Matt Palmer is unapologetic about how to kill someone in his new movie, Fear Street: Prom Queen. “We spent a lot of time working out how to kill people,” Palmer tells Digital Trends in an exclusive interview. Palmer is the co-writer and director of Prom Queen, the fourth film in Netflix’s Fear Street franchise. While the first three Fear Street movies are considered a trilogy, Prom Queen is a standalone movie with new characters and stories. However, the common denominator is the setting, the town of Shadyside.
Based on R.L. Stine’s novel, Fear Street: Prom Queen transports audiences to 1988. Senior prom is two days away, and six girls are running for prom queen. Two of them — the kind outcast, Lori Granger (India Fowler), and the popular bully, Tiffany Falconer (Fina Strazza) — are bitter rivals. Executing political maneuvers to win votes for a popularity contest is difficult enough. Yet the toughest challenge on prom night will be avoiding a masked murderer stalking the candidates.
Ahead, Palmer talks about the importance of needle drops, the key changes from book to screen, and how to execute the perfect kill.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Digital Trends: I wanted to start with the needle drops. They stood out right away. What was the one ’80s song you knew had to be in Prom Queen?
Matt Palmer: I’m Not Scared by Eighth Wonder.
Why is that?
I think there are bigger needle drops in terms of known songs, but that song, there’s something special about it. It was actually written by the Pet Shop Boys, which is why it’s such a good tune. But it’s a slightly lesser-known tune. It has this throbbing and pulsing. Very early on, I was like, this is what the prom looks like from the sounds. That pulsing and blaring thing. I feel like the whole tone of prom came from that song. Also, the lyrics as well. It’s a kind of Lori Granger story. That was the one.
We switched things up during the edit. There were different tracks pulled out and changed to get the right energy. That was the one right from the beginning. That’s going right there after that kill, and it’s not going anywhere.
With your musical process, are you a director and writer who builds a scene and knows exactly what song to put in? Is it more about getting a playlist from your music supervisor, running through things, and seeing what works? Take me through that musical element.
It’s funny because, in the first movie I made, there is a lot of music in it, but it’s composed music. It goes under the radar. A lot of people with Calibre are like, “Oh, that’s great. There’s no music in it.” I’m like, “Eh, it’s kind of there. You’re just not noticing it.”
But this one [Prom Queen] was a completely different assignment. You hear [Quentin] Tarantino talk quite a lot about how he’ll pull out a record and that’ll start the movie in his head. It was a lot more like that with this one, which was really fun. Like the Billy Idol one, you start to assemble montages around the music. It’s a very different way of working, but a really fun one. It’s quite addictive. I’d like to do it again.
It’s like building a long playlist.
Yeah, I spent two months at the very beginning, when we were just starting to write the movie, agonizing over this playlist. There were tunes that were key like You’re the Inspiration by Chicago. I had a whole scene where the Devil character dances with Lori. Then, we were like, we don’t need this scene. The scene isn’t helping the character or the film. And I was like, “But the music!” [Laughs] It was so hard to cut because I was so in love with the idea of setting a scene to that music, but it had to go. Sometimes, the images come from the music. Sometimes, it completely switches, like Sweet Dreams.
The dance-off was going to be Prince, but Prince tunes are incredibly hard to license. Once Gloria was in, this wasn’t going anywhere. Even if we get Prince at the last minute, this [Gloria] is the tune. It’s funny how it happens. The morning I found Gloria, I was walking through the pre-production office, and a couple of hours later, it was playing in every room. I heard people singing Gloria, and I was like, OK. This is the tune.
The spirit of the book is alive in the movie. I know some changes were made. Obviously, the name of the character Lizzie* is Lori. Why did you change her backstory?
In the book, the girls are mean to each other in Prom Queen. … There’s a lot in the book, and it’s obviously from a different time. There are a lot of girls talking about boys. It was interesting as a man writing a female character. Not just one, but five girls lead the movie. It was really important to have great female producers. They were guiding me on that. If all the girls in the movie were just talking about guys, it would just feel like it was from a different time. You have to make it connect with a modern audience. I don’t think those kinds of interactions would really play today.
The other thing is it’s a whodunit. If you’re working from source material where a whole lot of people in the world know who did it, you have to change the story so that people don’t know who did it because that’s the lifeblood of mystery. R.L. Stine is great. If you like stuff, take it. If you want to go in a different direction, take it. He’s very flexible. It gave us the freedom to launch off from a great premise and take it into some new characters and interesting directions.
*In R.L. Stine’s book, the main character is named Lizzie McVay. In the movie, it’s Lori Granger.
A lot of these kills are showcases for practical effects. Take me through building a kill. Do you want it to happen one way and then see if you can do it practically?
Well, we would write what we wanted and then try and work out how we could do it. We’ll try and do this until someone says it’s kind of impossible. One of the things I’m pleased with the movie is it does feel like all of the kills are quite different. Quite early on, someone was like, “What’s the killer’s signature weapon?” I remember going to see the remake of My Bloody Valentine. He has his ax. It’s like every single kill is an ax. After four of them, I’m craving a chainsaw.
This killer in Prom Queen will just grab things and have a few things handy. It opens the possibility of different kills. Even tonally, there’s one kill that I feel is much darker and scarier. There’s one that’s comedic and drawn out. There’s one that’s very abrupt and sudden and probably the goriest thing in it. It’s quite satisfying.
I’ve watched a lot of slasher movies, and I’m unapologetically rabid about it. I like [Dario] Argento. What I like about Argento is you can feel when a kill is coming. There’s almost a ritual to it with Arengto and a contract with the audience. It’s like, “OK, it’s coming. It’s going to look cool, and I’m going to focus on my directorial skills. It’s going to be gory as f***.”
Just bring it. I guess I come from that school of when a kill is coming, it’s like a sacred and special moment. You need to do something that’s going to satisfy the audience and maybe surprise them as well. Put elements in it and mix it all up. We spent a lot of time working out how to kill people.
I would hope a director of a slasher thinks about it a lot, so that’s good.
[Laughs] Probably too much.
I was reading an interview about how you programmed a film festival and picked out movies to run all night. I’ll give you the choice here. You have Prom Queen as your first one. What are the next four movies to pair it with?
So I wouldn’t play Prom Queen first. [Laughs] I’d play Prom Queen either third or fourth. I spent 15 years doing this, and honestly, it’s insane. OK, the things I learned. If you’re going to play a slow movie, play it second. The third spot should always be the most insane, crazy, mind-bending, psychotronic, f***** up thing. That creates an energy in the middle of the night. People feel like, “I’ve seen the craziest thing ever, so anything after this is a bonus.
In the fourth slot, play something with a plot. People need something to grab onto at five in the morning. At one event, I played Child’s Play fourth. Child’s Play has a really good narrative and plot. The manager of the cinema was like, “My god. They’ve all woken up. They all look way more awake than they did after the third movie, and they’re all ready for the fifth one.” It took me a while to realize, but don’t play something long or too abstract at number four. Otherwise, people will fall asleep.
It’s crazy. You don’t always get it right. I played Black Christmas second at the first one. It’s a great movie, but I got away with it. That’s the other thing. Anything that goes over an hour and a half, and you’re really dicing with death. That’s why Prom Queen is 87 minutes. I found with 87-minute movies, people tend to feel they were short and sharp. I liked it, and I didn’t get sleepy. I was like, can I make a movie that, if it was playing at four in the morning, wouldn’t get people bored? I’d probably play Prom Queen third or fourth.
Fear Street: Prom Queen is now streaming on Netflix.
