FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN (2025)

Thus far, I’ve enjoyed Netflix’s Fear Street (2021-) series. The makers are having fun with the horror, throwback, wink wink, not-so-scary, slew of successive and creatively gross murders genre. And I am here for it. What’s more, Fear Street: Prom Queen is the 80s instalment, the very decade I started watching slasher films, thanks to the industrious older kids on my street who held little regard for parental age ratings. Personal scars aside, Prom Queen held the promise of a full circle moment, and I was looking forward to soaking up the experience to its last drop of Vidal Sassoon. And this is where the movie lost me. I can look past and even revel in predictability and clichéd set-ups (which is right on for time period), but what I can not forgive is the failure of the film as a period piece. Not once did I feel like I had been transported back to the 80s. Granted, Prom Queen and the Fear Street series as a whole is more of an homage to retro horror films and the costumers and makeup artists probably aimed to appeal to modern-day teenagers, but gag me with a spoon that’s not what I wanted. I mean, where’s the fun in shiny hair in an eighties movie? Where were the ill-fitting tulle prom dresses? The heavy and imperfect eye makeup? Even the boys’ mullets looked modern. That said, the performances were mostly good, I loved the music, and I appreciated a few of the slayings and clever sets that played tribute to the classic horror films of the decade. However, I much preferred the first season of Stranger Things (2016) and MaXXine (2024) for being palpable 80s horror tributes. They sincerely warmed my heart with honest-to-goodness reminiscents of just how terrified I could be.

WATCH OR NOT: NOT

Additional musings: The Fear Street series is a nice and safe introduction to horror. If Goosebumps is for kids, Fear Street is for the older teens aging out and gaining curiosity for the genre.