Fear Street: Prom Queen

Directed by Matt Palmer, Fear Street: Prom Queen follows several high schoolers as they’re knocked off one by one by a psycho in a red cloak. It’s familiar subject matter that is, at the outset, employed to better-than-expected effect by Palmer, as the filmmaker, armed with his and Donald McLeary’s screenplay, offers up a retro slasher that benefits from its agreeable 1980s atmosphere and eclectic supporting cast – with, in terms of the latter, the memorable efforts of Chris Klein and Katherine Waterston, cast as a protagonists’ oddball parents, elevating the proceedings above its generic horror-movie brethren. There’s little doubt, then, that Fear Street: Prom Queen‘s downfall is triggered by an excessively (and increasingly) meandering midsection that devotes a lot of time to the characters’ tedious prom-night exploits (eg dancing, rivalries, etc, etc), which, when coupled with a proliferation of bland, one-dimensional heroes, ensures that the picture peters out long before arriving at its admittedly decent Scream-like climax – with the end result a disappointing failure that does, at least, fare better than its most recent predecessor.

** out of ****