The Stinal Countdown: Fear Street Super Chiller: Bad Moonlight

It's time for another Super Chiller. And one that isn't Cheerleader-adjacent for once either. This has always been one that 's interested me, if only for its cover. It also sounds like the kind of story that Stine's done a whole bunch of times for Goosebumps? Let's see for ourselves with Bad Moonlight.

Oh this cover just screams bisexual lighting. I really like this cover. While very simple, it does enough to sell the concept of the book. That there's music, and possibly some werewolves. Plus the color work in the background is solid. Also, a person of color on the cover of an R.L. Stine book. That's a rarity in itself. So from an interest perspective, the book's won me over already.

We open on a prologue as Danielle Verona is at the supermarket with her ten year old brother Cliff and their Aunt Margaret. After some commentary from Danielle about how cold it is inside and Cliff headbutting her for no real reason, we learn that Danielle and Cliff's parents died three years prior and that Danielle had been gone for two weeks as she's forming a band with her friend Caroline. Things seem fine, until Danielle suddenly tears open a package of raw beef and eats it whole. This freaks everyone out, but Danielle seems to have no idea why she was really hungry all of a sudden.

We then cut to Danielle in the band van with sex-crazed driver Joey, Caroline, Mary Beth, their manager Billy Dark and the roadie Kit Kragen. Not a bad gamut of names in this'n. There's also the seemingly cold and quiet Dee Waters. They haven't found a name yet for their band. Caroline suggests just using The Beatles, since that worked pretty well. Danielle gets to perform in the band which everyone's cool with, except Dee, who doesn't think she belongs. Joey continues to horn in on Dee, which is a bad thing to do while driving as they end up crashing through a guardrail and right off a cliff! Well this book was quick. It actually didn't, Danielle imagined it happening.

Everyone notices that Danielle is pretty shaken afterwards and Joey even apologizes for his erratic driving, though he says that the full moon got in his eyes. It turns out Danielle's been getting a lot of these odd hallucinations lately. The trigger is likely the fact that her parents died by accidentally driving through a guardrail and plummeting down the cliffside. She mentions that she imagined her Aunt Margaret mentioning slashed tires, but seemingly never actually mentioning it. She has been talking to her psychiatrist, Dr. Moore about it ever since, especially now that the visions and the trauma have been acting up far worse lately. 

The crew arrive at a motel that's across from the Rocket Club, which the band (right now just called the No-Name Band) will perform. But once Danielle exits the van, she feels cold all of a sudden, just like what happened at the supermarket. Her hair is also standing up, which for now she blames the wind for. They seem to settle in when Dee suddenly grabs Danielle and digs her nails into her arm, saying that Danielle will be sorry. But before Dee can elaborate more, the group is to head to the Rocket Club. They dance for a bit, with Joey trying to hit on Danielle, but she's not into him. Danielle and Billy mention that Joey acts like quite the animal.

After setting up the amps, Kit asks Danielle to walk with him to the park and Danielle's fine with this, since it's far less of a forceful invite than Joey's. Danielle notices that Dee looks pretty pissed off, so she assumes that Dee was into Kit and now she's about to screw Dee over, which already makes this rocky relationship even more precarious. The trip to the park all seems to go well until Kit suddenly kisses Danielle. And then she suddenly bites his lip. He recoils in pain and surprise and even Danielle doesn't understand why she did it, but oddly, she really loved doing it. One thing's for sure, she needs to talk with Dr. Moore about it. She then strums on her guitar and sings the titular song of the book.

Bad moonlight, falling over me,

Bad moonlight, shining down on me

Bad moonlight,

Makes me feel so strange and new.

Bad moonlight, falling over me,

Bad moonlight, shining down on me

Bad moonlight—

I want to die for you!

Everyone in the group seems to like it, except Dee, of course. But not only has the band found a song, but also the perfect name for their band, Bad Moonlight. That night, Danielle is in bed, when she hears strange howling noises outside. Dee is also at her door, about to tell her something, but given everything so far, Danielle has no time for Dee to chew her out some more. The next day, Danielle goes to Dr. Moore's office and mentions the events of the previous night, particularly biting Kit as well as the violent fantasies. Dr. Moore hypnotizes her to get her to relax. In her hypnotized state she mentions being chased by something, then fighting back in a violent rage. After waking up, she gets up from the chair only to see it torn to shreds.

Bad Moonlight perform that night and it goes so well, with the audience even wanting an encore. Everyone's happy. Danielle tries to talk to Kit, but Joey continues to be a sex pest. So she instead goes for a walk in the park. However, it's during a full moon. And that's when Danielle notices her hands. They're turning into claws. Suddenly she spots Joey. The next day, nobody can find Joey. Suddenly, they see police heading to the park. When they arrive, they find Joey's corpse, shredded and torn apart. Well at least he's not around to harass the girls anymore.

Danielle begins to suspect that maybe she did it, but doesn't want to believe it. Dr. Moore doesn't think she had anything to do with it, despite, you know, the violent fantasies she's been having and her altercation with Joey before the incident. Bad Moonlight head off to their next gig with Dee being the only one who finds it a bit weird to just move on from Joey's death so quickly. As they drive, Danielle sings another new song that pops in her head.

Stop me, whoa,

Bad moonlight, stop me, 

Keep me, stop me,

Hold me like a friend.

Stop me, whoa,

Bad moonlight, keep me,

In your cold, cold glow,

Don't let me kill again.

We're really getting close to Danielle singing "I'm dying in a vat in the garage".

Maybe singing the words "Don't let me kill again" after someone's murder wasn't a good idea as Dee immediately suspects that Danielle was the one who murdered Joey. And then Dee tries to strangle Danielle. Everyone eventually calms down enough as they drive through the convenient storm. As they stop, Danielle then suddenly goes to a puddle and starts to lap it up with her tongue. And we just move on from that to the next performance. Only no sign of Kit or Dee as they left and were last seen arguing. She then thinks she sees Dee tearing Kit apart, but it was actually just two kids playing. Yet another one of her visions.

The band perform again and it's yet another success. Everyone goes to the lake to relax after, but Danielle chooses to go for a walk. Only this time, Dee catches her. She tries to get Danielle to admit to killing Joey, but Danielle is saved in time by Kit. After Dee leaves, Danielle again hears howling noises, but Kit's confused as he doesn't hear anything. That night, she sees someone laying on the hotel floor. It's Billy. He's not dead, just really, really drunk. Also, this book has chapter titles, and this was the second one to be titled "[[Book Character]] Dies" and they don't, so maybe screw off with that, Bob.

Danielle is back home with Cliff and Aunt Margaret. She still has a lot on her mind given the chaotic events of the previous few days. She also still can't get the image of her parents dying out of her head. She asks Aunt Margaret about it again, but she suddenly seems hesitant to talk about it. Later, she overhears Margaret talking with Dr. Moore, and she's very concerned about Danielle. After Aunt Margaret leaves, Danielle searches her room and soon finds a newspaper mentioning the mysterious death of a Shadyside couple. Perhaps Danielle's parents didn't die in a car accident after all. in fact, it seemed as if the bodies were torn apart by some kind of animal. So, Danielle's still confused, now even more so.

Dr. Moore talks with Danielle and says that Aunt Margaret probably lied to keep Danielle from getting too upset. She mentions the call and Dr. Moore admits that he is worried about her. That while the fantasies are normal, they're not disappearing as fast as they should. In her latest trance, she visions chasing after Dee and eventually killing her. After leaving the session, Dee confronts her again, telling her to quit the band. This angers Danielle enough to leap at her and start tearing at her. Before she can kill Dee, Caroline manages to stop Danielle from finishing the job. While playing with Cliff, Cliff hurts himself and gets a cut, to which Danielle starts to lap it up. You know, this is a solid book, but we're definitely at "spinning our wheels" territory until we get our obvious answers. Speaking of which, another song from Danielle:

I'm at the window

howling at the moon, 

crying out my love,

trying to get through,

through to you.

I'm howling, howling,

howling my love.

Gotta claw my way back,

back to you.

After her latest ditty, she notices a strange figure in her backyard. It's Billy. He seems to be acting strange again, and showed up to remind her that the next gig is in Shadyside. Also, Dee quit the band. She left some sort of note, but Billy won't give Danielle a straight answer as to why. She calls Kit for answers, but he doesn't seem to understand either. He heads to Danielle's and the two go for another walk. Given the last time left him missing a chunk of lip, this could only go better, I'm sure. Suddenly, Danielle starts to run down, where else, Fear Street with Kit following. Why is she running, because she spotted a rabbit and really wants to catch and eat it.

And, again we just move on from that to the night of the next gig. Billy still seems to be acting weird. We also have a replacement for Dee, Shawna Davidson. Shawna and Danielle getting along much better than when Dee was around. It's almost showtime and everyone arrives. In the dressing room, Danielle spots a large trunk. When she opens it, she finds Dee's body, torn up like Joey's was. So Danielle thinks that maybe she's killed again, given how so many of her thoughts have turned to, you know, actually wanting to murder Dee in cold blood. 

Suddenly Billy shows up and blocks her from leaving. She manages to escape, but escaping in sandals might have been a bad idea as she starts to trip and almost fall over the stairwell. She manages to get her balance and exit out the door with the others chasing after her. She runs into Caroline who says she can help her. Then, as the moonlight pours, Caroline suddenly starts to howl. So, um, Caroline's a werewolf. The van shows up and both Billy and Mary Beth are also werewolves. So the "Bad Moonlight" name was more ironic than we expected.

The werewolves say that they'll protect Danielle, but she doesn't trust them. Kit shows up and Danielle feels safe, until they say that he's a werewolf as well, so now she doesn't know who to trust. But he seems genuine as he grabs her arm and the two make a run for it. Billy attacks Kit. This gives Danielle enough time to run to the van, but the van is dead... no, wait. It does actually work. She drives home and tells Aunt Margaret everything, but surprise! She's been in on this the whole time. Because Aunt Margaret is also a werewolf!

See, Margaret isn't actually her aunt. She killed Danielle's aunt and took her place. And, as we guessed, the werewolves were the ones who murdered Danielle's parents, to keep them from revealing the truth. So, why have they targeted Danielle? Well, she's to be the bride of the werewolf master of course. Well this took a turn. Danielle tries to escape, but get caught by Billy, who she thinks is the werewolf master. She manages to escape again and get into the van. She drives off to Dr. Moore's for help. But that turns out to be the worst idea yet because Dr. Moore is Kit's dad and Kit is the werewolf master.

We get our answer as to what's been going on with Danielle this whole time. Why she's getting the visions, the blood lust, the wolf-like tendencies. It had to do with the sessions with Dr. Moore. He's been hypnotizing her and subliminally making her believe she's a werewolf, to ready her for when Kit was ready. The songs are also his doing, part of the hypnosis. This whole thing started three years prior when Kit was performing with his previous band. While at a performance at the park, he spotted Danielle and chose her to be his bride. That was also when he knew he had to kill her relatives to ensure that nothing could go wrong. Say what you will, dude knew how to go for the long con.

Kit also killed Joey and Dee. Joey for trying to get with Danielle, and Dee because Dee actually knew what was going on. When Dee told Danielle to leave the band, it was her trying to warn her, to keep her from being Kit's bride. And Kit promises to kill Billy as well for almost spilling the beans. Danielle is against being his bride, but Dr. Moore says that won't matter. The bride of a werewolf is completely under his control. And what better time for a werewolf wedding than right now? 

Kit and Dr. Moore drag Danielle to the terrace as the other werewolves are ready for the wedding. She tries to tell Billy about Kit's plans to kill him, but he doesn't believe it. They tell Danielle to sing Bad Moonlight for them, but she continues to tremble and trip over her words. They realize it's a plan to try and escape. Billy then tells Danielle that she needs to find a way to save herself. If she raises her eyes to the moonlight, something will happen. She looks to the moonlight and becomes a werewolf herself. She attacks Kit and tears him apart, killing him. Suddenly, she and the others turn back to their human selves. They thank her for setting them free as Kit had used the bad moonlight to keep them prisoner. The book ends with Billy and Danielle, seemingly a couple now, happy to no longer have to fear the moonlight.

Bad Moonlight is good, but definitely flawed. Flawed in that it both feels like it stalls a bit midway and that it super rushes the conclusion. Though, for a book about werewolves, it does give us a lot of werewolf action, and I can appreciate it. Stine's not good at mysteries, and even certain parts become super obvious, like Margaret being in on it and Danielle not being the werewolf in question. Once the hypnosis stuff is added, you can guess that the visions and the blood lust are a part of that. So this book ends up cribbing from The Sleepwalker because of it. But that was a decent book, so if you're gonna steal, steal from that I guess. Also, and I know this is werewolves, but I get a weird Lost Boys vibe from this book. And I like that movie, so another positive.

Danielle is a good protagonist. You feel for her given everything she's been through, and the fear of what she seems to be turning into. The other characters sort of blend together save for Billy, Kit and Dee. Dee makes a decent red herring villain, though again, it becomes obvious that she's not the real villain of the book. Billy is fine as well for a red herring. The twist of it being Kit and Dr. Moore is fine. The book builds Kit up as enough of a good guy throughout that it does come off as enough of a surprise as we go forward. 

Other things about the book, the song sections are interesting, but awkward feeling given we don't know how you're supposed to actually sing these, so they feel more like classy poems than actual music. I also just like that this is a werewolf story. Stine's a mixed bag when he does them but more often than not they can be solid books. And a werewolf music band is one of the cooler ideas we've gotten from Stine for certain. I do wish the conclusion wasn't super rushed. A real feeling of Stine tripping over himself to get to the finish line.

In the end, while it's not perfect, Bad Moonlight is one of my favorite Fear Street books so far. Offers a solid start, a decent mystery, some great scares, and enough action and horror to work. Did it need to be a longer book? Not really, but what we get is enough to be a high enough recommend. R.L. Stine can disappoint very often, but when he actually sticks the landing, it's music to my ears. Bad Moonlight gets an A-.