High school is hell, and navigating it is terrifying in and of itself, so it’s no surprise that it’s a frequent setting in horror. Even less surprising is how it transforms major milestones of the high school experience, like school dances, into a lethal horror nightmare.
This week brings the arrival of Netflix’s , a standalone installment that aims to slaughter the competition of hopeful prom queen candidates. It’s far from the only horror movie to explore the social pressures and teen angst that come with formal events; how many adaptations of are there now?
While spring tends to be peak prom season, this week’s streaming picks are dedicated to high school dance set horror movies that transform the setting into slaying grounds.
As usual, here’s where you can stream them this week.
In director Bruce Pittman’s wild cult sequel, initially conceived as a standalone horror movie, high school mean girl and prom queen Mary Lou Maloney (Lisa Schrage) accidentally burns to death shortly after getting her prom queen crown and returns 30 years later to seek revenge on the men responsible: Principal Billy (Michael Ironside) and Father Cooper (Richard Monette). But a ghost with a vengeance on her mind needs a victim. Enter virginal teen Vicki (Wendy Lyon). Hello Mary Lou dials up the absurdity and weirdness of teen hormones, featuring a horny mean girl ghost and outlandish scare tactics- including a memorable carousel horse of nightmares.
For most high school set horror, or horror comedies in this case, a school dance is an event filled with pressure for the hormonal teens in attendance. But even more important, it’s an event filled with a sea of unsuspecting victims, with the potential for maximum catastrophe. So, it’s no surprise that this riff on the phrase, “idle hands are the Devil’s playthings,” which sees stoner teen Anton lose control of his possessed, murderous right hand, would culminate in the big Halloween school dance. The dance becomes the battlefield between Anton and his evil hand as he fights to protect his neighbor-turned-dream girl, Molly.
Subverting the big dance spectacles of typical high school horror, Sean Byrne’s debut examines what prom is like for those who don’t get prom dates. In this case, when socially awkward Lola gets rejected by Brent as her date, she and her father decide to create their own dance at home. The only problem is that Lola doesn’t take no for an answer. Crowned queen of her own dance, she decides the best way to a man’s heart is to carve her way into it. Sometimes a more intimate setting makes for a much more terrifying feature, and Lola’s twisted prom can be the scariest of them all. With Sean Byrne’s Dangerous Animals arriving next month, now’s the time to revisit this gem.
It’s not the plot that makes this slasher worthwhile, but the particularly gnarly deaths and practical effects. The love-sick killer here dons a World War II combat uniform and uses a bayonet as his weapon of choice, spurned to kill in vengeance thanks to a Dear John letter. The killer chooses the night of a graduation dance to embark on a grisly murder spree, with director doing an incredible job highlighting breathtaking special makeup effects work. It was their work on The Prowler that led to Zito and Savini getting the job on Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, the fourth installment of a franchise built around its kill count. It’s easy to see why; The Prowler revels in its visceral deaths, and very few in the genre manage to be as realistic and bloody as the ones Savini created here.
High school seniors McKayla and Sadie are social media-obsessed BFFs who deftly balance dance committee, cheerleading, and serial killing aspirations with ease. Being the overachievers that they are, they’re not just content to pick off victims one by one; they want to really make a name for themselves by staging a large-scale massacre. When you’re a high school senior, the easy choice is prom. For most, prom would be the night of hopes and dreams of romance coming to fruition. But for McKalya and Sadie, it’s a harrowing test of friendship, mayhem, and bloodshed.
