Parents' Guide to Fear Street: Prom Queen

This standalone teen slasher is unremarkable and not scary. While some might get a silly kick out of Fear Street: Prom Queen, most will forget it soon after watching it. In many ways, it's shocking how plain and straightforward the film is, concept wise, writing wise, character wise, thrill wise. What's glaring is how it feels like no one took advantage of getting to make this film. A relatively new director and writer get the opportunity to make a teen slasher about a good kid trying to beat out a "mean girl" for the prom queen title, but then do nothing beyond this. There's no innovation or creativity to the story, the characters, the violence, the "kills" or "deaths," or ending. It almost feels like everything is copied and pasted from a "teen slasher template" and then simply left as is.

Perhaps the film needs a more charismatic or compelling central character. It's a problem when the few side characters are far more interesting than the main characters. By design Lori is too plain, Tiffany is not threatening, and the roles played by Lili Taylor, Katherine Waterston, and Chris Klein are completely wasted. And, of course, dozens of glaring logical problems happen throughout the film. Many victims stand around and just wait for the ax to fall upon them. Does no one run from ax-wielding killers anymore? Also, if you suspect a serial killer is killing teens at a school dance, why would you, alone, head down to the basement? And why does Lori think becoming Prom Queen will "change things" and make her life better anyway? This is never explained.