Insanely prolific “Goosebumps” creator R.L. Stine’s totally different principal publishing franchise, the youthful grownup “Concern Avenue” sequence, made splash on Netflix 4 years up to now with the premiere of three interlocking choices, each set within the equivalent fictitious “cursed” metropolis all through a novel interval. All directed by Leigh Janiak, the trio (“Concern Avenue: 1994,” “1978” and “1666”) was uneven in some respects, nonetheless vigorous, stylistically varied and pretty daring — common, a selected reduce above the usual formulaic run of horror entries.
That sense of occasion is missing from the model new “Concern Avenue: Promenade Queen,” a belated stand-alone chapter that feels considerably additional mundane. Reprising high-school slasher cliches relationship once more on the very least to 1980’s “Promenade Night time time,” minus any particular invention or irony, this new entry is a slick-enough nonetheless disappointingly unimaginative effort that will’t even be bothered to reference the mythology established throughout the prior motion pictures.
The story is once more in perpetually ill-starred burg Shadyside, “the place the long term crawls to die,” as heroine Lori Granger (India Fowler) grouses in opening voiceover narration. Glimpsed this time in 1988, it’s an outwardly common, all-American small metropolis that nonetheless constantly suffers grotesque incidents of violent tragedy — one amongst which took the lifetime of Lori’s father, leaving her mother (Joanne Boland) ceaselessly suspected of his murder. Improbably positioned correct all through the street from their humble abode is the upscale manse inhabited by the Falconers, a rich couple (Katherine Waterson, Chris Klein) who’ve raised solely teen Tiffany (Fina Strazza) to be a really stinging WASP. She is chief to a highschool mean-girl clique known as “the Wolfpack,” whose three totally different members she retains correctly beneath thumb — whereas directing their venom in any respect individuals else, considerably Lori and her goth BFF Megan (beforehand seen in “Pink Rocket”).
Nonetheless, Lori is so uninterested in being kicked spherical that she’s entered herself as a candidate for promenade queen, alongside the entire she-“wolves.” The sixth contender is “big-time rebel” Christy (Ariana Greenblatt): a proud “unhealthy lady” who’s working possibly merely to spite your complete college, along with its stuffy principal administrators Principal Wayland (Darrin Baker) and Vice Principal Brekenridge (Lili Taylor). Selling remedy in a dingy area of metropolis one night — like its predecessors, this film takes for granted less-parentally-approved actions amongst as we communicate’s adolescents — Christy will get accosted by any person in a masks and purple slicker, like an adult-sized mannequin of the killer in “Don’t Look Now.” From there, the film is commits to its slasher premise.
After that, we’re rapidly on the promenade, the place that exact same lethal thriller decide begins to stalk and stab the queen aspirants. Survival odds rapidly winnow for the Wolfettes, plus their unlucky boyfriends and anyone else who will get in the easiest way. Megan is the first to suspect one factor amiss as these excellent people disappear by means of the event, though at first no person believes her — along with Lori, who’s distracted by the attention coming her method from Tiffany’s fed-up beau Tyler (David Iacono). Nonetheless as quickly as heads start rolling correct out on the dance floor, all individuals will get the message.
There’s numerous limb-severing and such. Nonetheless “Concern Avenue: Promenade Queen” certainly not rises above its pedestrian thought, which merely lifts cliches from commonplace slice-and-dice opuses, along with highschool satires like “Heathers” and “Suggest Girls,” with out ever figuring merely how considerably it must take them. (Nor does it bear loads resemblance previous a title to Stine’s 1992 “Concern Avenue” entry “The Promenade Queen.”) So there’s a half-heartedness to your complete enterprise, though it’s paced expertly enough to hold consideration.
The characters are too one-dimensional to care about — though we’re sporadically requested to do precisely that — however on the equivalent time their cartoonishness isn’t dealt with with enough gusto to really be pleasing. The supernatural set off that underlied the mayhem throughout the genuine “Concern Avenue” trilogy is absent proper right here. However the climactic, very human clarification is ludicrously over-the-top for a film that doesn’t seem to expertise its private improbability, rendering that conclusion additional laughable than flamboyant or knowingly humorous. Even a dance-off duel between underdog protagonist and villainess, offering prime various for camp additional, falls flat.
That’s not the fault of the competent, normally well-cast actors — doing their best, even within the occasion you would possibly lament the veteran experience wasted — nonetheless moderately with the film’s tonal uncertainty. Perhaps British director Matt Palmer and his co-writer Donald McLeary merely aren’t comfortable with the very American milieu (no matter a Canadian manufacturing) or model tropes at hand. Really the shiny, shallow “Promenade Queen” is a far cry from their prior operate, 2018’s “Calibre,” a thriller set throughout the Scottish Highlands that was all about psychological nuance.
People who keep their expectations geared to the extent of a well-produced generic slasher will uncover this practice passably entertaining. Gore FX aside, its closest consideration is paid to the trimmings of Eighties teen custom, from garish fashions to the anticipated soundtrack of basic pop hits by Billy Idol, Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Judas Priest, Roxette, Rick Astley, Bananarama, Tiffany, Laura Branigan and so forth. The Newton Brothers’ genuine ranking hews to an equivalent synthy template. One notable holdover from the prior motion pictures is providing a thread of lesbian want, though Megan’s unrequited pining for Lori occupies a additional marginal place throughout the narrative this time spherical.
