The Stinal Countdown: Fear Street Super Chiller: Party Summer

It's time for another cruel summer. And with that comes some more forays into Fear Street. And for this edition, we're going long with our first look at a Fear Street Super Chiller. Super Chillers are special editions of Fear Street, often having about 70 or so more pages than a normal edition. Stine and longer books have usually never boded well with me, but let's see if that's to be worried about with Party Summer.

Cover's not too bad. Not exactly super considering this book is a larger edition. But I do like the very horror VHS cover feel of it with our shadowy figure, looking both humanoid and monstrous at the same time and our possible victims looking on in fear and disbelief. Maybe more confusion with the girl on the right though.

PART ONE: SUMMER PLANS

So, this story is split into three parts, each several chapters full. Also for something different, chapters all have titles on them this time. So that's some neat things. We start the story proper with a girl named Jan in her attic making a pentagram and calling for someone to go away. Unfortunately for her, she gets interrupted by her friends Cari Taylor, Eric Bishop and Craig Sethridge. Jan tells them she was trying to summon a ghost, but she doesn't believe them. More important to them is that they can visit Piney Island in New England for the summer where Jan's aunt Rose lives. She advises the others that they shouldn't go as there's stories of hauntings there as well. And ghosts apparently have feelings too, so if they just laugh off the superstitions like they did with Jan, they might just get hurt.

The day arrives and Cari meets with Jan and her Aunt Rose before leaving for Piney Island. Also Cari has had the thought of what this summer is going to be. It's going to be the title of this book, Party Summer, which she repeats a bit. We go back to an argument Cari had with her parents about this party summer. About how Cari and the others were going to work at the Howling Wolf Inn for the summer while Jen's aunt Rose will be busy writing her latest book. Now everyone is in Rose's station wagon ready to go. Jan has an ivory skull around her neck to ward off evil, though she does hope to see some ghosts at the hotel. We learn a bit more about Eric and Craig. Eric tries to dress cool and act cool to the point of tedium, while Craig's more the preppy. 

Suddenly as they're driving, Rose gets strangely ill. No clue what exactly, but Rose is also superstitious of hospitals for some reason, so she suggests they go to her sister Aileen. They leave Rose with Aileen and head off to the ship headed for Piney Island for the party summer. Don't worry Stine, we know. After a rough trip, they make it to Piney Island, but there's no one to take them to the hotel. So the teens walk through the woods to make it there. After an issue with the gate, and how strange it is that it seems so dark around, they manage to get to the hotel and see the beach by it. But oddly, the place seems so quiet. They run into a strange man who tells them they're closed and shuts the door on them. After a minute or so, another man in a khaki shirt and white shorts arrives and lets them in. 

The man introduces his assistant Martin and himself as Simon Fear the third. His great uncle was the same Simon Fear whose mansion burned down on Fear Street. Martin wasn't lying about the hotel being closed, they had to renovate it, but for some reason all the workers up and left to work for some psychiatrist. His letter to Rose clearly didn't arrive in time. So their big party summer is seemingly a bust for now, with Simon allowing them to stay the night and return home the next day. Simon mentions his brother Edward who is so embarrassed by everything he isn't coming downstairs. The teens, realizing they can maybe still have their party summer, offer to help fix up the hotel in exchange for room, board and beach, to which Simon agrees. Though Martin isn't too thrilled, saying the hotel is dangerous. He takes the teens to their rooms and again tells them to leave. That he's seen things in the hotel that are dangerous, which perks Jan up at least.

The teens have some fun on the beach for a while where Jan overhears the others saying that she's weird for her paranormal interests. She's still unable to get a phone to talk to Rose, but believes she'll arrive soon enough. She does believe that Martin's telling the truth about spirits, but Eric just makes ghost noises and chases her off. The teens chalk Jan's actions to stress about Rose and that's it for now. Simon arrives and toasts the teens. Jan asks a bit more about Simon Fear, seeing as she lives on Fear Street near the mansion. Simon tells them that his father was named Simon and he named him Simon after his uncle, which sounds weirder than it is, I guess. Simon doesn't know much more about the original Simon Fear, but Edward does, but he's still in his room, not coming out. 

We do get some info on Simon Fear the first. He was a wealthy man who moved to Shadyside and resided in a mansion built in the woods, before a street was even made.. However, nobody really knew what he looked like as there are no pictures of him. He lived with his bride Angelica. At first, they weren't so reclusive and always welcomed guests to parties. They helped build the town of Shadyside. They also had two daughters who Simon spoiled with things like a whole European circus. Then, one day, the two daughters disappeared into the woods and didn't come back. However, when the search party found their bodies, they only found that. Their bodies. Their skeletons had completely vanished. 

Ah, a case of "bonus eruptus" if ever there was one. 

The deaths of his daughters destroyed Simon and Angelica. They lost all of their money and became recluses. Soon, the mansion was set on fire. It's believed to have been started by Angelica who burned herself and Simon alive as punishment for the deaths of their children or vice versa. The house burned for so long that a man reported it to be hellfire, which began the legends of the Fear Mansion being haunted. However, Angelica's remains were found and buried in the Fear Street cemetery. But the original Simon's remains were never seen, nor was he heard from ever again. Here I was expecting a party summer, but we get our first major lore dump for these reviews. Neat.

Jan leaves to get a sweater and things go quiet for a bit, until the others hear Jan screaming. They return to the hotel to check on her. They find Jan who says that she saw a ghost, but the teens are still skeptical. She wore a ghostly white nightgown and her face was pale, save for two coal-black eyes. That night, Cari is unable to sleep. Suddenly she hears her name being called by something she can't see. As she leaves her bedroom she overhears Simon talking to some woman, begging him not to allow a party. I'd assume specifically during the summer. Can't have those party summers, huh?

PART TWO: THE INVITATION

Cari, unable to just go back to sleep after all that, goes to see Jan to confirm that she too is seeing ghosts. But Jan is now even more jazzed to play Scooby Gang and find out more about what's going on. They also see some strange slime on the doorknob and assume it's ghost protoplasm. At least, I hope it's protoplasm. We haven't seen Edward yet and if his thing is spunking on doorknobs, oh god. The next day, Craig and Eric are now bugged that Cari believes the ghost stuff too since it's been well established that they don't believe in it. They ask Martin if there's a woman in the hotel, but he says that aside from Marta, their cook who isn't around, the only other woman would have been Greta, Simon's wife, who passed away. And then he changes the subject and gets them to work on mold removal.

As the others leave for a break, Cari continues working. That is until another man enters the room, looking similar to Simon, but with an eye patch and a far more unkempt and grim demeanor and a rifle in his hands. This would be Edward. Thankfully he doesn't use that rifle for more than a cane, but he does creep Cari out. He mentions that the teens must stay for a nondescript party, which bothers Cari since she remembers the woman not wanting a party. Cari and Eric walk for a bit, since they have feelings for each other, but when they feel like they're being watched, that little date comes to an abrupt ending.

The next day, the boys are on a scaffold doing some sanding work while Cari talks to Jan who still isn't getting any word about her Aunt Rose. Also just as strange, no sign of Simon either. Suddenly the scaffold starts to sway out of control and falls to the ground. No one is hurt, but given the power sander that could have been a mess. But the teens then notice something. Behind the wallpaper is a door. Jan panics, saying it's a bad omen to open it, so Eric opens it anyway. After a bat flies out and attacks them, they go further inside. Jan even warms up to it because while she fears the supernatural, it also gives her a high as well. They go further down into a tunnel. An old smuggler's tunnel that should lead from the hotel to the beach. 

However, they find a small room with blood red walls and a skull on a table. The teens take this discovery as a sign to make their exit. They run back to the doorway, but the door won't budge. They go back to the tunnel and try a different path, but no luck either. They eventually find the exit and emerge on the beach. However, when the teens return to the hotel, they see that the scaffolding was deliberately placed over the doorway. Someone was trying to lock them inside. At dinner, still no sign of Simon, but Edward shows up with his rifle. Still scowling and saying that Simon went to Provincetown off the island to check on Aunt Rose. Martin tries to get the kids to leave again, but Edward shoos him off. 

Simon does return later and tells Jan that he did speak to Rose and she's all better now and will arrive a few days from then. Cari tries to ask Simon about, well, everything, but Simon disappears. That night, Cari again thinks that someone is watching her. The next day, Jan is nowhere to be found. The teens assume she was with either Simon or Edward, but they learn from Martin that this appears to not be the case. So, now worried, the teens set out to find Jan. Cari assumes it was the ghost, but the boys still don't and we still have 100 pages until that mindset changes. They make it to Simon's room, but hear a three way argument between Simon, Edward and the female voice. Simon and the woman trying to stop Edward's party plans. Then, suddenly, Edward grabs the rifle and a gunshot is heard. Then silence. 

Edward leaves the room in a panic, saying that Simon was in a terrible accident. Martin shows up and says that it likely wasn't the case. And before Edward shoots Martin, he calms down. After all that, the teens check the room. No Simon. No woman. Not even a trace of blood. I think I got this twist already, but hopefully Stine's not just going that route. He is, isn't he? Well, 80 odd pages left.

Craig thinks it's best time to leave, but Eric wants to get some answers. They get a few through some old photographs of a younger Simon and Jan's aunt Rose. Turns out they're cousins, meaning that Jan is related to the Fear Family as well. They deduce that maybe Rose knew what was up and worked with Edward and Martin to lure the kids to the hotel. Craig and Cari now feel it's best to get off the island, but since this book is really going full Scooby Doo now, Eric finds a bookcase that turns around, revealing a secret area. But still no body. But they find a note for Rose. One that says that Jan and her friends mysteriously disappeared. The note written by Edward Fear. So the kids now realize that Edward is out to kill them and dispose of their bodies. And hell, they still haven't even found Jan yet.

So, now they have more of a reason to leave the hotel. Only problem is if they pass Edward's room, they're screwed. They head around, looking for another way out, but find a trophy room. And mounted on the wall are four human heads. The teens escape and make it to the dock, but to no surprise, the boats are all gone, meaning unless they're great swimmers, they're stuck on the island with a madman out to kill them. And with the convenient storm, they're not exactly able to do much swimming anyway. They sneak into the pool house for a phone, but there is none. Martin arrives and tells them just what his party is. It's a hunting party and the teens are the game. So we went from silly Scooby mystery to The Most Dangerous Game. Very shrewd, Stine.

PART THREE: THE PARTY

The teens are now running from Edward who is firing his rifle at them. They still can't get off the island, so they decide to go to the hotel to find a phone for any form of contact. Which, yeah, is stupid as that would be where Edward or even Martin would find them, but they can't just run around, expend their energy and just get themselves killed like whoever the heads in the trophy room are. They arrive and manage to get to the Willow Island police who say they'll arrive in twenty minutes. So they just have to survive twenty minutes and, you know, not get killed. Reminds me of that NES Home Alone game. 

Suddenly Simon arrives, still alive. The kids mention the hunting party and how Simon needs to stop his brother. And that's when Simon pulls out an eye patch and puts it on his face. And, as we all figured, Simon and Edward are the same person. But Edward seems confused when mentioning Simon. He tells the kids that he's not just going to shoot them in a hotel lobby. He'll give them an hour head start, then he'll be getting his Elmer Fudd on. The teens run off and return into the tunnel. They manage to find a room with a phone and a switchboard. It's then they realize that they didn't even talk to the cops, it was Edward screwing with them. So now that twenty minute hope window just evaporated.

They enter another room and hear a cough and see a ghostly presence. However, the room also has a giant hole in it, where Eric falls in to. They get him out but see two other figures in the room. It's Jan and Rose. Rose had recovered after a day and arrived to the hotel, but was greeted by Simon, who locked her in the tunnel. But she seems to not know what Cari or the others are talking about involving a woman in the room. And that's when Jan admits that she knew about the tunnel early on, and was the one who put the protoplasm on the doorknob as a way to get back at the others for picking on her. And in fairness, aside from the now real threat of a gun toting maniac, good flex by Jan on those scares.

Rose is still weak, so the teens head to the kitchen to help her eat something. That's when Martin also enters the room. He apologizes for everything and admits to have locking the kids up in the tunnel. Turns out that he was trying to take care of Simon, who after the loss of Greta began to lose his mind. He split into not one form, but three. Simon, his wife Greta, and Edward, who is his more unstable manifestation. Simon arrives, and despite Rose trying to get him to snap out of it, he's still in Edward mode. Made more clear when he... doesn't shoot Martin and just hits him with the gun. Alright then. 

The teens try to escape the kitchen, but the door won't budge. Frustrated, but now more ready to kill, Simon aims his gun, but Cari tells him to shoot her first. But when Simon fires, his shot goes right through her. Simon panics, as he believes that Cari must be a ghost. Suddenly, Simon speaks in Greta's voice who tells himself to stop, and that the party is over. He trips over Martin's body, and that's enough to snap him back into Simon and finally calm down. The teens and Rose finally get on the boat to leave the island when Eric asks about how Cari did the ghost trick. Turns out that Cari realized that even though Simon had been firing the gun, there were no traces of damage. He was firing blanks. And with the eyepatch, his depth perception was screwed up, meaning he's as useful as a storm trooper. They all have a good laugh and are just glad that this party summer is over with.

Party Summer is a strong Fear Street book. I think a lot of that helps by being a book that focuses a lot more on the Fear family, in this case relatives of Simon Fear, with our villain being the third generation. It leads to an okay enough mystery and a decent enough twist that, while predictable, still worked to structure a creepy enough story. Though there is of course the issue with using a person with multiple personality disorders as the stock villain, and I got really worried when I realized he was taking on his dead wife's personality as well. That could have gone much worse. And given we had a book involving the usurping of another person covered back in The New Girl, I feared it would have felt too samey, but thankfully that isn't the case here either.

But I will say this book is flawed in a few ways. It takes a while to get into the story and mystery, which given the extended page count makes sense. However, once we get to the hunting party stuff, it all feels really rushed. Never getting a chance to have fun with the idea. Hell, we never get too many answers on the heads in the trophy room. Were they past victims? Was one of them possibly the real Greta? Were they his ex-staff, or the renovators who vanished? It never gets explained all too well, which I feel is a sin for the book. I will give some credit to lampshading the supernatural elements though, but keeping them around for the final twist with fake ghost Cari.

So, what we have here is an okay Fear Street book that didn't really need the extra length, but still keeps itself from being bad by bringing up the series history. The protagonist Cari and her friends are bland though, save for Jan who at least has some character with her interest in the paranormal. I think Stine could have cut this down by a lot and not much would have been lost. I also wish the book wasn't super predictable, but I can't say that knowing the twist so far in advance hurt the book that much. Although, as I've noticed so far, Stine, at least in Fear Street, hasn't been an amazing mystery maker. He'll write a story, come up with the twist, but instead of giving us a stronger mystery to build to it, makes it too obvious too soon. You know, like the car picture in Say Cheese and Die!. It's frustrating, but also, cheap teen thrillers for a nineties crowd, what am I really expecting? Party Summer gets a B+.

It Was Acceptable in the 90s: Sassy Magazine, Walkman, Day-Glo clothing, "Gnarly", "Gnarlacious"?? Gilligan's Island references