likable enough employs the audience to become invested anyway. We want the mystery solved not to know the end, but so our underdog Shadysiders can finally end the cycle of suffering and tragedy. The classism and oppression subtext isn’t thoroughly developed nor the focal point of the trilogy but they do add great flavor to the trilogy’s full meal. 

Fear Street 1994, 1978, and 1666 may not be horror masterpieces but they are well-made, and genuinely enjoyable horror films; faults in all – and there’s many faults corny dialogue such as “Goode is evil” included. 

Needless to say, with how well-liked the Fear Street trilogy is, there should be no surprise that 1) Netflix wanted to capitalize on its success with more additions to the franchise and 2) that returning fans were excited.

Enter Fear Street: Prom Queen, not a sequel taking place after the mid-credit tease from 1666, not a prequel – could you make a prequel when we’ve already seen how the curse was created? –  just a film taking place in the 80s. An in-between time after 1978 and before 1994. The curse therefore following the logic of the prior worldbuilding exists, there are even background references to Sarah Fier. This all sets a specific expectation up from fans of the previous movies that this film will, at the very least, follow the same worldbuilding logic as the last three. If not, why bother keeping the setting, general time period gimmick, and direct references to the witch mystery and acknowledging the events of 1978? 

Yet, Prom Queen would have been, well, perhaps not better but less egregious had it been its own Fear Street film. R.L. Stine’s novels weren’t all interconnected though some did crossover or make references at times. Some stood entirely on their own and believably, with enough skill and finesse this could work in film as well. 

The stories themselves could be self-contained, or the creation of a new Fear Street universe that isn’t attached to the original trilogy. This direction wouldn’t have saved Prom Queen, whose problems go much deeper, but perhaps they would have helped. By setting itself up as directly connected to the original trilogy but not following any of the original trilogy’s own worldbuilding the film sets itself up for failure. 

We expect the killer to be another possessed victim, but also, we expect there to be some layer of tragedy to the murders occurring. The never ending tragedy of Shadyside after all, was the point. 

It was the core of the horror the characters were facing at hand. Not simply the possible maiming of an aesthetically drawn killer but that in Shadyside there was no hope, no mobility, no possibility of a better life. This is where the classism and oppression subtext came into play. That the main emotional throughline of the trilogy was the doomed love between two women in 1666, which culminated in the successful thriving love of two different women in 1994 offered the catharsis necessary for the story and its thematics to work. 

Janick and her fellow screenwriters may have written a straightforward story but it featured highly motivated and understandable characters. Prom Queen offers no such boon. All its characters are static, cardboard cutouts from more interesting blood soaked cloth. Prom Night seems the most obvious film Prom Queen is borrowing from, alongside bits and pieces from Heathers, Jawbreaker and Mean Girls yet without any of their charm, style, or vigor. 

Our protagonist this time is Lori Granger (India Fowler) who’s Sunnyvale father was murdered by – town rumor would have us believe – her own mother. This was never proven nor does Lori’s relationship with either parent matter all that much. Her mother appears only for a brief scene, everything else about their relationship is told in expository dialogue. Lori laments that her mother hardly speaks to her, suggesting that their relationship is strained but nothing comes of this and nothing is resolved of it. There’s no horror to be found and the script seems entirely disinterested in exploring the potential. 

Lori’s best friend, Megan Rogers (Suzanna Son) seems like a first draft version of a cut character from The Craft. Even her styling seems derivative of Clea DuVall’s greatest 90s hits rather than distinctly 80s inspired. Still, Lori and Megan at least have a relationship of best friends to be invested in at the start of the film. There are seemingly hints that Megan may even – if one-sidedly – be romantically interested in Megan. This however goes nowhere and their friendship follows all-to-familiar beats of breaking down, and reuniting when the blood starts to flow. 

Worse still, neither Megan nor Lori are ever in any truly threatening danger. Lori we know by expectation is our Final Girl and therefore safe – though how interesting would it have been if Lori tragically became yet another possessed Shadysider whom Megan couldn’t save unlike Deena was able to save Hannah? – but Megan is only momentarily chased around. We should at least fear for her a little bit but we never truly have too. 

The cast of mean girls clearly inspired by similar Heathers-like groups are all so interchangeable it becomes difficult to remember any of their names. They have no collective aesthetic – a feature the movie is deeply lacking in general that stands at odds with the rest of the franchise – nor do any of them have any true snarky grit to them. 

Instead of feeling like a lackluster copy of other, better movies, Prom Queen needed more wit, or at least more camp. Sorority Row is certainly no masterwork, but the dialogue is much more intentionally fun and Leah Pipes as mean girl Jessica understands the film she’s in to a T. She embodies the mean girl attitude needed, one that is entertaining to watch and revel in even if what she says may be diabolical you can’t help but laugh. 

It is unfortunate then that lead mean girl Tiffany (Fina Strazza) is so thoroughly lackluster. Ironically this matches Fowler’s energy, but Fowler’s Lori is meant to be a good girl coming into her own. Those types of characters tend to struggle to be interesting especially for weaker actors at the helm, but mean girls are often fan faves because they’re so deliciously devilish. Tiffany should be the film's standout, or at least breathe life into an otherwise horrifically dull picture. 

Yet Strazza is never able to deliver, there is no gleefulness to her evil, she provides no true charisma nor intimidation. That Lori is also dreadfully lackluster only makes their apparent rivalry all the more boring. There is nothing to chew on between them, there’s no sense of real stakes. The title of Prom Queen is meant to be life or death according to the script but neither Strazza or Fowler are able to portray that necessary energy. 

Whereas the characters in the Fear Street trilogy were a mix of memorable, likable, entertaining, with actors who had either talent, natural charisma, or believable chemistry none of that exists within the cast of Prom Queen. The tragedy of the horror that was so fundamental to making Fear Street 1994, 1978, and 1666 work is entirely missing in Prom Queen. It is not simply that the characters are unlikable or the actors mediocre, it is so much worse – the characters are simply boring…and the cast is mediocre. 

There is a spark of hope with Ariana Greenblatt’s Christy Renault, a clear gender swapped version of The Breakfast Club’s Bender but she bafflingly is killed off first. Greenblatt is a promising young actress and she imbues Christy with both a clear sense of swagger, style, and attitude that the rest of the characters and film is missing in her tragically short amount of screentime. It almost feels as though she was more of a cameo but Greenblatt isn’t famous enough for that quite yet so this seems to just be a mistake on the casting directors part. 

With some colorful characters or some standout performances perhaps the directorial choices could have been overlooked somewhat. Sadly Matt Palmer isn’t able to deliver. Prom Queen is so flatly and blandly filmed. Setting a majority of the action – save for Christy’s kill which is in a darkly lit, generic alleyway – at the high school isn’t a terrible decision. 1666 set a majority of its finale at the Shadyside mall. Janick made this inventive by adding visual flare to the setting. 

Deena’s blood, the macguffin to draw in all our supernatural killers, shines green underneath the neon blacklights, reds, blues and purples color coat the cast and hallways while the neon store signs add an ominous overwatch. This becomes contrasted with the dark claustrophobic underground caverns Deena must venture into to pursue Sheriff Goode. 

There was a chance here for Palmer to do something similar with the school grounds. To make the dance floor strikingly vibrant, and contrast it with the darkened hallways where the killer lurked. Instead the dancefloor looks strangely cheap and entirely dull. There’s no dread lurking in the hallways, or basement because there’s no atmosphere to be found. 

Not every horror film, especially a by-the-by slasher film has to be good, Chopping Mall is certainly not high brow cinema, but Jason X is at least so bad it trips over itself into being hilariously entertaining. Prom Queen doesn’t even manage that. 

To bring up Sorority Row again, that too is a mess of a film, with some very questionable acting choices and a rather wooden lead as well in Briana Evigan performance as protagonist good girl Cassidy. However Sorority Row campishly becomes entertaining because of its supporting cast, and snappy script. 

If Prom Queen couldn’t be good, it should have at least been entertaining. That it doesn’t manage that alongside its nonsensical triple plot twist in the third act, just makes it frustrating. A truly waste of a watch and I say that so sparingly. There are very few films I have felt have been a waste of my time. Even films I’ve given low scores too I have found things to praise or appreciate, even films I’ve outright disliked I can oftentimes find a speck of diamond in its dunes. 

Prom Queen may not look as cheap as Slumber Party Massacre, but I’d rather watch the latter than this again if only because Slumber Party Massacre had some truly funny satirical moments amidst its mess. The Exorcist Believer pleased no fans of The Exorcist franchise, nor many horror fans, but it was competently made with a strong central performance by an always welcome Leslie Odom Jr. that it was redeemable for a general audience goer. Fear Street Prom Queen won’t just be a let down to Fear Street fans, and/or horror fans, but audiences in general. It feels like a list of studio notes, a series of aesthetics, references and storybeats taken from better films, with no identity visually of its own. 

Fear Street Prom Queen is the worst thing a film could be, utterly and painstakingly boring.