One of the least helpful or pleasant ways to critique film that you’ll see quite a bit online is someone asking, “Who is this for?” The person asking it usually means, “This movie isn’t for me, so how could it be worth making?” I acknowledge this. And yet I ask, “Who is Fear Street: Prom Queen for?”

To be clear, it isn’t my intention to be dismissive. I’m just genuinely struggling to figure out its intended audience. Given the film’s setting in 1988 suburbia and the period-accurate soundtrack and costuming, one might assume it is aimed squarely at Gen Xers. They were squarely of high school age or thereabouts in ’88. Or, some might argue, it is more for Millennials who grew up with the Fear Street books—the first volume hit shelves in 1989—and watching the 1980s high school experience filtered through the films of John Hughes. The final candidates are the older Gen Alpha (10-12) and the youngest Zoomers (13-14, maybe). They may feel too old for kiddie horror like Goosebumps but not quite ready to graduate to your Screams or Halloweens.

By trying to target a range of generations with specific signifiers, the film ends up feeling unmoored, a project searching for a firmer point of view than “this is for everyone.” To rehash that old chestnut, the more specific a movie is, the more likely it is to feel relevant to a broader audience. Oxymoronic, perhaps, but anecdotally true. Look no further than Sinners for a very vivid example.

The plot, versions of which have been told in every era, gives little clarification. Lori Granger (India Fowler) is an outcast in a town with low self-esteem, Shadyside. However, like Vice Principal Dolores Brekenridge (Lili Taylor, good but terribly underused), Lori believes 1988 might be a moment of reinvention. Brekenridge thinks the high school and, by proxy, the town can finally step up to their richer rival Sunnyvale’s level. Lori imagines she might be able to erase her family’s reputation by winning prom queen.

How Brekenridge plans to redeem the high school is never clear beyond a few religious-inflected statements about purity and seizing the moment. How Lori thinks being prom queen will stop everyone from thinking her mom (Joanne Boland) murdered her father on their prom night while pregnant with Lori feels even less thought out. If being found not guilty of the crime almost two decades earlier didn’t do it, how will Lori getting a crown help?

As with the question of audience, the film never finds satisfying answers to either woman’s quest. Perhaps that’s why Fear Street: Prom Queen never successfully comes together. Not because answers are necessary but because it would at least demonstrate that someone has put in the effort to think about them.

Unfortunately, the evidence that Prom Queen didn’t spend much time figuring out exactly what it was doing or how to do it is all over the film. That leads to the unclear audience issue, certainly. It also has led to a feature seemingly tonally at war with itself. Take the gore, for instance. At times, the camera cuts away at a pivotal moment, showing us nothing. At others, a student takes a saw to the face (for a LONG time), and the result is a deep but near bloodless gash. And then there are times when someone is clutching their intestines as they spill out.

The movie’s most successful choice is when it goes for goopy and unrealistic. There is a moment, for example, where a beheaded body sprays a geyser of blood and falls to the ground. Then, after a moment’s delay, it pumps another, smaller spray of the red stuff. The result may be unintentional comedy, but I choose to believe director Matt Palmer (who also co-wrote the script with Donald McLeary) and his team knew exactly what they were doing.

One can detect a similar divide in the acting. Chris Klein and Katherine Waterston, as the parents of mean girl and expected prom queen Tiffany Falconer (Fina Strazza), are at a register of gleeful come-on. They’re not wildly over the top, but they are knowingly treading the line of parody. That works. Klein, in particular, gives a performance that will likely leave the audience thinking, “Oh, so this is how you use him as an actor now.” On the other side, Fowler and Suzanna Son, fashion icon, as her best friend/local goth are playing it earnest. Both sides work and probably could’ve mixed well if Fear Street: Prom Queen was a little surer of its tone. The split also strands actors like Strazza who can’t quite find the pocket of how she wants to play Tiffany.

The one thing the movie does very well is highlight how much of class strife in the suburbs is fought over inches, not feet. Tiffany and her family behave like rich country club types. However, they still live in Shadyside, the lesser town. Not only do they live in Shadyside, but they live across the street from Lori and her single mom. Mr. Falconer works as a teacher, after all, a notoriously underpaid line of work. Tiffany and Lori’s family are not that far apart on the socioeconomic scale. That is perhaps why the Falconers are obsessed with their daughter’s place as the school’s queen bee. Or why they work so hard at keeping the Grangers down. Better to feel superior than find common ground.

That’s a nice relief from the wealth idolization that runs through so many shows. It feels considerably more realistic than recent eat-the-rich fables that traffic in their own sense of superiority. What it isn’t is enough to erase the collection of Fear Street: Prom Queen’s shortcomings which run deep. For instance, it takes 50 minutes and several bodies before even one character we care about is threatened. All the problems add up to a movie that’s nothing more than just below mediocre.

Fear Street: Prom Queen stalks the halls of Netflix with an axe starting May 23.

Fear Street: Prom Queen Trailer: