Director: Matt Palmer
Stars: David Iacono, Suzanna Son, India Fowler
Four years ago, interconnected R.L. Stine anthology Fear Street was the province of Leigh Janiak, and while her trilogy took a little to get going, it proved out in the long run, acting as a varied entry-level horror series for impressionable Netflix viewers. Now that we’re well into the third slasher boom, it returns in the hands of incoming Brit Matt Palmer, promising a new generation of newbies an updated introduction to the mayhem of yesteryear.
As the title suggests we’re in high school slasher territory and back in the town of Shadyside, echoing the likes of Paul Lynch’s Prom Night. Indeed, Prom Queen predates the first Fear Street in the series’ chronology-scrambling timeline, landing in 1988 as opposed to the first movie’s 1994. Still, new viewers can rest easy; there’s precious little need to do your homework for this standalone entry.
Narrated by our mid-standing every-girl Lori Granger (India Fowler) we’re given an info-dump on the movers and shakers on campus from teachers to prom queen candidates. There’s even a creepy-looking red herring janitor scowling in the margins. Lori has the prerequisite traumatic past (mother supposedly murdered by dad) and her class is cluttered with the expected mean girls (nicknamed The Wolfpack) led by prom queen favourite Tiffany (Fina Strazza), while her steadfast goth bestie Megan Rogers (Red Rocket‘s Suzanna Son) has a healthy (see morbid) streak of Ginger Snaps-style pranking in her arsenal.
In its initial passages, its easy to feel concerned that Prom Queen belongs in the gutter with the deluge of other heavy-handed ’80s homages that accentuate fashions to the point of warped fetishism. The John Carpenter-style font and Newton Brothers score certainly ring the applicable alarm bells (see also the preoccupation with too-cool-for-school bedroom wall posters and a trip to see Phantasm II at the movies). But Palmer’s general aesthetic approach is mostly a good shade lower down the register than many of his gaudy third-generation peers. ’80s Shadyside is appreciably low-key and lame, looking more like the movies it misses than the ones others only imagine existed. It’s amazing how much dialling down the perms cranks up the semblance of actual era authenticity.
It’s also appreciably gimmick free. No time-loops or parallel dimensions. Just a maniac in a red slicker picking off potential prom queens one by one. Prom Queen seems smart enough to realise that the “post-modern meta-shit” of the second generation is played out. The new flavour of the month – quite welcomingly – is lean, mean and back-to-basics. Thrills with no frills. If this is tutoring for a new generation, it’s an effort to teach the original values of the slasher movie.
Sapphics will yearn for the friendship between Lori and Megan to blossom into something more, but there’s also something heartening in the simplicity calibrated here, too. And while Son occasionally hits a bum-note with the odd line delivery, the interplay between the two generates a good amount of warmth. Certainly more warmth than Palmer’s lighting department. If there’s a genuinely impactful handicap to Prom Queen it is the commitment to near total darkness for a number of key stalk’n’slash sequences in the, ahem, shadier corridors of the high school. While this might be appropriate for the night time setting, it’s disappointing to have to report the frustrations that occur – often for long stretches – because Palmer’s team obscure much of the action.
Older viewers might reel a little from the perpetual jump scare that is former American Pie jock Chris Klein in a prominent father/teacher role (I think I got greyer every time he appeared on screen), but there’s also prominent, nay conspicuous support from the likes of Katherine Waterston and Lili Taylor (a little mystifying that she took this gig with so little to do…). Where Prom Night featured unlikely heft in it’s lead credited actor Leslie Nielsen, it’s easy to forget his star wasn’t quite as bright in 1980 before parody films made him a major name. Waterston and Taylor add slightly disproportionate heft to what is, by design, a welter-weight slasher for streaming.
While Prom Night sticks to the genre playbook, it’s not above the outright ridiculous which should sate those (the majority one would imagine) simply here for a laugh. The gore is ridiculous and gloopy, and Palmer’s masked killer seems able to severe limbs and even heads with remarkable ease. A staple piece of high school stationary equipment is put to gleeful misuse. There’s also the great pleasure of an improbable dance-off sequence. Too bad that Palmer then chooses to cut away from what is clearly his movie’s centrepiece.
Decisions like this keep Prom Queen from joining the ranks of slasher movie royalty, but as the genre grows cluttered anew with recent offerings, the beats nailed largely forgive the ones missed by a wide margin. The soundtrack’s a little too perfect (no low-budget ’80s slasher would ever afford this prom night’s playlist) and, yeah, half the time you can’t see shit, but flaky senior year slashers have fallen apart on far less, and the efforts to make comments on pushy parenting and small community rivalries at least show some awareness of the real world.
Not bad.
The Lost Highway Hotel 