The Stinal Countdown: Fear Street: Fear Hall: The Beginning

It's time to take yet another trip into Shadyside. And we have a two-parter on our hands. Multi-part Stine books can be concerning. Mainly in that it can feel like he has a big idea, but the page count either feels lacking, or the story feels forcibly stretched to make it work. The best example of a Stine two-part story faltering is Invasion of the Body Squeezers for Goosebumps Series 2000. So here's two Fear Street books, each at about the length of a Super Chiller. I have a feeling we're in for padding so soft you can sleep like Rip Van Winkle. Will I be proven wrong? Let's find out with Fear Hall: The Beginning.

I'm gonna be honest. This might be the most boring cover we've had in all of Fear Street. It doesn't help that I really don't like the later formatting of the covers by the end of the initial run, but the main cover itself is "girl looking through rainy window". Honestly, the above image of the silhouetted character and the university itself is far more exciting an image. That should have been the cover. And, if we were in the older format, maybe it would have been. But I really don't get as strong a vibe with the main image. It feels like a far weaker take on the cover for The Babysitter. I know I pine on cool covers that don't play too much into the actual story, but at least they're interesting to look at. This one, not as much.

Hope Mathis is attending Ivy State College, a rather well regarded college. However, she's in Fear Hall, a notorious dormitory with over thirteen floors, of which Hope is on said floor. As you can probably guess, this indeed has to do with a member of the Fear Family. In this case, Duncan Fear, who we don't know anything really about other than he was the one who ponied up the dough to have Fear Hall built. Hope lives with three dormmates, Eden, Jasmine and Angel. Angel is the skinny blonde that the boys all like, Eden is the grunge girl, into flannel and the like, and Jasmine is described as pretty and shy, lacking any self confidence. Hope is described as saying she could lose a few pounds (STINESTAYINYOURFU-) but she doesn't mind being a bit chubby (Holy crap, you stayed in your lane!).

As Hope is trying to sleep, she's jerked awake by her boyfriend Darryl. He's in trouble. Earlier in the night he thought he saw Hope with another boy named Brendan, and stabbed him. Or, as Darryl puts it, he 'carved' him. What, is Brendan a pumpkin? Yeah, Darryl is described as being a very possessive and jealous boyfriend, so I REALLY hope he's not the endgame boyfriend for Hope. But Hope and the girls say that it was Angel who went with Brendan, not Hope. But what's done is done and Darryl may have just killed someone. Now he needs a place to hide, even though Angel rightfully wants to call the cops and not, you know, protect a possible murderer. As they all argue, they hear a knock at the door. It's Melanie, one of the snobby prep girls from the dorm room across from them. She's dormmates with girls named Margie and Mary, the three M's. They're also on the swim team which, man Stine really likes the swim team.

Melanie tries to get answers as to what's going on, when they hear screams outside. Brendan's body is found in the bushes, carved to pieces like Darryl stated. As everyone freaks out, Hope returns to her dorm in which she berates Darryl for, you know, murder. He says that maybe he is crazy, and if he sees Hope with another boy, or assumes Hope's with another boy, he might just do it again. What a very healthy relationship this is. We then switch over to Jasmine as our focus, who is working as a waitress at Campus Corner, the coffee shop on Ivy State. We learn that she's always been shy, though she can't shake why she's always been like that. But given her mother calls her Fish because she has a personality of a dead fish, methinks I can parse together why she may have poor self esteem. That and her boss Marty Dell watching her like a hawk. It's been two days since Brendan's murder and nobody can get the image of his carved up corpse out of their heads. As Jasmine works, she notices the three M's staring at her and talking silently.

Eden and Angel show up and talk about Hope. See, despite everything that's happened, Hope is still into Darryl and won't listen to reason. They all think he should be locked up, which, I mean, yeah, but Hope won't rat him out, which we get a brief mention of it possibly being because Darryl helped Hope in high school with something vague because it's too early to fully reveal. They want to get involved, but Jasmine notes that this would make them accessories given, you know, they didn't call the cops and tried to hide Darryl. That night after Jasmine's done, she still notices that Marty continues to stare at her, as if he knows something's up. Before she can make it into the dorm, she gets grabbed by Darryl. He asks if they're going to call the cops on him, but she says they won't. She asks Darryl to work on his anger problems, to which he says that he'll promise not to kill again. I mean we have two books to get through, I don't know how long that'll stick.

It's time now to switch over to Eden. While she's writing a letter to her mother, Hope notes that she, much like Jasmine, has a mother who calls her a shitty nickname. This one being Buttertubs because she's chubby. And she'd call Hope Buttertubs in front of her friends to embarrass her. In fact, one time when Hope brought ice cream to her three friends, her mom showed up, flipped out and forced Hope to eat all the ice cream. I know Goosebumps parents suck, but I guess Fear Street moms are worse? Also if we learn that Hope is an inevitable villain of this story, I mean, we have a motive to why her mental health went bad. Hope and Eden head out to Blue Tavern, which is like a bar that also serves Pizza. I mean, it might be good for a more adult who also isn't too adult vibe, but I'm sure it ain't no Pete's Pizza. Some boys named Dave and Gideon head to their table which makes Hope nervous since, you know, Darryl McStabStab. As Eden talks with the boys, she notices that Hope vanishes. But she should be fine. No possibly way Darryl saw her with other boys and dragged her off or anything. I mean, logically that would have caused a scene, but you never know. 

After forming a bit of a relationship with Dave and his amazing real beard, Hope returns to her dorm to see Hope... and Darryl. He notices Eden's letter to her mother and starts to choke her, believing she'll write about the murder. He then throws the letter at her, which gives her enough of a reason to want him dead. Which, I mean, at this rate I'm all for it, sister. Suddenly, another knock as the Three M's show up again, inviting the girls to a meeting to get better security for the school. The next day, Eden heads to history class. However, the teacher mistakes her for Hope. When she says she's Eden, he tells her that she's not on the class list despite, you know, being in class all year. So that's odd. Unless... Thinking Darryl must have something to do with this, she calls the cops, only to be stopped by Hope. Eden, foolishly, tells Hope her plan to call the cops, but Hope tells her not to until they have a vote about it with Angel and Jasmine. I mean, what, it's not like Darryl's going to have enough time between then to murder someone else, right? Right? I mean the end of the chapter mentions that, but yeah.

Eden studies with Dave and his beard when they start to get more intimate. They head out of the library, only for Dave to be tackled... by Gideon. After that stock chapter scare and Gideon leaves, Eden and Dave head to the golf range when Darryl shows up. He notices that Eden is wearing an outfit Hope wears, and starts to attack Dave, smashing his head in with a golf club. He beats Dave to death as Eden runs off back to the dorm. We return to Hope as our narrator. Eden wants to call the cops, but Hope won't do that. See, when she was a kid, her mother, who was obsessed about Hope's weight, would always get her ill-fitting clothes that were too small for her. But the one person who didn't care about Hope's weight was Darryl. Welp, never mind about Stine not staying in his lane, he is right the fuck back in that lane. After she manages to get Eden to sleep, Darryl shows up, ready to finish the job. Hope tells him not to, that he should clean up and not let himself get caught. She'll think of something.

The next day, Hope sees the news about Dave's murder and realizes that Eden's the witness. Eden wakes up, ready to call the cops, but Hope begins to panic. Eventually she grabs a hair dryer and smashes it over Eden's head. It doesn't kill her, so Hope gags her and drags her into the closet so that she can't tell. As she composes herself, she sees Melanie at the door, reminding her about the meeting later. She then sees Darryl with the cops outside, seemingly being arrested. Oh, and Eden's disappeared from the closet. She's in bed, waking up. So most of what happened seems to have been a hallucination from Hope, her mind snapping even more as the panic has set in over the situation. But she then sees Darryl outside with no cops around, but he looks pissed.  

And we shift back over to Jasmine. Jasmine heads to work late, only to learn from Mr. Dell that she's being let go on account of her not being at work the previous day. Which is weird. Yep, the twist is looking to be EXACTLY what I think it is. As she heads to the dorm confused, she runs into Darryl. He says that he had an argument with Hope and he hurt her. Back to Hope's POV, Jasmine returns to see Hope in pain after the argument with Darryl. Not physical, Darryl didn't hit her. But mental. He called her fat and a cow. She then tells Jasmine about the meeting. She wants to go, to say something, but also doesn't know how without being implicated, so she opts not to. She then starts to run off in a haze. This takes us finally to Angel's POV. She's in a car with a boy named Billy Joe, or B.J. You know, if this were a Christopher Pike book... Anyway, as they make out, she suddenly sees Darryl, but B.J. doesn't see anything. Freaked out, he leaves as Angel faces Darryl, wondering what he has planned.

Hope returns to the dorm room and the other three show up, They've had enough. Either Hope calls the cops now or they will. Hope tries to plead with them, but ultimately gives in. Suddenly, there's another knock at the door. It's the dorm guard Ollie with some of Angel's stuff. Eden makes the call and tells them that the killer is Darryl. Just as she finishes the call however, Darryl shows up. He heard everything. He grabs Eden's throat and breaks her neck, then throws her out the window. As that's all going down, they hear the cops knock outside. The cops talk with Melanie outside about a call from a girl named Eden and HERE IT IS... I SWEAR TO GOD I DID NOT MEAN TO HAVE COVERED TWISTED BEFORE THIS...

Melanie's confused. She doesn't know any girl named Eden. In fact only one girl lives in that single bedroom dorm, Hope. Melanie notes that she hears Hope every night having long talks with herself. Hope was a waitress at the diner and even there she'd have conversations with herself. When the cop mentions Darryl living in the bottom dorm, Melanie states that she doesn't know a Darryl and that this is an all-girl's dorm. The cops note that this must mean that Hope is our murderer and needs to be found. We then cut to Hope running off down the fire escape, talking to her other personalities, well, the ones who are still 'alive' at least, saying that they will make the Three M's pay, just as she's spotted. And we conclude the first part of this two-parter.

As is the norm, I'll do a fuller overall conclusion after finishing the second book, but when it comes to this book, it's fine. But, once again, Stine is extremely bad at mysteries and it becomes more and more obvious that all of this was in Hope's head. That all of these were personalities created by her. Eden not having her class, Hope mentioning three friends and how Darryl was nice to her in high school. The whole ice cream thing when she was younger which also mentioned three friends. We're still a whole book remaining to get the significance of these people, I'm assuming if Stine actually put in the effort to flesh them out. Were they people Hope knew, or were they all just people she manifested? The latter seems to be the case because why else would Hope's mom be so angry about the ice cream incident? Well, aside from what we established about her mom being obsessed about weight and being thin. You make three bowls of ice cream for your imaginary friends I can see why someone would lose it. 

This of course plays into my biggest problem with this whole thing obviously. Our villain boils down to ultimately being fat and crazy. When I say Stine should stay in his lane when it comes to weight issues, it's mainly stuff like this. I'm not saying that a plot device around weight and mental health couldn't work in a horror setting, but with Stine it so rarely ever feels like more than a very lame plot device. And so far, that's what it feels like. But there is still time to do something with this, and maybe that's why this is a two parter and not a Super Chiller or a single story. Maybe Stine might actually try with this. Because there are lingering reasons to understand why Hope is how she is. And what each of her manifestations seem to represent to her. Angel being her lust, Jasmine her more timid nature, and Eden her more outgoing side. And Darryl being the romantic interest that she always wanted. Hell, there's also the important note about all three of her 'roommates' being skinnier and prettier than her. There's enough reasoning to believe that the Three M's were the trigger to all of this. The dorm life and the friendships that she didn't have. There's definitely a nugget to all of this. But this is Stine. I really have no idea what's to come with this. And I don't trust him enough to prove me wrong on that assessment. And since we're still a book away, I'll stick from giving my thoughts on the characters so far. 

As for the book in itself, it's not bad. The mystery becomes super obvious early on, especially once the whole "Eden doesn't go to this class" thing drops. And I get why Stine does it, but I've always hated making things too obvious way early. There's some good horror, and the scene with Dave's murder and 'Darryl' murdering 'Eden' are great scenes. And I do like how the book builds around the collapse of Hope's mental state. It's the most unfortunate case of making things too obvious, but in terms of character stuff, it's good. And, like I said in the past, I go into these books as blind as I possibly can. Sometimes I learn what's going on early, but these blogs are done blind and are my thoughts as I read. So when I read this so soon after reading Twisted, another Stine book about a girl who manifests an imaginary person, this being her sister, I do feel an unfortunate sense of deja vu. I said in that blog that maybe should the day comes I've read all of Stine's young adult works, I should make a list of how many boiled down to multiple personalities. Because good lord he goes to that well way, WAY too much. So, how does Stine conclude this? How does he fill a second book now that most of the cards are laid on the table? And does he stick the landing? We'll find out next time. But as this stands, Fear Hall: The Beginning gets a B. 

IT WAS ACCEPTABLE IN THE 90S: L.L. Bean, the Grunge look, J. Crew Sweaters