Fear Street 4, the next entry in Netflix’s Fear Street saga, has reportedly gained a director. Fear Street is a popular series of young adult horror novels from Goosebumps author R.L. Stine, which were originally published between 1989 and 1999 before being revived in 2014. They were adapted into a trilogy of live-action films released by Netflix over the course of three consecutive weeks in summer 2021, telling a series of connected supernatural slasher stories taking place in 1994, 1978, and 1666 in the cursed small town of Shadyside.

According to Above the Line, director Chloe Okuno is now attached to the next film in the Fear Street franchise. So far, there are no further details about the project beyond the fact that original producers Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, and David Ready are returning. There is no word as to whether this is one film or another trilogy or whether any surviving characters will be returning.

Related: The R.L. Stine Book Fear Street Part 2: 1978 Is Based On

Chloe Okuno's Horror Experience Is A Good Thing For Fear Street 4

Blended image of Ziggy and Nick at the camp in Fear Street 1978

Although Okuno is still an up-and-coming director, she has a long history in the horror genre. Off the strength of her highly regarded 2014 short film Slut, she was offered the opportunity to participate in the Shudder exclusive found footage anthology sequel, V/H/S/94, in October 2021. For that project, she wrote and directed the segment, “Storm Drain,” which followed a news crew investigating reports of a half-man half-human monster lurking in the local sewers.

Okuno went on to make her feature debut this year with the horror-thriller Watcher, which followed The Guest’s Maika Monroe as a young American woman who moves to Bucharest, where her neighbor across the street might just be a serial killer. She also contributed to an episode of Showtime’s reboot series of the Nordic vampire drama, Let the Right One In. It is the third live-action project to adapt John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel of the same name after the 2008 Swedish film and its 2010 remake Let Me In, starring Chloe Grace Moretz. The thing that defines her work across all these different projects, beyond the genre itself, is that she has proven herself to be a chameleon who tells horror stories with many different tones and approaches.

This skill will prove important if it comes to pass that she will helm the latest Fear Street film. The original Fear Street trilogy had to strike an impeccable balance between pulpy, young adult-oriented popcorn horror and darker material about the sinister underbelly of society. Whether Fear Street 4 is directly related to that plot, it will be important to keep the tone consistent. Also, Okuno’s ability to effortlessly navigate the darkness of many different modes of storytelling will be important to keep the teen appeal of the R.L. Stine series foregrounded without sacrificing the scary material at its heart.

More: Why Fear Street Made A Friday the 13th Remake Harder

Source: Above the Line