The Stinal Countdown: Fear Street: College Weekend

It's time for yet another foray into the old street of fear. Not sure what to expect from this one. Which I hope is a good thing. But with school back in session, what better time than to haul off to the campus to see what Fear Street can bring us? It's time for College Weekend.

This cover is fine, but I'm mixed on it as well. The biggest problem is that it doesn't give off the feeling of, you know, a college weekend. This could be any building this girl is in front of. Though, granted, the creepy figure in the window at least gives this one some point in the scares department. So, while it doesn't scream college, it's still, like I said, fine.

We start with a prologue as our protagonist, Tina Rivers, is on the phone with her boyfriend Josh Martin as she's planning to head to his college for the weekend. Downside is her cousin Holly Phillips is coming and she knows Josh isn't too fond of Holly. The two girls The girls arrive via train to Patterson Station, but no sign of Josh to pick them up. Holly has a bad feeling about things, but Tina thinks she's just being superstitious as usual. They enter the station, which is pretty old and beaten up, while they try to call Josh, but the line's dead. They also spot a black cat, which adds to Holly's superstition.

As they exit the station, they get attacked by some strange guy, before someone else comes to their aid. He introduces himself as Chris Roberts, the roommate of Josh. Where's Josh? He chose the weekend his girlfriend was coming over to go on a camping trip. He was supposed to be back, but supposedly fell into car trouble. That's not red flag worthy or anything, but we're only on chapter two, so we have a while for this to get foreboding. 

Chris drives the girls to Patterson college and shows them the sights, like Club Cobalt and the Little Town Playhouse. But Tina's ears really perk when Chris mentions his father is uncle is Rob Roberts, famed fashion photographer, which excites Tina as she dreams of being a model. Chris drops the girls off at the dorm where there's still no sign of Josh. In Josh's dorm room, Tina spots their prom photo, but is shocked when the written inscription on the back is gone. As if it were erased. 

A girl named Carla Ryan appears at the front door. Tina's suspicions flare up when Carla mentions that Tina looks like someone else, but Carla won't elaborate. Carla is the girlfriend of Steve, one of Josh's dormmates. Steve's studying geology alongside Josh while Carla is taking Journalism. Carla then brings up the backstory of Chris. Chris used to have a girlfriend named Judy. The two were nuts for one another. That is, until the accident happened. They sailed on Chris's boat, but an arrant storm sent Judy overboard. She drowned. Oh Stine, you made this too obvious again way too early, huh? Oh well. Could still surprise me.

Chris returns and the girls tell him that there's no word from Josh or Steve. Carla and Chris think the two are probably fine, but with car trouble and the fog, they might just be held up. Chris then invites Tina and Holly to a party in Old Town to kill time. Tina reluctantly agrees, then checks Josh's closet. Only she ends up finding Josh's hiking boots. Seems rather odd to go camping and hiking without said boots. She asks Chris later, but Chris says that Josh likely just bought new boots. The alibi? Josh is doing work for the geology lab, so it helped pay for new boots. As they're in Chris' car, he plays a CD of a band called Spoiled Rotten, which Tina finds odd as that's a band Josh likes.

They arrive at the party and Tina starts to take a liking to Chris, though she still has her feelings for Josh. But not enough to end up kissing Chris. Their lip-lockery is caught by Carla. Tina then becomes worried about where Holly is, so she goes looking for her, only to be accosted by a guy at the party. She then hears a scream that sounds like Holly. Tina spots a girl being taken by several bikers. At first. Tina suspects it might not be her, until she finds one of Holly's earrings on the ground. 

As Tina panics, Carla arrives to tell her that Holly's at the drama building with Alyssa Pryor, another girl from Shadyside. But despite Tina wanting to see her, Carla assures that it's all fine. She also mentions that she's in an open relationship with Steve, so that puts more thoughts into Tina's head. She returns to Josh's room. Still no sign of Josh. Chris calls her later, claiming that Josh left a message at the studio, which isn't suspicious at all. He's stuck at a nearby garage needing a part that won't be in for the next day. Chris claims that Josh and Steve will be back by noon. Tina gets some sleep, but hears someone in her room. When she turns on the light, whoever it was disappears. 

This wakes Tina up, who still sees no sign of Holly. She also finds something else that's rather curious. Josh's car keys. But we're still way too early for Tina to not trust Chris, so she doesn't clue too much into all of this just yet. When she wakes up later, she calls for Alyssa's number, but there's no Alyssa Pryor listed. All of these should be gigantic red flags, but Tina is still trusting Chris on his word. He takes her to the drama department, but no sign of Holly. They try to get Alyssa's number again, and Chris lucks out. But when Tina calls, the voice on the answering machine isn't Alyssa Pryor's. And before she can leave a message, the machine just cuts off. 

Tina is panicked, but Chris just claims that maybe Alyssa was doing a voice, given she's an actress. And Tina, again, buys it. It's getting close to noon, so Tina's excited that this should mean that Josh is back, but Chris has gotten silent. Carla also arrives to conveniently tell Tina that Josh and Steve fixed the car, but wouldn't you just know it, the damn thing's broken down again, so it's going to be a while longer. But Carla's going to drive over to get them. Tina says she's going, but Carla says she can't. Tina then remembers she needs to find Holly, so that's our excuse for Tina to, you know, rightfully wonder what the hell is going on.

But, because Tina has the attention span of a goldfish and is easily distracted by whatever Chris wants to do with her, he takes her on a scooter drive to take some modeling photos for her. They then go to the carnival, which he wins a few games. We also get a shot at Barney the Dinosaur, and I'm instantly reminded that this book was from the 90s. They run into Jack Hampton, another guy who graduated from Shadyside. Chris acts strange around Jack, which even Tina notes seems like jealousy. When Tina brings up Alyssa, he mentions that Alyssa transferred to an art school in Seattle a long time ago.

Tina is now freaked out and starts running, only to be circled by a clown and some laughing kids, which, okay, that gave me a chuckle. Chris calms her down again, once again mentioning things that only Holly or Tina would know, which, again, should be setting off red lights the size of Oklahoma at this point, but of course not. He takes her to the Ferris Wheel where they conveniently get stuck on top. Chris acts weird and silent for a bit, then mentions he hasn't been on the ride since Judy's death. 

Chris then he forces himself on Tina, which makes her panic, and the car shake erratically. And this is genuinely uncomfortable. He says that she feels the way he feels for her and that if she doesn't kiss him, he'll tip the car and kill them both. But, before that can happen, the ride starts moving again. And when he gets back on solid ground, he acts like nothing happened. And despite, THAT, Tina still asks Chris to take her to the dorm. And guess what? He doesn't, deciding that it would be a great time instead of, you know, FINDING HOLLY AND GETTING ANY ANSWER ABOUT JOSH, to take some more pictures. And Tina, kind of knowing she can't really say no here, agrees. 

But as they drive off, Tina spots Carla making out with someone. As in the same Carla who was supposed to have gotten Josh by now. When they head back, it seems that Tina was mistaken. They head to Chris's studio to get the pictures developed. Tina spots a photo of a girl who looks exactly like her on a sailboat. Tina tries to ask if that was Judy, but again Chris gets silent and cold. She heads to the bathroom to apply makeup for the shoot, but ends up finding someone dead on the bathroom floor. No, wait, just a mannequin that Chris uses to test his lighting. 

Tina applies makeup and wears some of the clothes available to take some more shots. She then learns that these clothes used to belong to Judy. And to make this even weirder, he has her put on a wig and he starts calling her Judy. Tina's had enough, but Chris, now gone mad, starts calling her Judy some more and tries to kiss her, saying he's happy to have her back. She manages to calm him down so this doesn't get as concerning as the Ferris Wheel incident. She tries to leave, but given she's in the presence of someone who is unpredictable like Chris is, she knows that she can't cut and run. And then Chris has her dress in an old dress his great-grandmother used to wear. 

Tina has to apply more makeup, but she finds something on the countertop. A picture of her sleeping. It was Chris who was in her bedroom that night and took some pics of her. So she likely got tricked into taking photos for Chris to wank to while he thinks of his dead ex. And, as it's plain to see, wants Tina to be Judy. And things get more concerning when she learns that Chris wants to take more pictures of her by the ocean, which is also how Judy died. So now she has to find her way out of this. Only problem, Chris locked the door. 

Chris grabs Tina and continues to call her Judy, threatening to kill her again if she doesn't comply. She tries to get out, but he overpowers her and locks her in his darkroom. She turns on the light to find photos all over the room. Photos of her. Chris' obsession in full form. She hopes that maybe Josh will finally come and save her, despite, you know, the high probability that Josh might be dead given, again, the maniac she's dealing with. And hey, wouldn't you know it? When Tina opens the nearby cabinet, Josh's corpse falls out. Yep. Josh has been dead this whole time. And his death was clearly gruesome as Chris clearly threw chemicals on him, then smashed him over the head.

Chris then returns to the dark room and confronts Tina. She manages to grab a tray filled with acid and splash it on Chris' face. Only nope. Not acid. Just water. He is about to spill acid on her when she manages to trick him into thinking Josh is getting up. It gives her a chance to smash a tripod over Chris' head. Tina then runs off. She opens the closet door to hide and finds Holly's body. But Holly's not dead, she's been stuck there the entire time. Chris realized that with Holly there, it would ruin his chances to capture Tina, so he kidnapped her and left her stuck in a closet. 

As Tina helps Holly up, a bloodied Chris shows up with a pair of scissors and attacks Tina. Just as he's about to stab her, Carla and Steve show up. At first it seems they're in league with Chris, but Steve manages to subdue him. Carla apologizes as she wasn't aware of Josh's death, but was made aware of everything else. Steve did indeed go hiking, but Chris had told Carla that Josh went with him and with some other girl, so that's why Carla was so cold, believing that Josh cheated on Tina. But she soon learned the truth from Steve, but unfortunately it came a bit too late as she now knows about Josh's death. As the police arrive, Chris still tells Tina that he wants to develop her pictures. 

This one was just okay. I think I come off with that feeling mostly because it ended up pretty much exactly how I figured. Because, like I said before, Stine is not a good mystery writer. And if he doesn't use evil twins as his villains in these books, good odds it's someone in poor mental health. And this is definitely one of those cases. Chris is pretty by the numbers for these types of villains. Charismatic, but always coming off strange and creepy. Once the Judy info is dumped early, the mystery dies quick. Of course Chris murdered Judy, likely out of his own anger and frustration, and the grief made him go insane. Once he learned of Tina and how much she looked like Judy, he began his master plan. Not the hardest mystery to solve.

I give Tina guff for being too naive, especially since she becomes way too trusting in Chris and even Carla. Though it does make sense given how she falls for him. And we wouldn't have an admittedly pretty intense finale if we didn't get that. Though, it does feel genuinely uncomfortable. Particularly the Ferris Wheel scene. So, in a way, it works to add to some actual scares in the book. Especially the scene with Josh's reveal. I mean, it's a reveal that's super obvious, but how he dies is so gruesome that it can be forgiven. 

In the end, College Weekend feels dime a dozen when it comes to the Fear Street mystery books. It's paced well and does feel intense. Granted it does go too down a "female torture" route, but nowhere as bad as it could be. Props to Stine on that at least. But, like so many times before, the mystery is pretty much laid at your feet super early, so it loses that big shock reveal that would have aided this book. It's not perfect, but I'll at least give it a low-medium recommend. College Weekend gets a C+. 

It Was Acceptable in the 90s: CDs, MTV, Barney