Critic Reviews

"Prom Queen” blitzes through familiar pop-comic vignettes, only pausing to make its loathsome characters’ adolescent nightmares just a little bit freakier.

It's not breaking any new ground, but Prom Queen is a solid enough teen slasher that does a nice job of continuing the ever-expanding universe of R.L. Stine.

Fear Street: Prom Queen is not the best Fear Street movie. But to be fair, it’s probably the third best Prom Night.

2021 was an excellent year for slasher fans, and the Fear Street trilogy was one of the big reasons why. Four years later, Fear Street: Prom Queen, which exists in the same town and timeline but functions as a standalone, continues the fun.

Unfortunately, Fear Street: Prom Queen simultaneously goes out of its way to steal directly from all its major influences, demonstrating little if any original thought.

Problem is, this doesn’t reinvent the formula as much as follows it by rote, which makes it an enormous step down.

Cartoonishly gory and drearily unoriginal and predictable, it’s a collection of tired devices and shout-outs that plays like training wheels slasher cinema.

Cartoonishly gory and drearily unoriginal and predictable, it’s a collection of tired devices and shout-outs that plays like training wheels slasher cinema.

A misfire not quite bad or powerful enough to undo Janiak’s great work but one that questions whether the world of Fear Street is one we need to spend much more time exploring. If the introductory trilogy started us off on a thrilling journey, here we’re brought to a sudden dead end.

After the original "Fear Street" trilogy, I was itching to return to Shadyside. It was not worth the wait.