The Fear Street franchise has always walked a delicate line between teenage melodrama and visceral horror, often with striking results. But in Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025), Netflix’s latest installment adapted from R.L. Stine’s YA horror novels, that balance falters. Set in 1988 Shadyside and drenched in retro slasher aesthetics, the film delivers on camp and blood but struggles to stitch together a story that feels earned.
At the center of the chaos is Lori Granger (India Fowler), a shy, brooding teen with a scandal-stained family history. Determined to reclaim control over her narrative, she joins the race for prom queen not out of vanity, but defiance. This symbolic bid for power pits her against Tiffany Falconer (Fina Strazza), the high school’s reigning socialite, whose privileged parents (played by Chris Klein and Katherine Waterston) will do anything to protect their daughter’s place on the throne. Literally, as candidates begin dying one by one, it becomes terrifyingly clear that the prom queen crown has a body count.
Director Leigh Janiak, who previously helmed the acclaimed Fear Street trilogy, returns with a grittier, more psychological horror tone. The visuals are undeniably stylish: neon lights, dramatic silhouettes, a killer cloaked in a yellow slicker reminiscent of ‘90s horror villains. There are nods to genre classics — Carrie, Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer , but unlike those films, Prom Queen never fully commits to building dread. The first act shows promise, teasing psychological tension and class warfare, but the middle quickly dissolves into a predictable pattern of cheap jump scares and one-dimensional deaths.
One of the film’s biggest missed opportunities is its underuse of Lori as a fully realized protagonist. India Fowler gives a capable performance, portraying Lori with haunted vulnerability and quiet defiance. But the screenplay doesn’t dig deep enough into her trauma or her motivations. Her iconic final line — “I’m Lori f—ing Granger” — lands with force, but it feels like an earned moment from a better film.
Tiffany, meanwhile, teeters between Regina George and something far darker, but never quite crosses into memorable villain territory. Her complicity in the killings, revealed late in the movie, should have shocked. Instead, it reads as overkill, pun intended. And underwhelming. The Falconer parents’ motivations, rooted in social status and generational trauma, are glossed over in favor of melodramatic monologues and bloody confrontations.
Thematically, Fear Street: Prom Queen aims to explore how beauty, popularity, and privilege often mask deeper societal rot. There’s something potent in its setup: a town where trauma festers beneath teenage glamour, and a girl trying to survive not just high school, but generational injustice. However, the script trades thematic depth for slasher spectacle. While the kills are bloody and creative, they lack suspense. We don’t care enough about the victims to mourn them and the mystery, such as it is, unfolds without real tension.
The film has been met with mixed reactions. While some viewers have praised its campy horror vibe and feminist undercurrents, others have criticized it for lacking narrative cohesion and falling short of previous Fear Street entries. On Rotten Tomatoes, it currently holds a modest 32% critic score which is a stark contrast to the acclaim received by 2021’s Fear Street: 1978 and 1666.
Still, Prom Queen isn’t entirely a wash. It leans heavily into stylized visuals, nostalgic soundtrack choices, and over-the-top prom aesthetics. There’s a certain fun in watching a horror film that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and for diehard Fear Street fans, that might be enough.
In the end, Fear Street: Prom Queen is more of a grimy tiara than a sparkling crown. It offers glimpses of greatness, particularly in Fowler’s performance and the story’s potential to interrogate power and femininity but ultimately settles for shallow slashes over psychological stakes.
Whether it earns a sequel or fades into horror obscurity, one thing’s for sure: prom night in Shadyside will never be the same again.
