Netflix’s New ‘Fear Street’ Killer Is Inspired by the Classic Slasher ‘Alice, Sweet Alice’

Netflix has returned to horror territory with the release of Fear Street: Prom Queen. The film is their fourth entry in the Fear Street film series, which is based on R.L. Stine’s book series of the same name. While the latest installment of the franchise has not exactly endeared itself to critics, it has topped the Netflix chart, as you would expect. Ahead of the release of the new movie, director Matt Palmer has revealed one of his strongest inspirations for the movie. This time, we need to travel further back in time and land in 1976, when the cult horror classic Alice, Sweet Alice was released.

Palmer sat down to talk about Fear Street: Prom Queen with Bloody Disgusting. Previously, the director talked to Netflix and addressed some of his influences and he listed films like Scream, Happy Birthday to Me, and Sleepaway Camp. However, this time he addressed the influence of the underrated slasher Alice, Sweet Alice, particularly in the design of the killer’s attire.

“We were like, ‘What color of jacket do we put against the red lockers?’ We looked at yellow, but that felt a bit too on the nose, because Alice, Sweet Alice had already done that. We tried blue. And then one of our concept artists came back with red on red, which we hadn’t thought of because we were looking for something that wasn’t red, and it was like, ‘Oh, my God! That looks awesome!’

“Ironically, I read that the guy who directed Alice, Sweet Alice said that he always wanted a red raincoat but couldn’t do that because it had already been done in Don’t Look Now, so we ended up back where Alice, Sweet Alice wanted to be.”

Alice, Sweet Alice was a definite influence. There’s a chase scene in that with the killer in the raincoat. And I’m a big giallo fan too, so I think there was a giallo element that I always wanted from the start.

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The teen horror feature Fear Street: Prom Queen is directed by Matt Palmer and written by Palmer and Donald McLeary. The film dropped on Netflix on May 23 and stars India Fowler, Suzanna Son, Fina Strazza, Ella Rubin, Katherine Waterston, David Iacono, Lili Taylor and Chris Klein, among others. Per Netflix, the official plot synopsis reads as follows:

Welcome back to Shadyside. In this next installment of the blood-soaked Fear Street franchise, 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 is unexpectedly nominated to the court, and the other girls start mysteriously disappearing, the class of ’88 is suddenly in for one hell of a prom night.

‘Alice, Sweet Alice’ Deserves Its Place Among Slasher Horror’s Seminal Classics

The raincoat killer in Alice Sweet Alice wearing a mask with fake makeup on it — Monogram Pictures

Alice, Sweet Alice is one of the best pieces from the early days of the slasher genre, back when it started to be executed under the formulas of masked killers whose identity was revealed in the end. However, director Alfred Sole’s attempt at making an American giallo film is a psychological nightmare that never follows the rules of its genre. Alice, Sweet Alice is also known for being Brooke Shields’ film debut, and it features one of the most chilling endings in ’70s horror.

Source: Bloody Disgusting / Netflix (Tudum)