Directed by Matt Palmer

Starring – Ariana Greenblatt, India Fowler, Suzanna Son

The Plot – Prom season at Shadyside High is underway and the school’s wolfpack of It Girls is busy with its usual sweet and vicious campaigns for the crown. But when gutsy outsider, Lori (Fowler) is unexpectedly nominated to the court, and the other girls start mysteriously disappearing, the class of ’88 is suddenly in for one hell of a prom night.

Rated R for strong bloody violence and gore, teen drug use, adult language and some sexual references.

Fear Street: Prom Queen | Official Trailer | Netflix

POSITIVES

Having no prior knowledge of this franchise, in seeing none of the original trilogy of movies, actually granted me the appeal of a lack of preconceived notions for what this fourth installment should rightfully be, and while “Prom Queen” has enough conflicts within its own creative design, rather than comparisons to previous installments, there were a couple of aspects and techniques to the film that I wholeheartedly enjoyed, beginning with its homage of 80’s slashers. As to where other movies can be called to the forefront for their uninspiring channeling of an assortment of genre tropes and character cliches, Palmer’s open embracing of these elements establishes it early on as the kind of film that you watch to have a good time, instead of one that you emphatically take seriously, and it’s a decision that proves Palmer to be a student of the B-movie craze that in recent years has worked itself back into the fold of mainstream cinema, all in order to elicit a high stakes whodunnit? with all of the attitude of high school class systems at their most confrontational. In addition to this, I found quite a few of the movie’s kills to be surprisingly effective in garnering a reaction out of me, particularly those pertaining to a dominance of practicality effects over C.G, which carried with them a surprising amount of devastating detail for this being a straight to streaming product of its environment. While C.G is mostly used to flesh out the blood squirting of the terror that’s involved, the limbs and even free-falling guts are designed accordingly to inscribe heft and influence to the depths of the anatomical trauma, with one death involving a table saw easily being the single best of the movie, and one that is currently in my yearly top five, alongside other horror releases. The extensive cast also does a solid job of inspiring these characters, despite an overall lack of characterization to their designs that makes each of them feel one-dimensional. While the legitimacy attained from big name actors like Chris Klein, Katherine Waterston, or Lily Taylor certainly appealed to their respective against-type portrayals, this is really a youthful showcase at the movie’s core, and it’s Fowler and mean girl queen, Fina Strazza, who take center stage in this slasher. India calls upon the typical sensibilities of a final girl to breathe life into her candid portrayal, with a subtly underlining transformation towards stoicism that makes her the resilient leading lady needed to fight back against a masked onslaught, with Fowler appraising sincerity and empathy to her portrayal that makes her ideal for the casting. As for Strazza, she eagerly embellishes in the insensitivities of her character’s antagonistic design, with a crippling psychological game of chess that she utilizes to tap into the insecurities of Lori’s dreams for the crown, all the while enacting her own voracious venom on the decades-old grip that her family has on the town. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the underlining score here from The Newton Brothers takes ample opportunity of the 80’s setting, with an entrancingly gripping set of synth-heavy instrumentals that were a pleasure to endure, even when the movie started to lose my interest. The Newton’s compositions feel like they could’ve been lifted directly from Disasterpiece’s work during “It Follows”, with elevating volumes and nagging persistence in the rhythmic impulses attaching an element of urgency to kill sequences otherwise marred by abrasively abrupt impacts, all in giving us a consistency to score that is far too good for the movie corresponds with.

NEGATIVES

That last line should tell you everything that you need to know about “Prom Queen” being every bit the insufferable experience that it was, with most of its problems pertaining to a lackadaisical screenplay that did very little favors to its storytelling or characters, in terms of compelling components. As to where I previously commended the movie for paying tribute to the kind of films that its director so obviously grew up on, the narrative itself feels far too derivative and redundant from other, better predecessors before it, which in turn makes the mystery surrounding the engagement every bit the predictably bland and unimpactful reveal that it eventually surmised itself as. Throughout the movie, I constantly kept saying to myself that it couldn’t be this easy to peg out which of these characters was the killer, based on the motive alone, but the ending went exactly the way I expected, without a single ounce of deviation, and in a plot with so many compelling possibilities, this script went the most conventionally mundane way towards attaining entertainment value to its audience, ending matters on a flimsily tacked-on mid credits sequence needed to tie itself to other antagonists from the franchise, in ways that feel like the script forgot to attach. As for the aforementioned characters, the ensemble here are trying their best to inscribe some kind of personality to outlines marred by one-dimensionality and horribly stock dialogue, but their efforts fall on deaf ears, as I never came close to seeing these characters as anything other than the types that they were ultimately summarized as, making it not only difficult to care about a single one of them meeting their untimely demises, even in terms of satisfaction towards watching them die, but also undefined towards articulating any of them feeling different from one another, especially the mean girl group themselves, whom I forgot their names as quickly as a minute later. Of course the exposition and overhead narration dumps certainly don’t do the characterization any favors, especially in telling audiences everything that we should know about these characters in the opening seven minutes of this film, with narration by Fowler that shoves as many bullet points into single sentences as possible. Because this movie barely clocks in at a meager 82 minutes before closing credits, the first act of the film feels like it’s off to the races before we’ve ever even had a chance to take in this established world, and with as much cool and hip lingo that middle-aged screenwriters pull from the conversations of their children, we’re given unnaturally, unsubtly forced interactions that distract more than they assist, making this a primary example of slasher movie horror once the mainstream masses have gotten their hands on what they think make these movies the fun popcorn diversion from society that the best of them have been. That personality carries over to a continuous clash in tone between the murky depths of the killer’s vicious executions, and those of the casual interactions of these teenage characters, and while the movie is trying to establish authenticity into the 80’s teenage experience, complete with Stephen King bullying and high school stereotypes, those elicited here directly contradict the air of this terrifying force sent to decimate with their own preconceived intentions, giving this edit and these transitions between sequences the kind of tonal whiplash that makes it difficult to remain focused or even take this movie at face value. Finally, the production designs are the kind of stylized catastrophe that highlights everything about this engagement being the frustration that it constantly is, with surface level designs and trends that feel like the school is having an 80’s night dress-up, instead of zeroing in authentically on a story that takes place in 1988. This is an incredibly lazy detailing, even by Netflix’s standards, as contradicting hair styles, furniture designs, and even the movie’s cinematography never invoke the essence of being pulled directly from the intended time period, and though it tries endlessly to include as many 80’s familiarities in background movies and soundtrack selections, it’s the small things that it casually overlooks, dropping the ball on what should’ve been its single greatest strength on setting itself apart from the previous three films in this franchise.

OVERALL
“Fear Street: Prom Queen” is an underwhelmingly derivative and under stylized thank you of a slasher to a passionate fanbase that has waited four years for a new installment, only to have their curiosity and excitement underwhelmed by content-filling mediocrity. With very little palpable tension, as a result of tonal whiplash, thinly written characters, and a telegraphed twist, this fourth installment of the franchise takes the crown for unoriginality, in turn proving that with Netflix you do in fact get exactly what you paid for.

My Grade: 3.7 or F