SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers about “Fear Street: Prom Queen,” now streaming on Netflix.
Growing up in the U.K., “Fear Street: Prom Queen” director and co-screenwriter Matt Palmer wasn’t too familiar with R. L. Stine’s teen horror novel series that launched the Netflix film franchise. They had “Goosebumps,” Stine’s more popular series for younger readers, but “Fear Street” hadn’t made as much impact across the pond.
Luckily, Palmer was still approached to direct “Prom Queen,” the fourth chapter in the “Fear Street” film series, before producers had cemented which of the ten titles they had narrowed down to consider adapting next. This book spoke to him, even as he was well out of high school.
“The idea was like, ‘What if you tried to write a teen movie in the John Hughes mold — the kids were in “The Breakfast Club” — but there was a fucking maniac with a power tool running around?’ That was the beginning,” he says. “Also it felt like we could ground the movie with the Lori (India Fowler) and Megan (Suzanna Son) characters. That’s the thing about slasher movies: The characters can often feel like they’re just serving a function in the narrative. So when the threat comes here, you’ve invested enough. But what if we were more invested in the characters right from the get-go?”
Palmer was thrilled with the source material, but also happy to have Stine’s blessing to make changes for the script. His first move was updating the dialogue to create characters that were fleshed out in a more contemporary manner.
“It’s funny because we’re making a movie that is set in the past, but at the same time it needs to resonate with a modern audience,” he says. “In the book, the girls talk about boys quite a lot, and I think in this movie girls talk about each other a lot more, and it definitely passes the Bechdel Test.”
Another major change was the killer’s identity, so even fans of the book would be surprised at the end of the movie. With the reveal that Dan and Nancy Falconer (Chris Klein and Katherine Waterston) were killing to help Tiffany (Fina Strazza) become prom queen, the shock was only amplified by the final twist that Tiffany herself was also a homicidal maniac.
Palmer admits he had the vision for the ending early on, saying, “When I first pitched it to the producers, they said ‘Who did it?’ and I said, ‘These two people did it, and this is what the killer says: “People never remember the details, they only remember the winner.”‘ And so it was there right from the very beginning, which was nice because it made it easier to write because we weren’t overthinking it — ‘These are the people who did it, and there is one twist’ — when we’re writing.”
One unexpected element is the film’s brief mid-credits scene, where blood from Nancy’s bashed-in head forms a symbol. Said symbol is the Witch’s Mark, which comes into play in the previous “Fear Street” trilogy as a call for demonic sacrifice.
Palmer says the easter egg was originally more of an element in the film.
“It’s left over from another idea that was bigger in the original script, which was that the killers actually had been engaging in a satanic practice to try and do the work that they do,” Palmer says. “They’d maybe been trying to go a satanic route to do it, and having not managed to fully make that happen, went old school and did it with whatever weapon was available. Then there was a conception for there being a second movie set in 1990 that would become a Satanic Panic movie. We did look at potentially weaving characters from the first movie and having a post-credit sequence too, but we wanted to keep the movie short and sharp.
“I wanted to make a movie that was under 90 minutes because I love horror movies that come in and then do it and get out quickly,” he continues. “We ended up just sticking to the story that’s being told, but hopefully it opens the door a little bit for the fans to link it to the first movies or potentially come up with theories for what this might mean. And then who knows? Maybe that 1990 movie might come along and could throw more light on this mysterious easter egg at the end.”
So is this direct sequel to “Prom Queen” likely to get made?
“Potentially,” Palmer says. “But I also got to make an ’80s retro slasher, and in the ‘Fear Street’ universe. So I don’t want to be greedy. I would gladly go back and play in the sandpit again, but I’m also excited to see other directors, because the producers are looking for filmmakers with vision and I’m excited to see what the future brings for the franchise too.”
Watch the “Prom Queen” trailer below.
