Last Updated on May 1, 2025 by Angel Melanson
Netflix's upcoming Fear Street: Prom Queen is on the horizon, and we couldn't be more excited to travel back to Shadyside circa 1988. The previous installments transported us to 1994, 1978, and 1666, respectively. Based on R.L. Stine's wildly popular YA novel series, the world of Fear Street is rife with horrific storytelling opportunities. Prom Queen is a standalone story that takes us to a new decade with a new story and new characters. While it's not part of the 2021 Fear Street trilogy, Netflix's fourth installment in the franchise is firmly rooted in the world of Shadyside.
As a fan of '80s horror (particularly 1988's Phantasm II), director Matt Palmer felt 1988 was the perfect backdrop for the blood-soaked slasher tale of prom queen hopefuls being picked off one by one. “It's funny, I was initially attracted to 1988 just because I really love the late '80s movies and all the music, I guess because that's when I was in high school.” Palmer shared during a recent interview. “Then, when we started thinking about it more, it kind of sat quite nicely. The stuff that the characters have started to discover by 1994, the people in Shadyside don't necessarily know in 1988, but you get to lean back a little bit into the Nightwing Massacre of 1978. I'd be lying if it wasn't my instinctual attraction to 1988 that led me there first, but when we started to unpack that, it was like this actually feels like a really good choice of year for the franchise.”
Palmer noted a big reason for doing this as a standalone movie was because Leigh Janiak's Fear Street trilogy developed the lore so strongly and wrapped everything up so nicely. “There were so many answers. Obviously, people are really interested in who took the book at the end of the trilogy, but it feels like a lot of the other mysteries were kind of answered. It always felt like if we started from the Shadyside Curse and Sarah Fier, that's really difficult to do with a Whodunit movie. It's like, I think it was probably Sarah Fier. My guess would be that this one won't be the end of the Trilogies, but it also won't be the end of standalone films, and they'll all weave together in really interesting ways.”
Palmer cites the late '80s as essentially a goldmine for horror fans (we agree!). The way Palmer explained it: “It's almost like the '80s got more '80s as the '80s went on. So 1988 felt like the uber '80s. The other thing, of course, and whether people really think about this kind of stuff, I'm not sure, but 1984 in New York City wasn't the same as 1984 in a place like Shadyside in the Real America of the 1980s. Small towns took longer to catch up than places where the '80s would kind of been born, like New York and LA. So it felt like 1988 would be a sweet spot of the '80s for Shadyside.”
So Palmer and the Prom Queen team drop us back into Shadyside at the height of its eightiesdom. Presented in a specifically Shadyside way. “It is that '80s on steroids thing that is quite exciting. Stranger Things season three did an amazing job of doing that, so we've twisted it slightly so that it is the Shadyside version of 1988. People are trying to look cool, but maybe they're not doing quite as good a job. And also, it's just a much poorer town and much rougher around the edges. It felt like an opportunity not to repeat Stranger Things season three and do something that's its own kind of twist on the '80s. That's just a little grimy around the edges.”
That concept of grimy around the edges informs Palmer's taste in slashers and horror in general. While he is, of course, a fan of the legendary titles, his favorites are not the ones that spawned franchises that are still going on today. “I like films that are a little bit mad around the edges. When you play the slightly mad titles, people lose their minds, that always enamors me. There's a lot of madness in those '80s slasher movies because they were often produced on quite low budgets. There's a slightly unhinged quality.“
Within that unhinged and mad around the edges quality Palmer loves so much, the drama is dialed all the way up. “The thing I really like about slasher movies is that in all drama, you're trying to find high stakes. You put a slasher movie on and the stakes are life and death from minute one, and there's just a kind of buzz and excitement about how they're just raw and visceral because of that element. And I really like that.”
Fear Street: Prom Queen star Suzanna Son likely summed it up best: “The decade's changed, but Shadyside's still the worst place to survive high school.“ Ok, put it on the poster. Son just captured in one sentence what we're in store for this time around!
As we gear up for our return to Shadyside on May 23rd, we have your exclusive first look at some new Fear Street: Prom Queen key art and stills. The poster style pays tribute to original Fear Street cover artists like frequent R.L. Stine contributors Bill Schmidt and ENRIC, featuring five Prom Queen hopefuls and one FANGORIA-loving best friend (with impeccable taste).
And a couple of exclusive stills for you to feast your eyes on. We're maybe a little extra excited for these two sneak peeks.
Prom Queen star India Fowler added: “It’s a new and exciting element of the Fear Street Universe. Fans can expect that shock horror we know and love from the trilogy, whilst experiencing the buzz of an '80s party alongside it!”
Palmer gave us a little insight into the above shot: “There were two things about that shot of Megan (Suzanna Son) on the bed, it's got the FANGORIA magazine again, which is great, and then it's got Joan Jett in the background with middle fingers up. That shot only made it into that montage right at the end, and I'm so glad because of those two things.” So are we, Matt!
Watch Fowler, Son and Co. fight for their lives when Fear Street: Prom Queen lands on Netflix May 23. Save us a dance.
For the curious, that FANGORIA #75 from July 1988. And you can read the whole thing from cover to (digital) cover for free right here.
