I've got that Evil Spirit DOWN IN MY HEART!

 When I was growing up, I missed reading the Fear Street Cheerleader cycle, which is sad, since the original cover art belonged in a Grady Hendrix review. 

I mean...

 

 The trilogy, now reprinted as one volume, unfortunately loses the cool cover art in favor of this.

 

 Not as cool.

 

Anyway, the story centers at first on Bobbi and Corky, two teenage girls transplanted from Missouri to Shadyside, where they audition for the Cheer Squad, against the wishes of a few of the girls. (This came out long before Bring it On, so I can't blame that for this.) They get on, which means the Freshman on the squad gets bumped to alternate. On the way to the first away game, Bobbi realizes she left the fire batons at her house, so the bus makes a run to Fear Street so they can grab them. Or attempts to, since the bush crashes into the Fear Street Cemetery, and Cheer Captain Jennifer gets thrown from the bus and lands on Sarah Fear's tombstone. Jennifer survives, but is paralyzed. Bobbi, the older sister, becomes cheer captain, sparking jealousy in Kimmy. Then Bobbi gets locked in a shower and drowned in scalding water. (This is one of the very few Fear Street novels with actual deaths of major characters. Generally, if someone dies, it's a villain or a random adult.) 

This of course, makes Corky go a little nuts, but she eventually finds out who did it, and gets the bonus of finding out the responsible party was possessed by and Evil Spirit. Said spirit supposedly gets trapped again in the grave of Sarah Fear. Except, no, in book two the spirit is back, possesing another cheerleader and tormenting Corky again. We eventually find out who's hosting, get rid of the spirit, and head into book 3, wherein someone else gets possessed, we go to cheer camp, we learn how Sarah Fear got rid of the spirit, and we get a few The Exorcist homages. 

So,m while I'm aware my love of the Fear Street series is mostly nostalgia, since most of the books don't quite hold up to my memories of reading them, these were not particularly good, even for nostalgia. The three installments, while continuing a story line, really have some fairly glaring continuity errors, or at least unanswered questions, like, if the possessed in book 2 doesn't remember anything that happened at the end of the book, why is she still besties with a girl she loathed in book one when she wasn't possessed in book 3? It all works best when we focus on the jealousy and envy in the squad, although when Hannah joins in book 3, Corky never acknowledges particularly that her feeling about the new recruit outshining her mirror how others felt in book one. That, and Corky and Bobbi's family are almost non entities, occoasionally popping up to give them something to worry about.

 

Honestly, I enjoyed it for what it was, but it really missed a lot of opportunities.

The nightmare begins

 So, one of the purchases I made with birthday money was the omnibus Fear Street: The Beginning featuring the first four novels in R. L. Stine's Fear Street series. (To be fair, I know I owned all of these as a teen, but they've vanished over the years.)

We open with The New Girl, in which gymnast Cody falls in love with Anna, the eponymous New Girl who lives n Fear Street in Shadyside. Anna is a bit... old fashioned, and Cody's best friend/neighbor Lisa doesn't like her. Anna's brother Brad keeps insisting Anna is dead, and pushes Lisa down a flight of stairs at the Sadie Hawkins dance. In the end, we find out Anna is actually Anna's sister, who killed Anna because Anna got all the attention. Lisa and Cody wind up dating.

Next is The Surprise Party, wherein Meg finds out an old friend is coming back to town a year after her boyfriend died in the Fear Street Woods. Meg decides to throw a surprise part for Ellen. Meg keeps getting death threats because of the party. Party happens, we find out Meg's boyfriend thought he killed Ellen's boyfriend, but it was actually somebody else. We also get a whole bunch of nearly Satanic Panic shit about D&D. 

Continuing on, The Overnight involves the Shadyside Outdoors Club taking an overnight without adult supervision on Fear Island. In this one, Della runs into psycho, thinks she kills him, finds out when everyone goes back to get rid of evidence that the guy was still alive, as was his partner. 

We finish with Missing, we get twin narration from Cara and Mark, who live on Fear Street with frequently moving parents. Said parents fail to come home one night, or for several days thereafter. Come to find out the police officer they've been talking to is a crooked cop, Mark's girlfriend's father runs a White Supremacist Cult, and Mom and Dad are FBI. 

So, while there are volumes in this series I really enjoyed, the ones collected here reminded me of how I learned as a teen that a great cover might be the only redeeming quality of the volume within. I do remember thinking Stein was trying to edge out Christopher Pike in the YA Horror glut of the late 80s early 90s. While this is partially true, I have more than a few volumes from much earlier with an author name that's belied by and R L Stine copyright. Also, while Pike had no issues adding the supernatural into his writing, Stine mostly avoided doing so. (I think later volumes added hints of things, but his YA never really went all out. his Tween books, notably the whole Goosebumps series, on the other hand....)

 These may have started it, but they're really not up to what would come later.

Burning down the house....

 So, I actually finished the omnibus edition of the Fear Street Saga by R, L. Stine a few days ago, but I haven't had a bunch of time to sit down and review it. 

The collected edition is named Betrayal, containing the volumes The Betrayal, The Secret, and The Burning. Near as I can tell, it's really the first time the Fear family gets mentioned in the overall series, let alone mention of the Fear family. 

Anyway, we learn of a rich family, the Fiers, and a poor family, the Goodes, who start off in colonial Massachusetts. The youngest Goode girl is in love with the son of the Magistrate Fier. The Magistrate wants his son to marry someone else, so he produces evidence that the Goode girls are witches. Mr Goode pays off the Magistraye's brother to save his wife and daughter, but the Fier family takes the money and runs, leaving the Goode girls hunka hunka burnin loves. We then find out Mr. Goode is the Real thing, as he curses the Fiers. Seems the Fiers are also witches, complete with a magical amulet with Latin for Power Through Evil written on it.

So, we progress from 1640ish to 1900, following the Fiers/Fears nd the Goodes as they curse and burn each other from both sides of the grave. 

It's actually kind of silly, but engaging.

What a perfect night for MURDER

 So, one of my birthday gifts last year was a reprint of what was and probably still is my favorite of R. L. Stine's Fear Street series, Halloween Party.

 The set up for this one involve Terry and Niki, a dating couple getting an invite to a new student's Halloween Party on Fear Street, along with a few other classmates, almost none of whom run in the same circles. This, coupled with Terry's former best friend and Niki's ex, Alex being on the invite list, adds a "Jocks vs Wimps" contest to the affair. Indeed, during the first part, we get a flashback to the preceding weeks, and the rivalry heats up, followed by the arrival of all parties involved at the house. 

And the games begin in earnest, what with a fake death and several surprises, including mostly deaf Niki finding out the hostess, Justine, is not who she claims to be. Then an actual murder happens, and we set the stage for the grand finale, filled with grudges and the sins of the parents being wrought on the children. 

I rather enjoyed it when I was in the targeted age range, and indeed, as an adult, I found myself better understanding some of the motivations, since I too, know how to hold a grudge. I'm not inclined to turn them into a gothic pyre, though. Still fun,

A return to the return

As part of the relaunch of Fear Street, they evidently bundled the first four novels in the series by R. L. Stine into an omnibus edition titled The Beginning. Of which, I remembered the first one, but the other three I didn't.

We start with The New Girl, in which one Cory Brooks falls madly in love with the blond he keeps catching glimpses of named Anna. He eventually discovers Anna lives of Fear Street with her brother. (As a side note, these early books show that much of the background developed later. There's no mention of the Fear family, Fear Island is undeveloped, the only mansion mentioned on the street has been recently renovated...) Anyway, as I said, I remember reading this one, so the big twist about who's who at the end wasn't particularly shocking to me. 

Then we start The Surprise Party, in which Meg learns quickly that several people actually did think they knew who murdered her friend, but even they were wrong. It's kind of silly, and there's a touch of Mazes and Monsters condemnation of role playing in there, even if the geek does end up saving everyone in the end. 

In The Overnight, the Shadyside outdoor club takes an unauthorized trip to Dear Island for an overnight after their faculty advisor cancels it at the last minute. Della gets attacked by a stranger on the island, pushes him in a ravine, and buries him under leaves. Then she and everyone else get notes from the dead guy, leading to a few reveals once the advisor takes them on the sanctioned trip out to Fear Island. 

Lastly, we have Missing, wherein Mark and Cara's parents don't come home from work for several days, their cousin who lives in the attic does his best gothic wife impersonation, the place where the parents work has no record of them working there... While I agree with one review I read of this which stated this ending of the one came out of left field, I will say that it rings closer to reality in the modern age than any of the other three in here. 

One thing I caught reading the omnibus that I now wonder if it continues in the rest of the series is the minor character continuity. Cory, who shows up in book one, and Lisa, his neighbor show up at various points in the other books, as do a few other cameos. 

The books are a lot dated, having been published before the internet and mobile phone boom, and the plots are kind of corny, but they remain kind of fun. A bit of comfort food for the soul.

A return

 I was kind of shocked to find out R. L. Stine returned to one of my favorite haunts a few years back, writing a few new Fear Street Superchillers. (For those not of a certain age, Fear Street was a Young Adult horror series set in and around Shadyside, where the Fear family have a long and shady history, a street named after them, as well as other landmarks bearing the surname. Mr. Stein was quite prolific with them prior to starting series aimed younger.)(I'll also note Mr. Stine was born in Columbus, and half the town names in this twofer are around the Cleveland area.)

The Twofer is two books in one! 

We start with Party Games, concerning poor Rachel, who works at Lefty's diner to makes extra money. Brandon Fear, of the Fear family, invites her out to his 18th Birthday party at the family summer house on Fear Island. To get us in the mood, we hear about the family history at the house, what with the Fears hunting down the servants, and an Aunt taxidermying herself to death. 

Anyway, Many of the girls going to the party find a dead animal in their beds a few days before the party. Rachel thinks its her boyfriend Mac, who is mildly abusive who did it. As the party gets going with a Scavenger Hunt, dead bodies start popping up. Then two or three twists happen, along with one maybe supernatural twist added in for fun. While one of the twists I saw coming as soon as the ball got rolling, another was a surprise. However, as we're in YA Horror, we have to follow the rules of no dead teenagers. 

The other story, Don't Stay Up Late, reexplores a familiar YA trope, as our heroine Lisa ends up babysitting on Fear Street. Problem being, Lisa's father just died in a horrific car accident, and Lisa's concussion is causing her to hallucinate. Or is it?

While it is nice to see the series enter a more modern age (the protagonists have iPhones, although Fear Island has no signal), I found myself amused that in Shadyside, the legal age to drink is 18. 

Fear Street was never deathless prose, but it was a fun way to spend hours as a teenager. As it turns out, it's still a fun way to spend hours as an adult.