Despite a poor Tomatometer and Popcornmeter score, Netflix’s Fear Street: Prom Queen reigned supreme on the streaming charts over the holiday weekend. The streamer shared that Prom Queen, the Fear Street series’ first standalone film, came in first among Netflix’s English-language films with 10.7 million views over three days. Quite an achievement, since the film scored considerably lower than its predecessors, Fear Street: 1994, 1978, and 1666. While the previous Fear Street movies were hits with both critics and viewers, Prom Queen garnered a mere 29% of Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer of critics’ reviews of a title. The film fared worse among fans, scoring a pitiful 27%.
Set in 1988, the horror-slasher returns to Shadyside just in time for prom season. The classic clique of popular girls, who go by the Wolf Pack at Shadyside High, compete viciously with one another for prom queen. However, when a gutsy outsider (India Fowler) unexpectedly earns a nomination for the crown and her competitors begin mysteriously disappearing, the class of ’88 finds itself suddenly in for one hell of a prom night. The film seems to have all the makings for an entertaining, if not a bit campy, slasher, but Prom Queen fails to live up to the Fear Street series pedigree established in 2021.
Viewers and Critics Agree: Prom Queen is a Dud
The film’s problem stems from its uninventive recycling of genre and period tropes, with nothing fresh and compelling to offer like the original Fear Street. ComicBook’s review of the film points out where Prom Queen falls short: “Either through the lenses of romantic love or sorority, each Fear Street movie told a story that was essentially about women loving and supporting each other. On the contrary, the new installment is about the petty disputes of high school girls who are never given more than one or two personality traits.”
Related: Fear Street: Prom Queen Connects With the Trilogy in the Weirdest Way
Rotten Tomatoes user Mirza M laments, “Fear Street: Prom Queen is an uninspired slasher that offers neither the inventive thrills of its predecessors nor the rich mythology that made the series so compelling.” The film is a bitter disappointment, since we know Netflix can nail both horror and a period setting even outside the R.L. Stine-inspired film series with their juggernaut Stranger Things.
Fear Street: Prom Queen, a Victim of Franchise Fatigue?
The 10-million-plus viewers who pressed play must have figured that co-writer/director Matt Palmer’s movie would deliver similar bone-chilling delights, yet the consensus is clear: Prom Queen doesn’t measure up. What makes the letdown all the more painful is that Netflix took four years to release a follow-up to the beloved series, and the result feels like a slapdash, lazy slasher that may well be remembered as a stain on the Fear Street series’ name. Though Prom Queen has a strong showing this weekend, only time will tell if it’ll continue to grab such large swaths of viewers with its poor reviews in the coming days.
Fear Street: Prom Queen is currently streaming on Netflix.
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