A column devoted to R. L. Stine’s Fear Street should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me. The real surprise would be why I took so long to make one. After all, this series was as integral to my young horror education as watching Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Scream, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

So, what was it about Fear Street that got me hooked? Especially when my same-age peers were reading Goosebumps back then. Well, at the time, I wouldn’t have been able to articulate one particular reason, other than liking the cheap thrills and the garish book covers, but now I can better understand the latent attraction. I was drawn to the idea of intangible evil lurking in the background of ordinary life, influencing people to do unspeakable acts, or making them more susceptible to the weird and uncanny. Evidently, I was captivated. Still am, considering I’m talking and writing about Fear Street all these years later.

For the time being, this long-overdue revisit, to what is perhaps the most infernal neighborhood in young-adult literature, will cover the main series and maybe the Super Chillers. As fans know, Fear Street branched off into several spin-offs, which some included books not even written by Stine. And it only seemed reasonable to start at the beginning and work my way up.

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Fear Street #1, 1989

Cover Artwork: ENRIC

She’s pale as a ghost, blonde and eerily beautiful — and she seems to need him as much as he wants her.

If I were to make an educated guess, Stine’s first horror outing as well as the first installment in Scholastic’s Point Horror line, the 1987 bestseller Blind Date, led to him landing his own series. On a whim, I also recently re-read Blind Date, so it was fresh on my mind as I got reacquainted with The New Girl. Consequently, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu as I read said book; it got to the point where it seemed like Stine was sampling himself. And once I reached the end of The New Girl, that opinion became unshakable.

Despite the supernatural energy emanating from a series like Fear Street, a good portion of the stories are grounded. Or rather, they aren’t supernatural in the way you might expect or crave. Eventually that changes as time goes on, but for now, early entries like The New Girl are realistic on the surface, while any suggestion of the otherworldly is only hinted at, either through the characters’ observations, or these random infodumps concerning the town’s history and current goings-on. In the case of The New Girl, both techniques are used to convey Shadyside’s general sensation of strangeness.

The blackened shell of a burned-out mansion — Simon Fear’s old mansion — stood high on the first block of Fear Street, overlooking the cemetery, casting eerie shadows that stretched to the dark, tangled woods. Terrifying howls, half-human, half-animal, hideous cries of pain, were said to float out from the mansion late at night.

People in Shadyside grew up hearing the stories about Fear Street — about people who wandered into the woods there and disappeared forever; about strange creatures that supposedly roamed the Fear Street woods; about mysterious fires that couldn’t be put out, and bizarre accidents that couldn’t be explained; about vengeful spirits that haunted the old houses and prowled through the trees; about unsolved murders and unexplained mysteries.

Then there are anecdotes about Fear Street that, if true, make everyone’s heebie-jeebies understandable.

The big local news story of a few weeks before suddenly flashed into his mind. A family of three had been found murdered in the Fear Street woods. No one was reported missing. No one came forward to identify them."

He suddenly remembered another Fear Street story in the newspaper, this one from the previous spring. Two cars going in opposite directions on Fear Street late at night had collided head-on. A Fear Street resident heard the crash, ran out in his pajamas, saw that both cars were filled with badly injured people. Some of them were unconscious. Some were pinned inside the crushed cars.

He ran back to his house and called the police. The police arrived less than ten minutes later. They found the cars crushed together in the middle of the street. But both cars were empty. There was dark blood on the seats and blood on the street. But all the passengers had disappeared without a trace.

No sign of them was ever found. Six people, six injured people, who had been trapped inside two cars, vanished in less than ten minutes....

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THE STORY

Shadyside High Schooler and gymnast Cory Brooks is obsessed with a girl he doesn’t even know. After first seeing her around campus, a transfer student named Anna Corwin, Cory becomes totally distracted. His gymnastics suffer the most, but also impacted is his friendship with next-door neighbor Lisa Blume. Cory is oblivious to her crush on him.

Once Cory finally gets to know Anna, though, he becomes entangled in a mystery; the object of his affection is, according to Anna’s older brother Brad, dead!

Anna claims otherwise, and Cory can definitely feel her when they’re being intimate. Nevertheless, Brad makes it his mission to keep Cory and Anna apart, even going so far as pushing Lisa down the stairs at school.

Just when Anna has Cory convinced that she’s the victim in all this, the truth comes out during a life-or-death struggle with Brad; Anna is, in fact, not Anna but Willa, the real Anna and Brad’s sister. So, yes, Anna is indeed dead, however, Willa is both alive and is impersonating her late sibling, the very one she killed — in what looked to be an accident — before moving to Shadyside with Brad and their ill mother.

The reason for Willa’s deception is pinned on her unpredictable mental health; she forgot about the tragedy of Anna’s death/murder for awhile, but moving to Shadyside triggered those bad feelings, not to mention the imposter act. Brad tried to wrangle in Willa’s madness himself, on account of his family’s financial problems, but the responsibility obviously proved to be overwhelming.

In spite of recent events — the scary phone calls, Lisa’s fall, a dead cat in Lisa’s locker — Cory and Lisa become closer, and it’s implied they even start to date at the end.

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Now, I will say I was a tad disappointed by The New Girl, largely because the main story is not at all supernatural. This revelation stings more on account of the ghostly atmosphere emanating from the beautiful and eerie cover art. Don’t get me wrong; I love a flesh-and-blood whodunit as much as the next person. It’s just that ENRIC’s illustration is a bit misleading (and not the first or last to do so). However, I have come to learn that I need to take stories, be it from books, film or television, for what they are rather than what they aren’t.

With that said, The New Girl’s ending is essentially a lesser rehash of that of the aforesaid Blind Date. (Sorry to spoil those who haven’t read that book.) A different but similar twist occupies that story; the titular blind date was impersonating somebody else all along, and as you might guess, she turned out to be dangerous. And like any respectable YA antagonist, Willa is able to act entirely sane until the mask falls off.

Unlike Blind Date, where the main character gets his foot crushed by the assailant, The New Girl is scant on mayhem. Yeah, sure, Lisa — and only Lisa, oddly enough — gets attacked and tormented, but other than the creepy calls, Lisa’s swollen ankle from the stairs scene, and the cat corpse stuffed inside a locker, this entry doesn’t sport any carnage. Thankfully, Stine does up his game with future installments. For now, though, early outings like The New Girl are testing the waters, looking to see what they can get away with, especially when Fear Street later starts to reflect the violence of concurrent horror films. ■

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BODY COUNT

1. A cat
Presumably killed by Willa/”Anna”
2. Anna
Pushed down the basement steps, and thought to be killed by a jealous Willa before the Corwins moved to Shadyside.

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QUOTAGE

The stories are all true, and now you are one of them.

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Fear Street #2, 1989

Cover Artwork: ENRIC

Whoever wanted the party stopped would try anything — even murder! But why? The dark Fear Street woods held the answers… if Meg dared to discover the truth!

Entertainment-wise, Fear Street wouldn’t hit its stride until a bit later, but The Surprise Party is a minor improvement after The New Girl. It’s a more sinuous read, one that improves on the mystery element somewhat lacking in the previous book. The cast is also larger, allowing more of a suspect list than before. Simply, it’s not quite as obvious as to who the killer is this time.

As with The New Girl, the subject of Fear Street’s supernature comes up in spurts. And with the ultimate setting being the woods, it only made sense for the lore to pertain to that area.

The dangers of the Fear Street woods weren’t just rumor. People really did disappear in those dark hills that stretched for miles past the end of Fear Street. [...] Normally fearful animals attacked with bizarre ferocity.

Perhaps the strangest thing of all about those woods was that no birds ever ventured there. No birds chewed the ripe wild berries, or dug for worms in the soft earth, or built nests in the trees. Over the years, teams of scientists from universities around the nation had come intent on explaining why the woods were bird-free. But they all went home as mystified as when they had arrived.

Bringing up the freaky fauna of Fear Street woods is intriguing, however, it also only underlines the fact that Stine missed an opportunity to write a “when nature attacks” entry. Peckish birds, wicked worms, sinister squirrels — oh, what might-have-been.

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THE STORY

It’s now springtime in Shadyside. Meg Dalton is intent on throwing a homecoming party for her estranged friend, Ellen Majors, who moved away from Shadyside a year ago, after tragedy struck their friend group. The late Evan, Ellen’s boyfriend and Shannon’s brother, died in Fear Street woods; he shot himself with a rifle, apparently by accident.

Practically everyone is unenthused about the party, including Shannon, Meg’s current best friend, and Meg’s boyfriend Tony Colavito. Or, to be more accurate, her ex-boyfriend. Tony is so bothered that he breaks up with Meg.

The most unhappy person about the party, though, is the anonymous phone caller whose verbal threats escalate into physical ones. The stubborn Meg returns to her homeroom desk to find someone has cut up all the invitations to the party. She first suspects Shannon, who was in proximity of the invitations, but upon asking her point blank and then getting a justifiably defensive response, Meg moves her attention to her own cousin, Brian.

Brian, who lives in Shadyside’s North Hills section, hasn’t been the same since he and Ellen both found Evan dead in the Fear Street woods. And now, as a coping mechanism, Brian has sank even deeper into a fantasy RPG called Wizards & Dungeons.

On top of Brian, Meg has doubts about Ellen; she moved away so quickly, hates parties, and didn’t stay in contact with anyone back in Shadyside. Another suspect, but only because Meg doesn’t like him, is Dwayne Colligan, the meathead who is hot for Shannon. And, as it turns out, Dwayne is happy that Evan died because he can now hit on his sister without interference. That audible bit of cold comfort rightfully upsets Evan’s friend Tony in one scene, although in Dwayne’s defense, Tony’s anger is really the work of long-standing guilt.

When Meg, her father, Brian’s parents, Mr. Colavito, and the Shadyside police all go in search of the missing Brian and — much to Meg’s surprise — Tony out in Fear Street woods one late night, an unseen party threatens Meg. She doesn’t see who it is, yet not too long after, it’s revealed that this person was Tony, who had gone to the woods with Brian not to play W&D, but to threaten him into silence — again.

All this time, Tony thinks he himself killed Evan, albeit accidentally, during an altercation; this was after the revelation of Tony and Ellen’s secret affair. Following the scuffle and incidental gunfire, Tony ran off, and Ellen was left alone with Evan’s body until Brian showed up; he had been in another part of the woods, playing W&D. Tony’s crime went unreported, but with Ellen’s return to Shadyside and Meg’s party stirring up the past, Tony acts crazily, including trying to push Meg off Shadyside’s own Lover’s Leap, River Ridge. His temporary insanity fades as soon as he realizes Meg doesn’t know the whole truth. Not yet, at least.

Ellen’s surprise party, which is being held at the Halsey Manor House in Fear Street woods, goes on as planned, but not without further complications. As anticipated, Meg brings Ellen, who she has been struggling to reconnect with, and upon their arrival, the lights go out. This is when Evan’s actual murderer is revealed — Dwayne!

What sparks Dwayne’s confession, as well as him taking both Ellen and Meg hostage, is the trap originally laid for Tony. Shannon’s half-brother Mike — who is a dead ringer for Evan — shows up to the party as part of Brian and Ellen’s plan to lure out Tony and get him to confess. Instead, Dwayne outs himself.

On that day in the woods, Dwayne had been playing W&D with Brian. With Tony fleeing and Brian escorting Ellen away from the crime scene, though, Dwayne was able to inspect Evan’s body on his own, only to then learn Evan wasn’t dead; he escaped the bullet, hit his head on a rock, and fell unconscious. Nevertheless, Dwayne took this opportunity to get rid of the obstacle standing between himself and Shannon. So, without anyone seeing him do it, Dwayne shot Evan.

Dwayne is apprehended at the end, following Meg breaking his nose with a frying pan, and the absolved Tony enters what looks to be years of therapy. And finally, before Mike goes back to college, he asks Meg out on a date. She agrees on one condition: No parties!

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Based on my lengthy summary, The Surprise Party seems convoluted. There is an excess of plot turns before reaching the conclusion, but if you’re like me and felt cheated by the premature killer’s reveal, then the ending is satisfying. Dare I say, it’s slightly Hitchcockian with how Stine wrapped everything up.

It’s worth noting how these initial books had a sense of continuity before Stine gave up. Cory and Lisa, from The New Girl, are supporting characters here, with Lisa by Meg’s side for a good part of the story. Meg herself would pop up again later.

By no means is The Surprise Party a high point for Fear Steet, and it has even less bloodshed than its predecessor. Even so, it’s well-plotted for this series. And consistent with the last book, the most interesting parts of The Surprise Party are the asides about Fear Street. There is some delightful worldbuilding happening here. ■

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BODY COUNT

1. Evan
Shot with a rifle by Dwayne a year ago.

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QUOTAGE

“Shall we do our dancing vertically or horizontally?”
– Dwayne to Shannon

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See you next time on Fear Street — it’s where your worst nightmares live.