Welcome back to Forever Fear Street, a revisit to the most wicked neighborhood in young-adult literature. This installment looks at the fifteenth and sixteenth books in the classic Fear Street series: The Prom Queen and First Date.

Someone’s killing the competition in The Prom Queen, and in First Date, a girl’s new romance leads to terror.

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Fear Street #15, 1992

Cover Artwork: Bill Schmidt

Someone is murdering the five prom queen candidates one by one…

To someone unfamiliar with Fear Street, the series has the looks of gruesome slashers, but us fans know that very few of these books ever broached that style of horror. Most were, in fact, bloodless mysteries that, if you were lucky, had a murder or two. The Prom Queen is an exception, and a good one at that, yet you still have to manage your expectations. This novel still has a way smaller body-count than the average Friday the 13th or Scream movie. The systematic approach to slaying teenagers, though, should be appealing to horror heads. And to help sweeten the pot, The Prom Queen exudes more personality than prior Fear Streets.

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THE STORY

As Shadyside High School announces its prom queen candidates, a killer continues to evade the police. Someone is murdering teenage girls, and the culprit is getting closer; the latest victim was found in Fear Street woods.

The prom queen noms include five girls who just so happen to be friends (more like frenemies): Liz McVay, Dawn Rodgers, Rachel West, Elana Potter and Simone Perry. And on top of the competition for the crown, it seems like everyone in this group is vying for Simone’s boyfriend Justin. He’s been going behind his girlfriend’s back and dating all her friends.

It’s not long before Simone goes missing. The blood in her room suggests she’s already dead, but her parents hold out hope. Meanwhile, Liz looks into the suspect she saw running away from Simone’s house; their maroon satin jacket matches the same ones worn by Shadyside’s baseball team.

At the movie theater, Dawn is nearly killed by the mysterious assailant. She escaped serious harm, but Rachel isn’t so lucky; she’s later found dead after Liz went over to see her and after Rachel’s boyfriend, Gideon, dumped her for Elana. The weird thing is, Rachel died after the killer was caught. Yet he doesn’t take credit for Simone’s murder.

The prom queen race continues, although, Liz eventually backs out once Elana is killed and her theory of the prom queens being targeted is irrefutable. This leaves just Dawn, who Liz added to her long list of suspects. It’s only when the two girls are alone after their school play’s dress rehearsal that the killer is revealed; Simone faked her disappearance and death so she could get revenge on all her friends for dating Justin. Dawn, who survives her stabbing, finally helps Liz apprehend Simone before the authorities take over.

At the prom, there is no crowned queen. In addition, the prize money that would’ve been awarded to the winner is relocated to a scholarship in Rachel and Elana’s honor.

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Your possible expectation of Heathers meets Drop Dead Gorgeous won’t be fully satisfied here, but if you want to read about a clique of mean girls not giving a crap whenever one of their own bites it, then The Prom Queen is for you. Come to think of it, most everyone is on the same page as Dawn et al, seeing as how the sense of apathy is widespread once the young bodies start piling up. Life moves on rather quickly around these parts. Then again, the victims weren’t the most well-liked at school, and Shadyside is home to Fear Street. Dead teenagers ain’t exactly new.

The connections to past Fear Streets are more compulsory than substantial in this book. There’s mention of Lisa Blume, as well as Gary Brandt, but neither has any dialogue. I really prefer it that way, only because we can focus on the new cast. There’s also another returning character, Suki Thomas, who at this point has become the school harlot. At least that’s how everyone views her. And had Simone succeeded with Dawn and Liz, then surely Suki would have been next on the list.

I’d be remiss to not bring up the recent film, which I didn’t enjoy. It having nothing to do with the book wasn’t the problem. On the contrary, I accept that a 1:1 adaptation of Stine’s story wouldn’t make for the most exciting movie. Times have changed, and horror audiences nowadays want excess. Fear Street isn’t that, most of the time. The issues I took with the Prom Queen movie were its general drabness, lack of tension, and pure cowardice. Just an enormous mess from start to finish. I can’t say I love Leigh Janiak’s Fear Steet trilogy, however, when met on its own terms, that actually possesses innovation and exhibits courage.

An irreverent and gallows sense of humor keeps things relatively light in the book, even as The Prom Queen features a bona fide serial killer in the background. A man who’s strangling girls at random. And once caught, he’s no less chilling: “He stared right into the camera. And smiled. He was missing several teeth; his smile looked black and rotten. He was short, slight, but wiry with tattooed, muscular arms—arms that had been too strong for Tina, Stacy, and Simone.” So, I for one am very thankful for Simone’s moronic motivation for coming after her friends (and hopefully Justin, too). It’s inane, but I’d much rather read that than some been-there-done-that story about an adult madman on the prowl for young blood. ■

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BODY COUNT

1. Tina Wales
Murdered by the serial killer.

2. Stacy Alsop
Murdered by the serial killer, and found dead in Fear Street woods.

3. Rachel West
Stabbed multiple times by Simone.

4. Elana Potter
Pushed to her death by Simone.

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QUOTAGE

“Look at it this way. At least the girl won’t have to worry about finding a date for the prom.”
– Dawn, about the news of Stacy’s death.

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Fear Street #16, 1992

Cover Artwork: Bill Schmidt

That’s when he always kills them.

As I look at the girl on the cover of First Date, I ask myself, “Did Bill Schmidt use Tracy Wells as a point of reference?” Because Chelsea looks eerily like the daughter from Mr. Belvedere. That resemblance is all I could recall about this book, which I’m sure I read way back when. Lo and behold, the story turned out to be exactly what I was anticipating, based on the blurb. I even figured out which boy was the killer before the official reveal. Maybe I did remember more than I realized.

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THE STORY

Chelsea Richards is new to Shadyside, and so far she’s only made one friend, Nina Darwin. Nina, however, is too hung up on her boyfriend Doug to notice Chelsea’s sadness. The Richards girl is incredibly lonely, now that her parents are busy; her father opened a restaurant, and her mother works at a nursing home. Things only start to change once Chelsea meets not one but two boys who are interested in her.

First there’s Will Blakely, a new classmate at Shadyside High School. He’s more reserved than the bolder Tim Sparks, a dropout who hangs around Chelsea’s father’s restaurant. Will is timid and awkward like Chelsea, and Tim (who goes by Sparks) is aggressive. Chelsea has reservations about Sparks; he might have been in on the robbery that led to her father’s head injury. Will, on the other hand, she’s smitten with, and is more than happy to accept his invitation for a secret date.

The book opened with the death of a Central High student named Candy. She was out at Rainer’s Point, with an unidentified boy with curly black hair, until she wasn’t. And afterwards, the unknown assailant set his sights on Shadyside.

It’s on Chelsea’s date that Will, not Sparks, is revealed to be the killer. Readers are informed, but Chelsea remains in the dark. And following a botched murder at Rainer’s Point, Chelsea and Will go back to her house. Nina’s unexpected visit, though, sends Will running.

After the FBI contacts Chelsea about a suspect of medium height and weight, but with “well-developed arms” and “a good chest,” she assumes they’re after Sparks. Hence her nervousness when Sparks shows up at the restaurant later. He’s drunk and tries to grab Chelsea, but he instead lands his hand on a hot grill and badly burns himself. The FBI question Sparks as he’s taken to the hospital.

Will apologized for running out on Chelsea, so that he can try to kill her again at her house. Yet, once Chelsea lets it slip that Nina now knows about her and Will, he realizes he has to kill Nina, too. So, Nina is invited over under the guise of a friendly hangout with Chelsea and her date. Little does Nina know, her friend was choked to death minutes before her arrival. The FBI had called Chelsea, alerting her to the fact Sparks is innocent. She then figured out the rest on her own.

Just when Will is about to take out Nina, Chelsea springs back to life; thanks to playing the saxophone, she can hold her breath for up to four minutes. Finally, the FBI show up just in time to arrest Will.

At the hospital, Chelsea and Sparks apologize to one another. She doubted him, and he didn’t make himself look innocent with his behavior. Sparks decides to go back to school, and he asks Chelsea out on a real date. “It’s bound to be better than my first date!” she says.

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The characters in The Prom Queen were enjoyable, even if they’re weren’t upstanding or sympathetic. Meanwhile, Chelsea is too down on herself to be considered fun. She picks fights with her mother, and she’s ungainly in every way. That said, Chelsea behaves more like a real teenager than the likes of Dawn and Simone. Right from the outset, Chelsea shows her vulnerability, and the way her mother responds—”you can be down on your situation […] but don’t start doubting yourself”—is beautiful. Reality is less easier to digest than caricatures, I suppose.

As for Will, wow, what a headcase. First Date probes this psycho’s mind and gives us access to his thought process and trauma, and we see he’s swarming with family and abandonment issues. He even becomes fixated on Chelsea because she reminds him of his mother. I grumble whenever authors ID the killer so early on, yet in this case, the book is more intriguing now that we have the antagonist’s perspective. Fear Street would typically vomit the M.O. in the last chapter and call it a day. Refreshingly, we get a fuller picture, and by dint of that, a better-told story. ■

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BODY COUNT

1. Candy
Killed by Will.

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QUOTAGE

You were the lucky one, Jennifer, he thought. You went with Mom. You didn’t get the drunken beatings night after night. You didn’t live in a horror show you couldn’t escape from.
– Will

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