Netflix’s Fear Street: Prom Queen Slashes Into the 80s With a New Killer
- Damian Ali
- May 2
- 3 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
Prom season turns savage as Netflix brings Fear Street back to Shadyside, this time with a direct nod to R.L. Stine’s original books and a real-life scream queen hiding in plain sight.
Image of Fina Strazza as Tiffany Falconer and India Fowler as Lori Granger in Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025): Image Courtesy of Alan Markfield/Netflix
It's prom season in Shadyside, and Netflix is reviving its cult-favorite Fear Street franchise with a fresh kill list and a VHS-soaked trip back to 1988. Fear Street: Prom Queen, premiering May 23, marks the fourth film in the teen-horror saga, and the first to be based directly on one of R.L. Stine's original Fear Street novels. While the class of '88 gears up for corsages and cruel pranks, something far more sinister is on the dance card.
Directed by Matt Palmer (Calibre) and co-written with Donald Mcleary, Prom Queen centers on a ruthless clique of It Girls whose prom queen dreams are shattered when classmates begin to disappear one by one.
The setting may be familiar, but this chapter goes deeper into Shadyside’s long-running curse, the same one thought to have ended in 1666. That is until an ominous post-credits scene in the last film showed a mysterious figure stealing a cursed book. Evil, it seems, doesn't care about graduation.
The film features a great ensemble including India Fowler (The Nevers), Suzanna Son (Red Rocket), Fina Strazza (Paper Girls), David Iacono (The Summer I Turned Pretty), Ella Rubin (The Idea of You), Chris Klein (American Pie), Lili Taylor (The Nun), Katherine Waterston (Perry Mason), and Ariana Greenblatt (Barbie).
Supporting cast includes Darrin Baker, Rebecca Ablack, Ilan O’Driscoll, Damian Romeo, Dakota Taylor, Eden Summer Gilmore, Brennan Clost, Cecilia Lee, and Ryan Rosery.
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Adding to the buzz is the official trailer, which leans hard into ’80s nostalgia. It opens with a fuzzy VHS-style time stamp and a synthy blast of Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven Is a Place on Earth — all while students scream and sprint through locker-lined hallways. It’s the kind of aesthetic that horror fans are always craving, especially those who grew up sneaking slasher flicks on cable.
In a cast full of rising stars and prom-night screamers, horror fans might do a double take when they spot Lili Taylor, a bona fide scream queen whose genre credits include The Haunting (1999), The Conjuring (2013), and Leatherface (2017). Her presence adds a sharp edge of horror history to what are almost certainly going to be blood-soaked halls at Shadyside High.
Suzanna Son as Megan Rogers and India Fowler as Lori Granger in Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025): Image Courtesy of Alan Markfield/Netflix
While the first three Fear Street films-1994, 1978, and 1666- created a complex mythology around Shadyside’s cursed history, Prom Queen tightens its focus. It’s the first film to directly adapt a specific Fear Street book: 1992’s The Prom Queen. And though it can technically stand alone, Netflix still recommends watching the earlier trilogy in order for the full backstory.
R.L. Stine, also known for Goosebumps, serves as the creative backbone of the franchise, along with executive producers Jane Stine, Yvonne Bernard, and Joan Waricha.
For Director Matt Palmer, Prom Queen isn’t just about body counts. “I love that Shadyside feels so relevant to our world now; it could really be any present day blue collar town in America,” he says. “We dig much deeper down into high school and family life in this installment and find that, again, so many of the challenges that ’80s kids faced still seem to totally resonate today.” That being said: if audiences find themselves resonating with Shadyside’s ancient curse, we recommend getting in touch with an exorcist or paranormal expert of some kind as soon as possible.
Chris Klein as Dan Falconer and Katherine Waterston as Nancy Falconer in Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025): Image Courtesy of Alan Markfield/Netflix
With its updated tone and vintage scream factor, Fear Street: Prom Queen might just become the franchise’s sharpest entry yet — corsage pins and all.
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