Fear Street: Prom Queen announces ensemble cast including India Fowler, Chris Klein, Suzanna Son, and more

Collider previously reported that a new entry in Netflix’s popular horror franchise Fear Street, based on R.L. Stine’s long-running book series was in the works, and now we have official confirmation from R.L. Stine himself that Fear Street 4 is in the works and it will be based on the 15th Fear Street book, Prom Queen, about a murderer killing the Prom Queen candidates at Shadyside High one by one.

According to What's On Netflix, the new movie will be directed by Matt Palmer and written by The O.C. vets Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. Apart from The O.C., Schwartz and Savage also worked on Gossip Girl together and The CW series Nancy Drew.

On March 26, we learned who will star in the movie and it includes a cast of mostly unknowns and up-and-coming stars like India Fowler, Suzanna Son, and Fina Strazza.

The latest scoop from Netflix also offers a new logline, revealing that the movie will be set in 1988 and follow the It Girls competing for Prom Queen, "an outsider gets nominated and the other girls start mysteriously disappearing."

Here's the official cast list (so far) and where you've seen the actors before! We don't know who they'll be playing in the movie yet, but provide updates as soon as we know.

• India Fowler (Man vs. Bee, The Nevers, White Lines)
• Suzanna Son (The Idol, Red Rocket)
• Fina Strazza (Paper Girls)
• David Iacono (The Summer I Turned Pretty)
• Ella Rubin (Masters of the Air, The Idea of You)
• Chris Klein (American Pie, Sweet Magnolias)
• Lili Taylor (American Crime, The Conjuring)
• Katherine Waterston (Fantastic Beasts, Inherent Vice, Alien: Covenant)

Fear Street: Prom Queen will be a standalone feature

The only downside to this new movie is that it likely wouldn't include characters from the 2021 trilogy, but honestly, I think Fear Street would work best as a horror anthology so I'm okay with that and I think most fans will be, too, especially since the trilogy got a solid ending with storylines wrapped up.

What's On Netflix noted that another difference between the trilogy and this new project is that the trilogy of films took inspiration from several of R.L. Stine's books, while this new movie will just focus on Prom Queen. Of course, that opens the door for plenty of additional spinoff films or standalone features since there are over 150 Fear Street books spread across different series and iterations.

The source credits the Canadian Director’s Guild for providing information on the pre-production on Fear Street: Prom Queen so it sounds like this is really happening (finally!).

Rumors about a fourth Fear Street

There have been many rumors regarding the status of Fear Street over the years. The trilogy performed very well for Netflix when it debuted across three weeks in the summer of 2021, but then we really didn’t hear anything about its future for a long time after that. Rumors started swirling that The Watcher director Chloe Okuno would take over as director for the fourth movie, but that was never officially confirmed.

Leigh Janiak, who directed the trilogy, has also expressed interest in expanding the Fear Street universe and even R.L. Stine himself got fans’ hopes up when he confirmed that rumors were swirling about the alleged expansion.

Then in November 2023, Netflix’s head of film, Scott Stuber, told Collider that Netflix is working on at least one new standalone Fear Street film, but are still trying to ensure they get the script just right.

Netflix’s head of film previously confirmed work on a new standalone Fear Street

While chatting with Collider, Stuber said they had “one standalone” they’re “working on right now.” But it sounds like it hasn’t been officially ordered or readied for production if it’s still in the script-writing stage.

There’s also the fact that there’s been two ongoing strikes between the WGA and SAG-AFTRA that would likely have held up the developmental process for the movie. Now that both strikes have been resolved, hopefully things will start moving along at a faster pace and we’ll get more concrete news sooner rather than later.

“I feel like if we can get that script right there would be a great kind of extension of that franchise,” says Stuber.

There are a lot of Fear Street books to choose from. I’d be curious to know what book the script in development is inspired by, or if its going to utilize some of the characters from the 2021 trilogy. Personally, I think Netflix should focus on a new story with new characters, but it would be fun to have some callbacks and easter eggs in a shared-universe setting.

Stuber wants Netflix to develop its own horror icon and original IP

To be honest, I’ve been disappointed in Netflix’s horror offerings as of late. It seems like the streaming service has significantly cut down on horror in general. For the past couple of years, the biggest horror releases have been from Mike Flanagan, the creative mind behind The Fall of the House of Usher, The Haunting anthology, Midnight Mass, Gerald’s Game, and more.

Now that Flanagan is moving to Amazon, Netflix really needs a way to redefine the way it approaches horror. It sounds like Scott Stuber is away of that and has plans to adapt.

In the interview, he mentions wanting Netflix to create its “own kind of iconic horror character,” something akin to Freddy Kreuger or Jason Voorhees. It’s interesting because Netflix sort of had the chance to take an already-iconic character, Leatherface, and run with it.

But nothing has really come out of their Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie released in 2022, though to be fair, that was a Legendary Pictures production that Netflix only distributed. But still, you’d think they would have tried to take that further. Perhaps the poor reception made hit pause.

The horror genre is thriving right now, with both original content and remakes/reboots. Stuber has noticed the trends and is well aware that Netflix should be tapping into that.

"“Every Halloween, basically, I look and go, ‘Okay, there’s 20 great characters to pick from. We should be making those movies.’”"

I agree! As a huge fan of horror myself, I would really love for Netflix to become a venue for some of these iconic franchises and provide opportunities for new voices to break into the space. If I were Netflix, I’d look into courting Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street.