The Stinal Countdown: Fear Street: Fear Park #03: The Last Scream

It's time to ride into the sunset with Fear Park. This has been one of the more consistent trilogies from Fear Street that I've covered so far. So now all we need is for Stine to stick the landing. And that's not always a guarantee on these things. But hopefully we end just as strongly as we began. Use up those remaining tickets, it's time for The Last Scream.

This cover is fine. It does have action and a girl in more peril than before. Though honestly Dierdre's face is more confusion than fear. She was more frightened of the carousel last time than she is at Robin trying to yank her off the rollercoaster. Or is it like a Ferris wheel? That was my problem with the first cover too. Kind of tricky to tell what this ride is supposed to be exactly. But for a final cover for this trilogy, it's still enticing enough to look past its flaws.

In 1935, Jack Bradley and his associates, having been inspired by Coney Island, intended to build an amusement park in the Fear Woods. Their problem however was Nicholas Fear, spellcaster and member of the infamous Fear family. Meanwhile, Nicholas' son Robin is dealing with his love for a girl named Meghan and his issues with Jack's son Richard. Despite Nicholas being against the plans, and Jack dying mysteriously by evil magic bone stripping bugs, construction on the park goes on as planned with the teens of Shadyside hired to help remove the trees and stumps. Suddenly, all of the teens involved, including Richard, start to chop each other up with their hatchets. Robin reveals to his father that his plan worked to keep the park from being open... for sixty years at least as Jason Bradley, descendent of the same Bradley family, finally opens the park, and even holds a play of the massacre. His daughter Dierdre is in a love triangle with a boy named Paul and a boy named Rob that doesn't last long as Paul is decapitated at the Ferris wheel. Despite the worries of curses, Jason hires Rob, who reveals his full name to be Robin Fear. 

Using an immortality spell to keep him looking youthful, Robin continues to try to destroy the park, while also planning to kill Dierdre as well. All while trying to manipulate Meghan, who is also alive thanks to the immortality spell. Paul's younger brother Jared and his friends constantly try to mess with the park, only for Robin to cause more death and destruction to everything they touch. They mess with the wildlife park manager, he ends up eaten by lions. The plant firecrackers in the house of mirrors, Robin blows up the house of mirrors, killing many innocent people. Dierdre is getting strange calls and warnings about Robin. She and Robin get kidnapped by Jared and his friends, only for it to be a trap by Robin, who uses magic smoke to mutilate the boys. He then tells Dierdre that his father is the one behind all of this.

The book opens with Dierdre witnessing the hatchet massacre play and sees Robin amongst the others. But this feels like no act. Everyone's getting killed. However she soon wakes up. She realizes though that this wasn't a dream, but perhaps a vision of things to come. In other words, this is one of the better "This is not a dream! Then I woke up" stingers that Stine's done. She squeezes a Koosh ball (Oh my god I forgot Koosh balls were a thing. Oh my god Stine knew Koosh balls were a thing.) as she wishes her dad would just close down this park and move on. It's been a month since the last string of incidents. The house of mirrors, Mr. Gunther being eaten by lions, whatever the fuck was going on Jared and his friends. But, regardless of every possibly sign that a curse is on this park, Jason Bradley still plans to open it up. I mean, multitude of deaths aside, it's still safer than Action Park. But this is moot when she finds her father suddenly choking to death with worms in his mouth which is, you guessed it, STILL more eating of worms than in Go Eat Worms!

Robin, of course, was the one who put the spell on Mr. Bradley. As he laughs at his actions, he's interrupted by Meghan, who is finally getting tired of spending the last sixty years as an eternal seventeen year old. And just as tired of all this stuff with the Bradleys and the park, seeing as she did catch him with Dierdre. He's also tired of her. Turns out that having her with him all this time wasn't his brightest idea. He goes to choke her, but, you know, immortal and all, so she thinks of it more as an embrace. A really specific, fucked up embrace. Sixty years of Stockholm syndrome will do that to you. The day of the re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-reopening occurs, but Mr. Bradley isn't as thrilled. First off, the worm incident messed up his vocal chords, but more importantly, he can't give up on the park. Not just because it was the goal of his family for decades to open the damn thing, but there's also this more concerning caveat that all of their life savings is on this park. If it goes under, he and Dierdre are going to be broke. Oh, and he also owes loan sharks too, so yeah, if Robin doesn't kill him, they will. Or at least take their thumbs.

Dierdre then gets another whispery phone call, telling her that she doesn't know the truth about Robin. Speaking of Robin, he's pissed because all of his attempts to convince Dierdre to get the park closed haven't been working. And since the worm thing didn't get the job done, he's just going to have to kill Mr. Bradley already. He goes to the Ferris wheel and causes the wheel to spin rapidly, all while pretending he can't move the lever. He asks security to get Mr. Bradley. When Mr. Bradley shows up, Robin throws him into the speeding Ferris wheel, cracking his skull. However, that doesn't actually kill him. He goes to choke Mr. Bradley, but given everything going on, there's way too many witnesses, so yeah, that plan sure worked. He also sees Meghan there, so he says that he was actually trying to SAVE Mr. Bradley. Yeah, that's the ticket. Dierdre goes to call the ambulance, but gets another whisper call saying they're coming to tell them the truth about Robin.

So now Mr. Bradley is in a coma in the hospital. Dierdre tells Robin that they have to keep the park open to pay his medical bills, oh and there's someone calling making threats about him, so he'll have to deal with that too. After Robin leaves, Dierdre sees a red haired boy staring at her. Robin also spots the boy talking to Dierdre and realizes that whoever this is may be the one to put a spanner on all his plans, so he has to get him killed ASAP. He wonders if the boy is immortal like him though and if he's been stalking him this whole time. He calls Dierdre, who seems to be really worried about being with him, so that also pisses Robin off, which given everything so far isn't too hard to do. He returns to the park and sees Dierdre with the boy who she calls Gary. Robin has no memory of any Gary, especially back in the 30s, but that's moot. He needs to see if he can kill him first. He sees them on the Twirl n Swirl ride, one of those swinging Zipper rides which fuck that I never wanted on those. So he uses a spell. He makes the lines in Gary's swings break off and sends him flying into nearby power lines. His body being electrocuted in cartoonish fashion. Robin is gleeful to have killed Gary, only to see the body and realize it's some other teen boy, not Gary. Just a lot of swings and misses for ol' Robin lately.

Dierdre returns to the hospital to check on her father, who is still comatose. She talks about the time he thought he was being attacked by plants in his wife's garden before she died. But for now he's still unresponsive, so he can't tell her that Robin shoved him into the Ferris wheel. Robin shows up, wanting an opportunity to strangle Mr. Bradley, but then sees Gary outside. He tries to cast a spell to have some machinery drop rocks on him, but it doesn't appear to work. He again sees Dierdre leave with Gary, which makes Robin worry that whatever dirt Gary has on him, he's already told Dierdre. He then gets accosted by a man thinking he was trying to steal his car, so Robin plots revenge by using a spell to glue the man to his car. But he doesn't do that because I guess even he thinks that's too pointlessly petty. Damn you Stine, that would have been sick as fuck though. He returns home to Meghan who wants him to hurry up and let her die already. They argue, which causes him to punch her, which causes some flesh to fall off her face. She retaliates by clawing and biting at him, which also removes quite a bit of flesh. Wait what?

We return to Dierdre who now knows enough about Robin Fear from Gary. So now she's worried that her life is in danger and if Robin will kill her soon. Meanwhile, Robin and Meghan literally put each other back together and cool off for the moment. He asks her about a boy named Gary and she says that there was a red haired boy named Gary Barth, to which Robin suspects that's who's out to get him. The next day, Robin confronts Dierdre, wanting to go for a walk with her. She notices him leading her to the animal preserve and being happy at the idea of her dad being in a coma, which is enough for her to make a run for it. Robin realizes that he REALLY should have killed her sooner, but was actually falling for her, which I guess is enough of an excuse for slacking off. He then says that he's not evil, he's just doing all this to avenge his dad. I mean, he's murdered like at least a hundred people by now, but it was with a purpose. 

Robin catches up with Dierdre, who poker faces by saying that she wanted him to catch her since it was all a game. They have cotton candy, all while Dierdre wonders where Gary went. Suddenly, the purple smoke envelops Dierdre, causing the candy to glue her mouth shut. Robin runs off, happy to have finally killed her, but then sees Gary arrive and throw a drink at Dierdre, which negates the cotton candy glue. Robin finally confronts Gary, wanting to know who he really is. But Dierdre just says he's an old boyfriend from the year before and leaves, because we still have about 30 pages left to get to the fireworks factory. Though given what happened last book, that may be poor phrasing. Robin checks his books on immortality and learns that only someone dead can kill an immortal. So if Gary's an immortal, he needs the dead to kill him, so his big plan is to bring back all of the dead teens from the hatchet incident, which should do the trick. And he can kill Meghan this way too, since why waste good corpses? He invites Meghan to see the hatchet show later that night, which he also intends to get Gary and Dierdre as well. Dierdre and Gary head to the theatre to see the play with Robin and Meghan. The purple smoke fills up and, sure enough, the players aren't humans, but the rotted zombies of the hatchet victims. 

The zombies approach them and grab Robin. Yeah, I think Robin forgot that he's the one that killed them so they'd want revenge on him instead of the others. The zombies take their hatchets and chop him to pieces. Meghan thanks Dierdre for the help because it actually was Meghan who was warning Dierdre the entire time and Gary was really just a former boyfriend of Dierdre's. Meghan leaves with the zombies who ride the rides at the park while Gary looks on confused. See, Meghan and Dierdre conspired the whole thing. They found the spell to raise the dead. They were the ones who cast the spell, and tricked Robin into thinking he was the one who did it, meaning that they could finish him off, all while making Robin think Gary was an immortal from the past who was the real person responsible. Dierdre and Gary leave the park as they hear the wails in the background, possibly of the zombies returning to their graves.

I do feel that this is a solid conclusion, all told, but I'd be lying if I did say I was kind of bored of this one for the most part. Mainly in that we don't really get as much wild horror as we did in the last two books. Save mainly for the kid being electrocuted and the ending with Robin, which feels more like Stine needing to find a way to tie together a way to kill Robin and a way for the zombies to get their revenge. So much so that you can really feel the last minute approach to all of this. It being in the last 30 pages, it being another attempted murder from Robin who suddenly is less effective in this book despite being so good at it last book. Though I can buy more his frustrations and need to rush the end of the park as fair reasoning for his game being off.

My other issue is that we get so much of Dierdre learning about everything offscreen. Which makes sense narratively to work towards the Gary swerve, but I don't know. More focus on her knowing about Robin's history aside from like a brief couple sentences would have worked a bit better for me than it just being thrown together. Which again is why I really don't feel as hot about this third part as I had hoped. Maybe this being a Super Chiller, condensing the horror much better would have made my issues less prevalent. But I also don't hate that this is how we settle this either. It all plays to the twist which I can be fine with since I do like the twist just fine. I even like that it was Meghan the entire time and that she's been messing with his head through the book with the Gary swerve. My initial belief was it would be Nicholas Fear trying to stop his son, him realizing that his son was going too far, but I think this at least does the right job in making it clear that the Fear family are pretty much all horrible. Although the whole thing with Robin trying to blame his father for it at the end of the last book feels kind of swept under the rug in classic "Stine hit a wall" fashion.

So, I do kind of feel let down with this one. Not in a "this book is bad" sort of way, but in a "there really could have been more of a super strong finale" feel to it. The twist is fine and works in terms of the narrative, but also feels like it's here and gone so quick that it doesn't feel like we needed three books to get to it. But I'd still recommend this as it is. I wouldn't say this is a case of Stine not sticking the landing. More Stine sticking the landing and feeling like "wait, that's it?". The Last Scream gets a B+. 

I liked this trilogy. Probably not to the level of Cheerleaders or The Fear Street Saga, but compared to the fucking Cataluna Chronicles this was way better by every possible known margin. The main reason for it being better is that it's always focused on the main story at hand. Robin's constant unsuccessful attempts to destroy the park. We're not put into a second book about a dead boy who was turned into a zombie by a witch doctor, or two books of present era plots that could have been cut before the finale. This is always about Robin Fear. He is technically the book's protagonist. More so than even Dierdre, who does feel like a secondary character. Though I do feel that was by design, and given how the twist works, it was a necessary evil. And I think as the villain we're always focused on, Robin is a decent lead. He's a villain from the beginning and into the end with no shades of gray and no attempts to make him good. This isn't a Reva Dalby situation where the protagonist is always just a shitty person that isn't fun to follow for three books. Or a Catherine Hatchett situation of a girl who was turned evil by the actions of others for a curse beyond her control.

I do like that the park kind of matters to the plot and doesn't just feel like a backdrop for the most part. The main horror for the three books surrounds the park. Whether it's the park's creation, or the multiple attempts to open the park only for people to keep dying, the park always matters. So much so that I do feel this does a better job at being about an evil amusement park more than One Day at HorrorLand and The Beast. Doesn't hurt that we get some of the best gore in any of these books. Teenagers chopping each other up with hatchets, a man getting his flesh eaten by bugs, a man being eaten by lions, a decapitation, a house of mirrors exploding and killing everyone inside, four teens having their body stretch and explode, a kid being electrocuted and finally Robin Fear being chopped to bits. One thing that can be guaranteed about the trilogies is that Stine knows how to get creative when it comes to murdering teenagers. Though I'm genuinely shocked that the book introduced a dog and didn't kill it. Stine let a dog live! Though he did have a monkey get beaned with a rock, so I guess that counts. 

I honestly feel that any book that focuses around the Fear family are usually the more standout books in Fear Street. This time around, we keep the focus on Robin Fear and, at least for the first book, his father Nicholas. Who I do wonder if he's dead or not. What's keeping him from using an immortality spell as well? Maybe he was immortal, and that he chose to bring Ruth back to life so that she could be the one to kill him. Although you could just as easily make an argument that Fear family members do feel like a crutch for Stine with these bigger stories. That we need to add new members to be our central villains. But I can buy that the family tree could just be this large and that, inherently, all of the Fears are just terrible people. Some more so than others as is the case with Robin. 

In the end, I think Fear Park is a decent trilogy that didn't need to be a trilogy. It does feel like it goes overboard on one failed attempt to destroy the park after another and could have been more neatly condensed into a Super Chiller. And there's always that plot hole of "If Robin has all these powers, and did blow up the hall of mirrors, why not just blow up the park?" I mean, it would make the trilogy much shorter and I guess Robin just wants to be more cartoonish in his evil, but, I mean, this would have made everything so much easier, right? And don't say that he couldn't. If he can raise the dead and make himself immortal, blowing up an amusement park feels pretty kid gloves. If it was to keep Meghan from believing he was trying to hurt people, given he was already tired of her, then it still feels like something he could have done all along while also killing her off with the spell. But that gaping hole isn't enough to deter this too much. I liked the first two parts and was left wanting with the third, so I'd say that makes this on the whole a much stronger recommend than expected. I give the Fear Park trilogy a B+.  

IT WAS ACCEPTABLE IN THE 90S: Koosh Balls