SPOILER WARNING: The following article gives away many crucial plot points from both Fear Street: Prom Queen and Prom Night. If you have not seen either horror film before, don’t say I did not warn you.
I realize how challenging it must be to make a slasher movie feel fresh, especially at this point in the horror subgenre’s decades-long history. However, I fail to recognize how Fear Street: Prom Queen – now available with a Netflix subscription – attempted to stand out from its classic horror movie peers in any way.
In fact, after watching the latest horror movie based on R.L. Stine’s popular book series not called Goosebumps, I decided to try an ‘80s slasher movie that also takes place at a doomed school dance, Prom Night, for the first time. Not only could I tell how the new Netflix movie, which even takes place in the late 1980s, is clearly inspired by the 1980 cult hit, but I often felt like the 2025 movie was almost exactly the same, and for three crucial, distinct reasons. Allow me to explain…
The Protagonists Are Haunted By A Past Crime
In both slashers, the “Final Girl” is grieving the murder of a close family member. For Lori Granger (India Fowler) in Fear Street: Prom Queen, it is her father, while in Prom Night, reigning Scream Queen Jamie Lee Curtis’ Kim Hammond and her family are struggling with the death of her younger sister, Robin, from six years earlier.
The similarities do not stop there, as each film’s respective past crime has a false prime suspect. Lori’s mother was previously accused of her father’s murder, which we later discover was the work of snotty prom queen candidate, Tiffany Falconer (Fina Strazza), and her psychotic parents (played by Chris Klein and Katherine Waterston). Robin’s death is pinned on a known child predator, but was actually caused by four of Kim’s classmates who become targeted by the masked killer, who is revealed to be Kim’s brother, Alex (Michael Tough).
While I would give points to Prom Queen for not making the Shadyside carnage an act of revenge, I think copying the Prom Night killer’s motivation at least would have been more believable than winning a stupid high school dance competition.
Two Main Characters Fight Over The Same Boy
Lori’s dark past and the race for the crown are not the only things heating up her and Tiffany’s rivalry in the new film. Lori has a thing for the bully’s boyfriend, Tyler (David Iacano), and it quickly becomes clear that the jock would rather be with her. Of course, he turns out to be a bit of a douche and gets a knife plunged through his skull, so it does not really amount to much anyway.
There is also a vicious, but ultimately frivolous, love triangle at the center of Prom Night. Kim’s boyfriend, Nick (Casey Stevens), used to date Hamilton High’s snottiest girl, Wendy (Anne-Marie Martin), who makes an ill-fated attempt to win him back at the dance, and not just because she ultimately meets a bitter end, as well.
You could say that Prom Queen at least tries something different with its romantic rivalries by making the Final Girl the one vying for the snob’s boyfriend this time, but that’s the extent of its already weak attempt to be different.
Heads Roll
This is the big one: the moment that convinced me Fear Street: Prom Queen is not just a victim of slasher movie cliches that were already tiresome when Prom Night released 45 years earlier. Both films contain a scene in which a rolling severed human head appears in the gym, scaring the living daylights out of the young prom attendees.
Admittedly, each moment is depicted in vastly different ways. In the newly released film, the head is not real but part of a prank crafted by Lori’s rebellious best friend, Megan Rogers (Suzanna Son). However, the head in Prom Night is real, belonging to school bully Lou Farmer (David Mucci), and finally alerts the crowd that a killer is on the loose.
Regardless, the makers of Prom Queen (which, from what I understand, bears little resemblance to Stine’s 1992 book) should have known that comparisons to Prom Night were inevitable and still incorporated a scene quite similar to one of its most memorable moments. Some might call it an homage, but I call it shameless.
If you streamed Fear Street: Prom Queen on Netflix and ended up liking it, I’m genuinely happy for you, but I must disagree, and not just because it pales in comparison to 2021’s Fear Street trilogy (three of the best horror movies on Netflix). However, I must admit, I did not enjoy Prom Night that much either, at least as much as the awesomely cheesy movie that followed it, 1987’s Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II, which sees Hamilton High plagued by a student’s vengeful possessive spirit. If these generic slashers put you in the mood for a wild, even wacky palette cleanser, try that with your Amazon Prime subscription or a Shudder subscription.
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