FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN Cast Talks High School Horror & Queen Bee Chaos

Image courtesy of Netflix

By Shannon McGrew

In PROM QUEEN, the latest chapter in the FEAR STREET franchise, we return to Shadyside. Prom season at Shadyside High is underway, and the school’s wolfpack of It Girls is busy with its usual sweet and vicious campaigns for the crown. But when a gutsy outsider puts herself in the running, and the other girls start mysteriously disappearing, the class of ‘88 is suddenly in for one hell of a prom night.

For the release of FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN, Creepy Kingdom’s Shannon McGrew spoke with actors Ella Rubin (“Melissa”), Ariana Greenblatt (“Christy”), and Rebecca Ablack (“Debbie”), who are part of the It Girl clique. During our chat, we discussed everything from stepping into their queen bee personas to their favorite on-set moments.

Your characters do a great job of representing the popular crowd. What did you love most about tapping into the iconic high school queen bee energy? 

Ella Rubin: It’s just fun. These are movies where you get to remember that it’s supposed to be a really fun job. You get to lean into comedy. High school, in general, you can mine so much from that time in life, especially in the 80s, without [the influence of] technology. You can do so much with that age and that era. There are so many iconic horror films based in high school, and it was very exciting to tap into that. 

Ariana Greenblatt: The script completely captured the ridiculousness of how teenagers can speak sometimes and how brutally mean they can be. They were very creative with the insults, which was really fun for everybody to participate in. It was very exciting as a viewer, but also being able to say very ridiculous phrases in movies is fun. Characters like that are very freeing because anything goes. You can’t be too mean. You can’t be too snarky. It was a good time. 

Rebecca Ablack: I think it’s a fun play on power dynamics. Debbie thinks she’s at the top of the food chain, and so she can say anything, and she knows she can’t be touched. It’s fun to be at the top of the food chain [Laughs]. 

Image courtesy of Netflix

Prior to filming, had any of you read any of the “Fear Street” or “Goosebumps” books, or watched the previous Fear Street trilogy? If so, how did that inform your performances?

Ariana Greenblatt: I was late watching the movies, and then I binge-watched all of them. I feel like I watched it double, going back and forth. I watched all the movies and then watched it again because I wanted to pick up on all the energies and the differences between each movie. There’s a cadence to all of them, but they’re all unique, and I love that too, cause the fans can pick their favorite era, and that’s genius. But no, I didn’t read the books, but I loved the movies for sure. 

Rebecca Ablack: I think it’s awesome to binge the movies because that’s how it happened during the pandemic. That’s when they all came out, and you could binge ‘em all at once. I think that’s what made it such a phenomenon and so iconic. I also didn’t read the books, but I’ve always been a R.L. Stine fan from “Goosebumps”. 

If your characters could advise future Fear Street students about surviving prom night, what would that be? 

Ella Rubin: Stay with a buddy. 

Rebecca Ablack: Well, I would say some people did stay with a buddy…

Ella Rubin: Stay with a large group of people.

Ariana Greenblatt: Stay home, lock your doors, don’t go to prom. Don’t pick up the phone, don’t do anything. 

Rebecca Ablack: Don’t go to prom or stay in the prom hall. Don’t leave the prom hall.

Ella Rubin: And don’t leave the prom hall to go to a sketchy room!

Without giving too much away, is there a moment in the film that you’re most excited for people to see?

Ella Rubin: It’s a gore moment. The artistry involved, as well as the prosthetics and makeup teams behind it, is so impressive to me, yet so horrendously disgusting that I’m amazed by it. This makes me even more honored to be in horror films. The amount of work that goes into it, on all ends, is remarkable. Actors are such a small portion of it, and I think it really exemplifies that, making me really excited about the horror genre. 

Ariana Greenblatt: For me, the ending. I’m really excited for everyone to see it because it’s different from the rest of the movies. It’s definitely a shocker. When I saw it, I thought, 'Okay, the way they did this was epic.' It was really great.

Rebecca Ablack: One of the most iconic things about the movie is the character introduction. I love a moment like that. It’s very Suicide Squad-esque, so I’m excited for people to see that.

FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN is now streaming on Netflix.