Netflix film “Fear Street: Prom Queen”, which was released a few months ago, is no more than your average slasher flick, and that is a big disappointment compared to how much the Fear Street trilogy achieved a few years ago. Yes, that trilogy was more or less than an exercise in genre variation, but the overall result was often fun and engaging enough to hold our attention as willingly going against the rules of its genre along with its main characters. In case of “Fear Street: Prom Queen”, this merely follows its genre clichés and conventions, so there is not much fun or thrill for us, no matter how many figures are maimed or killed in gruesome ways along the plot.

Set in 1988, the story, which is based on the novel of the same name in the book series from R.L. Stein, revolves around the upcoming prom of the high school in Shadyside, which, as shown in the Fear Street trilogy, has been riddled with many horrible incidents for more than 300 years in contrast to its more affluent and peaceful neighbor town. For changing the public image of Shadyside, the vice principal of the high school is quite determined to make the prom as safe and wholesome as possible, and everyone in the school is certainly interested in who will be chosen as the prom queen in the end.

Everything thinks Tiffany Falconer (Fina Strazza), who is incidentally the most popular girl in the high school, will be the prom queen, but Lori Granger (India Fowler) is quite willing to compete against Tiffany even though she is a lot less popular than Tiffany due a notorious past involved with her mother. Around the time Tiffany’s mother got pregnant right before her high school prom, her boyfriend, who is Tiffany’s father, was murdered, and many people in the town think she killed him even though she was eventually released later.

Reminded again and again of her family’s disturbing past, Lori becomes all the more determined to become the prom queen and then get a moment of redemption for her as well as her mother, and her best friend Megan Rogers (Suzanna Son) is surely ready to support Lori to the end. For example, Megan willingly accompanies Lori as her prom partner because no boy in their school dares to defy Tiffany and her selected group of mean girls, and Lori certainly appreciates that. 

Needless to say, it looks like Tiffany is going to be the new prom queen as expected, but something very disturbing is already happening behind the prom. One of the six prom queen candidates including Tiffany and Lori was killed even before the prom is started, and the killer, who is naturally and conveniently masked while also wearing a strikingly red raincoat, seems to be going to eliminate the remaining candidates one by one.

While this murderous figure continues the killing spree here and there in the school, those boys and girls continue to have a good time without noticing anything, and the movie expectedly uses a number of notable songs of the 1980s. At one point, a certain recognizable song is played in the background, and, not so surprisingly, this leads to a moment when Lori comes to rise up as a considerable competitor to Tiffany’s annoyance. Besides, Tiffany’s hunky boyfriend comes to show more interest in Lori, and this certainly makes Tiffany all the more furious to say the least.

In case of several killing scenes in the film, director/co-writer Matt Palmer surely makes us wince more than once, but these scenes are just bloody and violent without contributing much to the story and characters while remained as mere shockers. In many of those killing scenes in the Fear Street trilogy, we are often quite engaged and then horrified because we actually come to know and then care about some of its main characters. In case of “Fear Street: Prom Queen”, many of its main characters are no more than cardboard figures to be eliminated sooner or later, and we simply observe its predictable plot progress from the distance without much care.

 The main cast members of the film try to overcome their rather forgettable characters as much as they can. India Fowler manages to bring a bit of life and personality to her very clichéd heroine, and she and Suzanna Son click together so well that you may be very disappointed with how the movie does not delve more into these two outsider girls’ friendship. On the opposite, Fina Strazza is effective as your typical high school queen bee who turns out to be more anxious and pressured than she seems on the surface, and Lili Taylor, Katherine Waterston, and Chris Klein, who incidentally looks much older and more different compared to when he appeared in those American Pie flicks many years ago, are regrettably wasted in their thankless supporting roles, which will only remind you of my late mentor Roger Ebert’s indisputable Law of Economy of Characters.

In conclusion, “Fear Street: Prom Queen” is quite rote and conventional in terms of storytelling and characterization, and it does not surprise us much even during the last act where it is supposed to throw some obligatory plot twists as required (Is this a spoiler, folks?). While getting more and more dissatisfied with the film, I was reminded again and again of how refreshing the Fear Street trilogy was besides being solid genre flicks, and, as a matter of fact, I am actually planning to revisit that trilogy soon, considering how long and hot this summer has been during last several weeks.