Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025)

Streaming Service: Netflix
Movie Name/Year:  Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025)
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Length:  1h 30min
Rating: R
Director: Matt Palmer
Writers: Matt Palmer, Donald McLeary, R.L. Stine
Based On: Fear Street book series by R.L. Stine
Actors: India Fowler, Suzanna Son, Fina Strazza, Katherine Waterston, Lili Taylor, Chris Klein, Ariana Greenblatt, David Iacono, Darrin Baker, Ella Rubin, Rebecca Ablack, Ilan O'Driscoll, Ryan Rosery, Damian Romeo, Dakota Taylor, Luke Kimball, Eden Summer Gilmore, Brennan Clost, Cecilia Lee, Joseph Chiu, Tom Keat, Dale Whibley, Christopher B. MacCabe, Joanne Boland, J.D. Nicholsen, Colin Platt, Alexander Eling, Jai Jai Jones

IMDb Blurb: When the "it" girls competing for prom queen at Shadyside High start to disappear, a gutsy outsider discovers she's in for one hell of a prom night.

Cat’s Point of View:
On the heels of taking a look at the Fear Street trilogy, it was only natural for us to bring you a review for the latest installment of book adaptations from R.L. Stine’s Fear Street series.

Fear Street: Prom Queen took place on the Shadyside timeline between the 1978 camp massacre and the 1994 events. Sara Fier’s curse was still in full effect during the events of this teen slasher – though it wasn’t the focus of this story, as it was in the trilogy.

This movie was quite the trip through nostalgia for me. Thankfully, it wasn’t the blood, guts, and trauma. The big hair that defied gravity with aid from copious amounts of hairspray, the fashion, and the idioms of the time were spot-on. It was like I was back in 1988 again for a little while. I had a real laugh out loud moment when I heard the phrase “gag me with a spoon!” (That was a real saying back in the day. I might have said it a time or two…or three.)

Fear Street: Prom Queen both played with familiar horror tropes and teen slasher camp, and offered us something new. It was a love letter to movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Scream (1996), and Carrie (1976)… sort of put through a blender with Mean Girls (2004). I wasn’t mad at it, either.

I really enjoyed a few of the inventive kills by the red-raincoat slasher. The heavy-duty paper cutter desk machete was a brilliant murder tool. A hint of that was shown in the trailers and it was something that actually got me excited for the movie, and interested in new twists and turns were in store. Seriously, every kid has looked sideways at that dangerous contraption because we know that thing is capable of taking off fingers… or more.

We do need to address the proverbial elephant in the room, however. Fear Street: Prom Queen has gotten some rather low ratings across the board. A lot of the key complaints focused on character building and having enough to invest us in the plight of the characters.

I feel like Prom Queen suffered by comparison to the trilogy from 2021. There were 3 whole movies where we got to know those characters and what they were going through, with whole movies devoted to back-story. Prom Queen focused on new characters that weren’t featured in the trilogy, so we were having to glean info on the fly rather than having all the details spoon-fed over multiple installments.
Personally, I thought that the balance was fine between the current events of the film and flashes of background. There were breadcrumbs to follow. I fell for a couple red herrings along the way. The twist was fantastic and had me palming my forehead.

This was a solid offering for a retro teen slasher. The acting was good, the killings unhinged, and it was a generally accurate time capsule for the era it depicted. If this sort of thing is your cup of tea, or maybe rather spiked punch, I’d encourage you to give it a try.

Fans of Stine’s Fear Street series do have at least 2 more films to look forward to, according to R.L. Stine’s interview with The Hollywood Reporter. I can’t wait to see which one’s next.

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 28%
Rotten Tomatoes Popcorn Meter Score – 24%
Metascore – 41%
Metacritic User Score – 4.3/10
IMDB Score – 5.1/10

Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 3.5/5

Movie Trailer: