This cover is fine. I don't exactly get horror vibes from it, but if you want a cover that elicits the feeling of an amusement park, then I guess it does the trick with this looking to be a seat in a Ferris wheel, which yeah, I was never super stoked about riding. We get a decent shocked girl face while the guy seems to be enjoying it a bit too much. I guess if you have a fear of rides then this concept can work far better, but even for me, it's kind of too stock for its own good.
Robin passes by the old mansion of Simon Fear which is still burnt up and then heads home to find his dad in the library reading up on spells and witchcraft, chanting and levitating while purple smoke fills the room. Look, it's the 30s and TV hasn't been invented yet. Gotta kill time somehow. Robin's father is Nicholas Fear. His mother has passed away and is buried in the Fear cemetery, so it's just Robin and his dad. Turns out that there are business men who wish to converse with Nicholas, so he cuts his witchcraft short for now and has Robin greet the men, one being Jack Bradley, Richard's father. So yeah, that's awkward. Jack and the other businessmen have come to Nicholas with a proposition. They had recently visited Coney Island in New York and think that what Shadyside needs is an amusement park of its own.
So, why does this involve Nicholas? Well, Mr. Bradley and the other men already have their funding, they just need some of the Fear Woods to build the park in, which Nicholas refuses. Mr. Bradley implores him to reconsider, but Nicholas grabs a letter opener and stares at him intensely, seemingly causing a spell to make Mr. Bradley choke. But he decides not to murder him after seeing Robin is in the room as well. Later, Robin and Nicholas go for a walk with Nicholas telling his son that given that they're Fears, they stand out from the rest of Shadyside. They are better than the others. Robin argues against it, then suddenly sees Mr. Bradley holding a rifle! No, wait, it's just a long ruler. Wow. Wow that might be up there for smelliest Stine cliffhanger.
Yeah, as it turns out Mr. Bradley wasn't going to ever play fair on this. Despite Nicholas' demands to not touch his woods, Bradley and his cohorts petitioned city council which overruled Nicholas, meaning that, like it or not, there will be a park in Fear Woods. Nicholas simply says "we'll see" and walks away. I mean, I know the Fears have a history of sucking eggs, but this is an occasion where you know, one's kind of in the right? Robin wanders in the woods, noting no signs of life. No butterflies or birds, or any woodland creatures. But one creature he does find is Meghan at the nearby stream. They talk for a bit awkwardly, with Robin noting that despite the stories of his father, Robin is totally not like him. But their conversation is cut short when Richard shows up, thinking he caught the two kissing. But he doesn't beat Robin up, but definitely cucks him out enough by kissing Meghan after Robin leaves.
Robin returns home to find his dad dead on the floor. But suddenly purple smoke swirls again and Nicholas awakens, no memory of how he wound up here other than he was doing a spell. That spell turns out to be his wife Ruth returning from the dead. Her silhouette with a wide brimmed hat enters the room, but when Robin sees her face, it's just a rotten husk of flesh and bone and bugs. Robin passes out and wakes up in a hospital bed two days later, with no memory of seeing his mom with a worm in where her nose once was. Nicholas tells Robin that the city won the rights to take 100 acres of Fear Woods from them to build the park, but he's not through with them yet. Jack Bradley begins surveying the land they'll take for the park, including the stream Meghan and Richard usually hang out at. One of the men, Ken, sets a stake down, but impales his foot. I know this is probably Nicholas' doing, but maybe you could have gotten people with better hand-eye coordination.
The men take Ken to the hospital, but Mr. Bradley chooses to stay and survey the land. He suddenly gets itchy, like he's being bitten by a bunch of bugs, but he sees no bugs on him. But the itch gets so intense that he starts to claw at his body, tearing at his flesh. Reader beware, that's gonna require some Polysporin. Meghan meets with Richard at their spot, but before they make out, they spot something in the woods. A skeleton. Flesh picked clean. In its hand is some measuring tape. Richard then notices that the head is intact, as if the bugs only ate the body and weren't too interested in the head. That, or they just like the idea of freaking out the guy's family. And, sure enough, the skeleton belongs to Jack Bradley.
A little bit of time passes as Robin thinks about Mr. Bradley's skeleton, how he was likely in line to being the next mayor, and how odd it is that his body was torn apart so quickly, but no signs of any flesh other than his head remained. So naturally, Robin puts two and two together that this was his dad's doing. He heads to the library but hears the sound of a woman, of a child, and of his father calling to Ruth. Crying, chanting. Just having a big old ball. But when Robin checks inside, he sees nobody but his dad. He asks his dad if he did it, to which Nicholas replies that despite, you know, taking part of his woods without his permission, Nicholas still respected Jack Bradley and TOTALLY wouldn't murder him. Honest. I think I know where this is going, but for now let's proceed. He runs into Meghan again, who also seems to be into Robin as the two have a quick kiss. But before they can talk too much, Richard shows up and beats the crap out of Robin before Robin runs away, again ashamed to get his ass kicked in front of Meghan.
Richard calls Meghan and apologizes for having her see the whooping his gave on Robin, and also has good news. The town is still going through with the theme park, with the portion of the woods being named in honor of his father. And teens, including girls which is a big surprise given its the 30s, will help get rid of the chopped trees. Meghan is happy about all this, not just for the whopping dollar a day work, but just happy in general, even if she has a foreboding feeling about everything. Richard tells her to stay away from Robin, so of course she meets with Robin's at Roger's, the local ice cream pub. Which must have been a nice spot, but wait until this guy named Pete comes to town with this incredible delicacy from Italy. Now THAT's Amore! He meets with Meghan and tells her that he knows his father is evil and needs to find a way to escape that evil and stop whatever he's planning. And that's by joining the clean up crew for the park. I mean, if Robin is working for the park, there's no way that his dad will cause any more mayhem, right?
The day of the cleanup comes and Meghan begins work when she finally talks with Robin. As they talk some more however, Richard shows up with a hatchet and cuts off Robin's hea-no, wait. Robin ducked it. He goes to strike Robin again, but ends up hitting a chubby boy in the chest, killing him instantly. Before Richard can react to murder, another kid stabs him in the back with an axe. And it goes on and on all around Robin and Meghan. Kids chopping each other up with hatchets. Stumps of body parts and blood spewing everywhere. Dude, this might be the most hardcore moment in all of Fear Street so far, holy fuck. Robin runs off as the purple smoke billows and his dad arrives. Nicholas asks his son what the matter is, and, as you might have guessed by now, this was all Robin's doing. He put the spell in place. He had the kids kill each other. He presumably killed Jack Bradley. He assures his dad that he finished the job and the amusement park will never be built now. But this is a trilogy and we aren't done with book one, so of course not.
We then finally move to present times, or in the case of the book, 1996. Dierdre Bradley is at Fear Park with her boyfriend Paul Malone. Yes, Dierdre is a part of the same Bradley family. Her father is about to open Fear Park to the public. It took sixty years since the plans for the park were underway, but it's finally moving forward. It's got everything. A house of mirrors, a Ferris wheel, a ride called The Inferno, a play where actors reenact the tragic murder of a bunch of teenagers, cotton cand-wait what the fuck? Yes, one of the attractions, The Hatchet Play, is a reenactment of the tragic incident where everyone was all chopped up. Just some good clean family fun. Also, there have been a lot of weird accidents at the park, but I guess the live mockery of dead teens and a possible curse won't stand in the way to profits.
Dierdre still worries that something might go wrong at the park as she talks with her father, Jason Bradley, who got the park from his cousin Timothy. He's brought in a bunch of people to test the rides, including Dierdre and Bradley. I mean, you could have gotten really human-like robots for this, but whatever. In fact, there's been weird things going on with the inferno ever since it was built. Namely scaffolding that collapsed and killed three painters. So, you know, send your daughter to test it out. Dierdre and Paul even go to the front car just in case. Suddenly, the track splits and suddenly the car goes off the path and into flames and SUDDENLY... the ride's over. After they leave the ride, Dierdre leaves Paul and rushes to her other boyfriend, Rob. Despite not wanting to hurt Paul, she can't resist Rob. It's almost like he has control over her. So, I'm already certain who Rob is.
Jason Bradley talks with reporters about the opening of the park, how the wildlife preserve will open a week later, about the rumors of a curse on the park, and of course about the hatchet play, which is in tribute to the kids who died that day. I mean I know it's 60 years ago and all, but I think there's better ways to pay tribute to mutilated kids. Like a plaque or something. Everyone goes to see the Hatchet play, with Paul as one of the actors. Dierdre watches, but also notes Rob in the shadows. The play goes on and purple smoke once again billows. Suddenly, the actors attack each other with the axes and collapse to the ground, not moving. But it turns out to be part of the show, which freaks Dierdre out more than anyone. Especially when she sees Rob in the shadows again.
The next day, since things went so well, Jason opens the park again as another sneak preview. Dierdre finds Rob and talks with him, saying he wasn't trying to be creepy and ominous, he was just enjoying the show. Dierdre heads off to find Paul, but can't find him. She heads to the Ferris wheel and hears a strange thumping noise each time the wheel turns. She discovers that it's Paul's body under the wheel, with his head cut clean off. She runs to Rob and embraces him as she is traumatized by seeing Paul's corpse. So, with another corpse, and worries about a corpse, Jason is unable to open the park immediately, and he's lost workers who, logically, don't want to die for this park. Dierdre and Jason then notice that Rob is applying for the job. He's been waiting a long time to work at Fear Park. A very long time...
because, as you may have guessed, Rob's full name is Robin Fear.
As is the norm with the trilogies, I'll give my full thoughts at the end, but as far as first parts go, this is one of the stronger first parts. It puts the majority of its focus on the origin of the park. Which would be something that most Stine books would just make into rushed exposition. But seeing as this is a trilogy, it's better to get a lot of this out of the way as soon as possible. And it leads to one of the darker first books I've ever covered. I mean, you don't get out of a book with a massive pile of kids chopping up each other and think "well that was a kid gloves story". More so than with 99 Fear Street, you're getting a heavier focus on dark horror and more logical build throughout. In this case, you don't focus on a protagonist who keeps stupidly inviting people into a cursed house. With Robin, his actions all make narrative sense. Especially his heel turn. It does make him less sympathetic, but I think it still works as one of the better "I was the bad guy the whole time" swerves that we've gotten from Stine. You also don't have to bounce between time periods like Cataluna did. Once we finish 1935 we are done with 1935. Thank god he didn't try to time stitch them.
And there's just enough ambiguity to Robin that you could understand why he did what he did. The first being that he wanted revenge and did this all himself. Revenge for the woods being destroyed, revenge for everything Richard put him through, revenge for his father. It paints him as a more cunning villain than we normally get in Fear Street. And, unlike Cataluna (which I'm going to have to bring up so strap in) we have more of a reason to dislike Robin going on his actions instead of the book trying to make us hate Catherine despite everything involved with the story presenting her as not the reason this all began in the first place. His ties to the Fears and their long established history of evil deeds makes it feel like he could have already been evil from the get go.
There is some really good horror in this book. Granted, some really lame stuff like that "It's a shotgun! No, wait, a ruler" stinger, but that feels like minor stuff when you consider the other stuff in the book goes super hard. The vision of Robin's mother, a guy impaling his foot, the really freaky death of Jack Bradley that even makes me feel itchy, Paul's corpse, and especially the hatchet massacre. I rail on the play, but honestly, it's one of the better dark humor ideas we've ever seen from Stine. Although it's still fucked up to do a play about a bunch of kids being murdered. It's like doing "9/11: The Musical" and playing it at Madison Square Garden.
This is a strong first part to the story, up there with The Fear Street Saga in terms of building the story. And has some of the best horror imagery we've seen in any of these books. We don't have much time to build on Dierdre here because of all the build in 1935, but we have two more books for it, so it's not the biggest fault ever. An easy recommend. So, how do we follow up from here? Do we build on the horror? Can Stine keep that momentum? Does he fuck it up because there is precedent for that? We won't need to wait too long to find out. The First Scream gets an A-.
IT WAS ACCEPTABLE IN THE 30S: Clark Gable, China Seas, Jean Harlow, Bing Crosby, FDR, "Big Palooka", The Stock Market Crash, WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE!?, A dollar a day being a realistic living wage, Malt shops, Cab Calloway, The Jumpin' Jive
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