Can an even meaner “Carrie” actually end well for the prom queen? In Netflix’s new “Fear Street” adaptation, Matt Palmer argues yes and no with a whip-smart teen horror movie co-written by the director and Donald McLeary. An even gorier “Heathers” crowned in the pitch-black comedy era of “Bottoms,” “Fear Street: Prom Queen” is anchored in the same vicious and girly roots as the original film trilogy from 2021 — albeit missing some of the scope and style inherent to Leigh Janiak’s three-part slasher epic. Still, Palmer and McLeary’s take is giddy and gruesome, a clever next chapter with a fresh killer whose bloody raincoat isn’t the only detail to scream “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

References don’t make a good movie any more than they make a good movie review, but “Fear Street: Prom Queen” successfully uses genre homage to carbonate R.L. Stine’s...