Like its predecessors, Fear Street: Prom Queen, a loose adaptation of R.L. Stine's 1992 novel The Prom Queen, honors the broader franchise by pairing teen melodrama with shockingly gnarly kills and a motley crew of suspects.
Set in the series' trademark Shadyside in 1988, the story centers around Lori Granger (India Fowler), an outcast rumored to come from a cursed lineage. They say Lori's mother killed her father after he impregnated her and tried to hightail it back to the neighboring Sunnyvale. But Lori believes her mother is innocent, as does her best friend, the loyal (and demented) Megan (Suzanna Son).
Lori doesn't want to be defined by her family's dark past, and hopes that becoming prom queen could help her reinvent herself. It's a curious thing, then, when Shadyside's prom queen nominees begin getting brutally killed off by a masked killer in red pleather.
Who's the killer? And do they have any connection to Lori's past? Read on as we answer those questions and more with Entertainment Weekly's Fear Street: Prom Queen ending explainer.
A lot of people die in Fear Street: Prom Queen.
The majority of them belong to the it-girl clique of Tiffany Falconer (Fina Strazza), the popular girl with a penchant for bullying Lori about her mother's reputation. Linda (Ilan O'Driscoll), Debbie (Rebecca Ablack), Melissa (Ella Rubin), and Claire (Eden Summer Gilmore) get disemboweled, electrocuted, face-cleavered, and axed, respectively. Another prom queen candidate, the drug-dealing bad girl Christy (Ariana Greenblatt), takes an axe to the back.
Their boyfriends, meanwhile, suffer the painful indignities of paper cutters, buzzsaws, and other sharp objects. And then there's hunky Tyler (David Iacono), who dumps Tiffany for Lori during the dance. Well, he gets a knife dropped into his skull before he and Lori can consummate their new relationship.
We'll save the rest of the movie's kill count for below.
A better question is, "Who are the killers?"
While viewers are initially led to believe only one killer is roaming Shadyside, Melissa's murder reveals two killers are stalking the dance in knock-off Alice, Sweet Alice getups.
One of those foes is exposed when Principal Wayland (Darrin Baker) crowns Lori as prom queen. As she takes the stage, warning of a killer on the premises, an axe-wielding masked murderer chops his way through the crowd. After lopping off Wayland's arm, Lori triumphs by jamming her tiara into one of the mask's eyeholes.
After unmasking the killer, it's revealed to be Dan Falconer (Chris Klein), a teacher at the school and Tiffany's father. Tiffany was favored to become prom queen, with her mother, Nancy (Katherine Waterston), placing ample pressure on her to win the crown.
When asked why he murdered Tiffany's competition, Dan replies, "Because I knew how much you wanted it. Both of you." He's promptly arrested.
But there's still another killer on the loose. After Lori and Tiffany bond and retreat to Tiffany's house to recuperate, we discover that the second slasher is actually Nancy.
When she climbs the steps to Tiffany's room with a butcher knife in tow, the girls try to escape. That's when we learn that Tiffany is in on it, too, making the murders a Falconer family affair.
No, Lori's mom, Rose (Joanne Boland), did not kill her father. It was actually Nancy, who confesses that she killed Lori's father after he dumped her for Rose.
"You really remind me of your two-faced dad," she says to Lori, knife in hand. "He was mine first, you know. Before your skank of a mother came along... My face was the last thing that he ever saw."
For Nancy, the Falconers represent the glamorous side of Shadyside. As such, Tiffany deserves to be prom queen, which is why the couple sought to slaughter their daughter's competition. Lori's efforts to become prom queen were particularly grating.
"You Grangers are always taking things that belong to us," Nancy hisses. "No one crosses the Falconers."
Yes. After a bloody struggle, Lori vanquishes both Tiffany and Nancy.
First, she kicks Tiffany off the second-floor landing of the Falconer home, impaling her on a decorative carving atop the bannister. Nancy chases Lori throughout the house, but Lori slugs her with the blunt end of a trophy, leaving her to bleed out on the carpet.
As the life drains from her eyes, Nancy spits vitriol at Lori, calling her a "bitch" and "trash." Lori leaves, and Nancy cries out, "Who the f--- do you think you are?"
Lori, taking ownership of her "cursed" name, declares, "I'm Lori f---ing Granger."
Fear Street: Prom Queen is now streaming on Netflix.