The Stinal Countdown: Fear Street: The Dare

Time to fast forward Fear Street a bit into the year 1994. Stine had been doing the franchise five years deep into this point, so it'll be interesting to see what, if any, changes to the tone of the series came to be. And what better choice than a book that seemingly dares me to give it a review. It's time to talk about The Dare.

Cover is fine, but doesn't really sell much on the concept of the book, or even what the aforementioned dare actually is. I'd think going by the cover it feels more like selling the idea of a game of chicken than anything else. Other than that, it's forgettable.

Johanna Wise is our protagonist and in the prologue, she mentions that she can't believe she's about to commit a murder. That nobody would believe a mousy girl like her would shoot anyone, but once she kills him, things will get much better. Cut back to the beginning of the story. Johanna and her best friend Margaret Rivers, are driving to the 7-Eleven in Margaret's Geo. Good for driving to the store, a bit trickier in outrunning Homer Simpson. Johanna's had it rough since her parents divorced and her mother had to take on two jobs. It's partly why she has a more pessimistic outlook. 

While at the store, Johanna and Margaret see a group of seniors, five of the wealthier kids from Shadyside High. Zack Hamilton, Lanny Barnes, Melody Dawson, Caitlyn Munroe and Caitlyn's boyfriend Dennis Arthur. Johanna likes Dennis, particularly because they both take advanced math together. Lanny and Dennis have a fight, squirting Slurpee at one another (or Slurpy as Stine writes it, guess that's a copyright concern?) which causes even Johanna and Margaret to laugh. The clerk confronts the teens, but gets water in the face from the machine. The clerk threatens to call the cops, but Zack just pays for the mess, since these are rich kids who aren't getting a rap sheet.

Cut to a little later as Johanna is in Mr. Northwood's history class. And Stine even mentions that he looks like Clint Eastwood, in case you didn't get the joke. He also has this habit of recording his classes, which seems like something to be more concerned about, but I guess if something bad goes down, he has evidence? Nowadays, he'd probably just record his classes on his phone, so I guess I can call this a dated practice. Also he lives next door to Johanna on Fear Street, but that'll be more important later. After class dismisses, she sees that Dennis is in a panic. He has to take a midterm exam due to failing history. That F will screw him out of track team, but being a rich kid, he's going on vacation in the Bahamas, so how can he possibly find the time? Johanna and Margaret watch on as the pair have a shouting match.

Johanna talks to Dennis after the fracas and he really wants to get back at Mr. Northwood somehow, particularly in a painful manner. And then Johanna jokingly comments "well, you could shoot him", which at least makes him laugh. Johanna thinks she's hitting it off with Dennis, but he ends up with his girlfriend Caitlyn in her Miata. And then Johanna throws her out of the car and drives off with Dennis. No, wait, that was a good old fashioned Stine daydream. Turns out Johanna has a lot of these violent thoughts, so maybe the whole "shoot your teacher" suggestion wasn't just a joking comment, but her own messed up mindset. 

Cut to a week later and Dennis is on his Bahamas vacation. We learn that Mr. Northwood tapes his classes so he can listen to them later. In fact, he tapes everything he does so that it'll improve his memory. Again, I don't know. Seems a creepy motif for why this old guy's taping the sound of teenagers to listen to later. If he's to be our corpse later, he's not endearing himself that much. Nor does him keeping Melody Zack and Caitlyn after school keep him in any other standing than "to hell with this guy" from the rich kids. 

That night, Johanna sees the rich kids in Mr. Northwood's backyard, except for Dennis as he's still on vacay. She goes to see what they're up to as they put sand in his gas tank. Then they begin to scratch names into his car, starting with Dennis, but before they can finish, Mr. Northwood exits his house. The rich kids retreat and Johanna fearing that she'll take the fall for it. She surprisingly doesn't. However, she finds out that Mr. Northwood called the police on the teens, but because they're rich and white, they didn't get in any trouble for it, saying it's just a harmless prank. But he does manage to get  them all suspended, while saying he'll be keeping an eye on Johanna. 

Johanna gets a call the next night from Dennis, back from the Bahamas who asks her if she's ready to kill Mr. Northwood. But that's still just a joke for now. He asks Johanna out despite being with Caitlyn because they're a more polyamorous couple I guess? I guess this is becoming a case of "my polyamorous friend has got me in a mess of trouble again." And with Caitlyn being gone that night, it seems like a wonderful idea. Also the rich kids were unsuspended because, again, rich and white. This is enough to convince Johanna that she'll do anything to join their group. The next day at school, Dennis gives Johanna a conch shell from the beach. When Caitlyn shows up, pissed about what's going on, Johanna takes the shell and smashes it over her head. But that, too was a dream because we haven't made it clear that Johanna's got a dark mind to her. 

Later that day, Dennis and Mr. Northwood go at it again over not being able to do a make-up test or anything to help his grade. Turns out that Northwood believes in the fairness system more than any other teacher that could be easily bribed-err coerced. That night Johanna and Dennis arrive at Margaret's for a party. After the night's events end, Dennis tells the main crew of rich kids that they're going to murder Mr. Northwood. Johanna is confused, but just agrees to whatever they're saying due to wanting to hobnob with the snobs and slob gob with Dennis. 

While she's not fully into the whole "murder our teacher" plan, when Johanna and Dennis head to her place, she sees Mr. Northwood staring at them, ruining their night. Thinking he must be spying on her, Johanna is now more into the idea on shooting him, even pretending to do so with the gun in their house because it has yet to be established enough that she's just as screwed up? The next day, she learns that Caitlyn now knows about Dennis taking Johanna out to the party. Dennis goes to her place later to study while Johanna also blows off Margaret since Dennis is now top priority. However, it's not just Dennis, but the other rich kids, including Caitlyn. They mention that Northwood again got one of them in trouble, this time Zack, and Zack is going to get revenge by throwing skunk juice at his house. He dares Dennis to do it, but Johanna, being a lovestruck moron, does it instead.

Johanna drops the glass containing the skunk juice and runs for it. The other rich kids get out in time and nobody gets caught. However, Margaret shows up with soup for Johanna because she's the only actual friend she seems to have at this point. She also tries to warn Johanna not to hang around with the rich kids, that they don't belong with them, but Johanna ignores that since she's ready to get in deeper.  Turns out that even the principal is no longer taking the side of the rich kids as both Zack and Dennis are kicked off the track team. This makes them now even more furious with Mr. Northwood and now more than ready to finally kill him.

They find the gun in Johanna's house and put a bullet in it, saying they could use it to finally shoot Mr. Northwood. They also toss the gun around because these kids are dumb enough to not know about forensics. But, again, rich and white so would it matter? And since they're just playing with a gun all cowboy like, suddenly the gun goes off in Dennis' hand, shooting Zack in the chest. Now, Johanna tries to tell them to not move Zack's body, but Dennis now has another idea. As the others panic, he takes Dennis' body and drags it to Mr. Northwood's house so he'll take the fall for it. Sure enough, Northwood grabs the gun and sees the body on his porch as cops arrive and Dennis blames him for it.

Cut to a couple weeks later. Zack didn't die, nor did Northwood get blamed as the gun was registered to Johanna's dad, so they eventually all had to admit what happened. But, of course Dennis and the others don't suffer any repercussions because, again, rich and white. Johanna's mother forbids her from seeing the rich kids again since, you know, everything so far has made it clear that they're kind of trash. But, of course, Johanna still sneaks around with them because we still have 40 odd pages left for her to screw up much worse than, you know, pinning a murder on someone. And guess what, they're still thinking of killing Mr. Northwood. So Dennis dares Johanna to do it for them, finally getting us to that titular dare. And, being a lovestruck moron who doesn't realize at all that she's being set up to be the patsy this time, she accepts said dare. 

Margaret tries to get an answer about what's going on, but again Johanna wants none of it. We also get a mention of Suki Thomas who coincidentally was in the last book I covered, The Overnight. What odd timing. Margaret knows about the dare and how the rich kids are even taking bets that she'll go through with it. She then decides to go ahead and do it. She sneaks into Mr. Northwood's yard and in a moment of surprise, ends up burying him in logs, even trying to smother him to put him out. But no, that was another one of her fantasies. Okay, this girl needs therapy. This went from "Oh how silly" to "this girl's kind of screwed up."  She talks to Dennis who says that the dare will take place on Saturday. Then she dreams of crushing Mr. Northwood's head with a log-SEE WHAT I MEAN??

Frustrated and ready to just get this over with, and I guess sparing us from several more dream sequences where she commits log-related murder, Johanna gets the gun and decides to do it right there and then. She readies herself on the back porch when Margaret arrives to screw her plan over. Margaret warns her again, but now Johanna's just frustrated that she didn't get the job done yet. Cut to Saturday, the day where the dare must be done. She gets to the backyard again and aims for Mr. Northwood again, when the doorbell rings. It's Dennis who wishes her good luck and says they'll celebrate after.

So, back to the backyard again and once again ready to pull the trigger. But she can't do it. However, she also sees that he's not moving. In fact, he has a large bullet hole in his back to begin with. He'd already been shot. Dennis runs over, excited, saying that she finally did it. That the gun has gunpowder residue on it. He also called the cops and claimed that it was in self defense. I mean, they did try to pin a murder on the guy before, but rich, white, yadda yadda yadda. Johanna realizes that it must have been Dennis that did it. But then Caitlyn shows up and admits that they did it. This was all a dare.

The rich kids had a problem with Mr. Northwood from the beginning, so Caitlyn dared Dennis to get rid of the problem. Johanna was the perfect patsy, so enamored with Dennis that she'd do whatever he wanted, despite the fact that he was still with Caitlyn. So when they saw Johanna had a gun in her house, they had the perfect weapon to get rid of Mr. Northwood, and someone to do it who could take the fall for them. Frustrated, Johanna takes her gun and points it at Dennis. Suddenly, cops arrive and sure enough, Caitlyn and Dennis blame Johanna for the murder. But before Johanna's charged with the murder, they discover that Mr. Northwood isn't dead. However, they're still ready to convict her. 

But the cops find something on Mr. Northwood. His tape recorder. As the book set up earlier, he records everything. And sure enough, he got a recording of not just the shooting, but the confession from Caitlyn and Dennis. That's enough to charge them for murder. Though, they are rich and white, so how long will that hold? As the cops leave, they ask about the whole dare mentioned in the confession, but Johanna says it was just a dare that got way too real. 

The Dare feels like a very basic book. The kind of story that's far from new. Be it the whole element of the poorer girl being caught up in the world of rich people who are more than willing to have her take the fall for their crimes. In this case committing a murder on their teacher. And while Mr. Northwood's habits are disturbing, he ultimately doesn't deserve anything that happens to him. He's the rare straight arrow teacher in Shadyside, not willing to let the spoiled kids think they can coerce him into changing that. And while the recording thing seems weird and odd, it does at least work for the big twist at the end to save Johanna from taking a fall for Caitlyn and Dennis.

I don't know how to feel about Johanna. On the one hand, she seems like someone who is too eager to allow herself to be manipulated by more affluent people, or people like Dennis who she falls for. On the other hand, the book makes it more than clear that she's a very disturbed individual with these constant fantasies of murdering people. It makes her feel complicated as a character you want to root for, but perhaps not a character you want to see get too deep in trouble. Though she's so far the most interesting protagonist we've covered since starting the Fear Street blogs. 

And I think so far this is my favorite one I've covered. It's a bit of a slog in places, but it never feels like it spins its wheels too much. And even in parts where it intentionally does like Johanna's multiple attempts at shooting Mr. Northwood, it never feels too annoying. It does a good enough job at setting up the villains, it has some real gory moments, a shockingly violent moment mid-book involving the shooting of Zack, and builds to a strong climax. Maybe not the most original climax in the world, but Stine still pieces together an okay work. It's a book that may not dare to dream but it doesn't dare to be stupid either. The Dare gets a B+.

"It Was Acceptable in the 90s": Geo Cars, Tape Recorders, Ralph Lauren Polo shirts, "Don't have a cow"