The Stinal Countdown: Fear Street: Fear Hall: The Conclusion

Once more into the breach as we conclude Fear Hall. A book that's not so much about the actual university dorm, but more another story that boils down to weight issues and split personalities. I can't say I'm not at least intrigued as to how this book finishes a story that seemed to play its hand very early last book. I mean, we know the main crux as to what's up with Hope. What else is there to learn? And can Stine do the unthinkable and actually stick the landing? I doubt it, but there's a first time for everything. Let's see if he can as we cover Fear Hall: The Conclusion.

See, this is what I meant last time when it came to my issues with the covers. They just aren't all that engaging compared to what we got from the classic covers. When most of the art is just a door, it doesn't leap out and make me go "Hot damn, I have to see what this is about." I will say having Hope peering out the door given the context of what we know, it does work a bit better. But without the context, it just seems really dull. Also the tagline "Welcome back to the most terrifying dorm on campus", when most of the killings weren't even in the dorm. Fear Hall just exists as a place at this point. Even the mention of the Fear Family has played so little to the actual story. I mean, there's still time, but I'm not holding my breath. 

Hope Mathis' boyfriend Darryl shows up at her dorm, the infamous Fear Hall on Ivy State, telling her that in a fit of jealousy, he killed a boy he thought was going out with her. Her dormmates Jasmine, Eden and Angel, try to call the cops, but Hope won't allow it out of her devotion to Darryl. Things get stranger. The other three begin to think that others are looking at them strangely, or that their lives seem to not be going correctly, as if they don't exist. All while Darryl continues to kill. Hope desperately wants to keep Darryl from being arrested, despite the pleas of the other girls. Eventually, it becomes too much to bear and Eden calls the cops, to which Darryl then shows up and kills Eden. However, it's revealed by Mary, one of the three girls in the dorm across the hall that there is no Eden, or Jasmine, or Angel. There's not even a Darryl. Hope lives alone in a one-bedroom dorm and seems to have manifested these imaginary friends and boyfriend. But the two dead boys, those definitely happened, with Hope as the real killer. Now Hope and the voices in her head are on the run, and planning to get revenge on Melanie, Margie and Mary, the Three M's.

We open pretty much where we left off. Hope on the fire escape watching as Melanie talks to the cops. Of course, Hope thinks that Melanie is lying when she says that Hope's alone in a single dorm, because Angel and Jasmine and Darryl are right here with her. Eden's still dead though. The cops find Hope and grab her, but Darryl chokes out the cop long enough for Hope to escape by jumping off the fire escape. Which ends the chapter on "And then I died before I hit the ground", with the next chapter starting with "No, I didn't die." Oh we are in for bad writing Bob and his stinky chapter cliffhangers, aren't we? Hope runs off  while talking with Angel and Jasmine. The two think they should explain that they're innocent, but Hope knows that won't work since they'll think their crazy. That and she still wants to protect Darryl.

Hope finds an empty lot with a nearby brick building. It's been abandoned for years with someone spray painting Mario on the wall. Mama Mia! It's the old Phi Beta building. The girls don't know what to do. They have little money to get by, and the cops are after them. As they talk, Hope gets scared by a black cat. Oh no, animal in a Stine book. We all know what's coming. She calls the cat Lucky and starts to look around the house, which is plenty big for her and all of her friends to live in. Darryl then shows up and tells Hope that he plans to kill the three M's for her, for lying about Hope being crazy. Hope protests this, and tells him to leave. Angered, Darryl takes his frustration out on Lucky, kicking the cat to near-death. Yep, animal in a Stine book. We all knew that was coming. The cat's not dead though. Stine showed restraint? He can do that?

As Hope looks around she notices to portraits on the wall. A man and a woman who donated to the Phi Beta house. One looking exactly like her mother. We get a bit more history of the psychological abuse that Hope's mom put on her. At one point putting the name Buttertubs on all of the letters she sent to camp, which in turn spread the nickname to the entire summer camp. When she was in high school, and falling in love with a boy named Mark, again Hope's mom mocked her in front of Mark, made fun of her weight and played a game of "count the chins". When she planned to date Mark, her mom denied it by, and I am not shitting you, handcuffing herself to Hope to make sure she can't sneak out. I mean, say what you will about Hope and her mental state and her 'presumed but actual' kill count, her mom might be front runner for ultimate bitch of bitches. This is when her friends showed up, and despite all of her mom's attempts to get rid of them, she couldn't. We end this part with Hope smashing the picture, frustrated that her mother is still following her.

We then shift narration to Melanie. A week has past and there's been no sign of Hope. We learn a bit about the Three M's. They have a good relationship with one another. Melanie and Margie are from out of Boston and are good talkers with one another, while Mary is from South Carolina and not that great at debating. After swim practice, Mary talks about how worried she is given there's still no sign of Hope. Melanie assures her she'll be fine, but we end the chapter confirming that nah, Mary's a corpse in the foreseeable future. We then shift narration to Darryl. He's spying on Mary, watching her at swim practice and ready to begin the revenge on the Three M's. Mary heads to the jacuzzi to rest when Darryl shoves her into the water which is now so boiling hot that her whole body begins to burn and blister. Darryl tries to escape, but not before noticing that the coach was nearby and got a good look at him. Back at the dorm, Hope soon meets with Darryl who tells her that he did the deed, that he killed Mary for her. She freaks out at Darryl and tells him to leave her alone. When he does, she then finds a letter that says that someone knows what's happening and is coming for her.

And we shift our narration to Chris... wait, who's Chris? Chris Sandburg is another boy who is moving into Fear Hall in the middle of the semester, even after all the news about the murders and the stories about Fear Hall's frightening reputation. He meets with his bunkmates Will and Matt. They tell Chris that the stories about Fear Hall are true, and that creepy things happen like bathtubs full of blood and a girl who keeps seeing a strange face in the mirror. Chris goes to shower, but the shower starts spraying blood! Actually it's just red Jell-O, a prank by Will and Matt. At the mixer, he meets with Melanie and Margie and learns about the death of Mary. He heads over to Java Jim's, a coffee shop off campus, and meets with a girl wearing all black. She tells Chris to stay away from her as she just broke up with her boyfriend and he's not too happy about other boys around her. She says her name is Karen, which is of course an alias for Hope.

We return to Hope narration as she runs all the way back to the Phi Beta building. She mentions having met a boy at Java Jim's named Chris. She's smitten by Chris, but also worries about Darryl coming to kill him. They then hear commotion outside as a couple are out with a real estate agent and are looking to buy the Phi Delta building. As Hope tries to deal with that, she gets a phone call from Darryl reminding her that he intends to finish off Margie and Melanie. Speaking of Darryl he stalks Margie at her job at Marv'lous Dry Cleaners, named that because its owner is a man named Marv. Which, not gonna lie, might be Stine's best pun, or at least one that actually lands. Darryl sneaks into the backroom and attacks Margie with a stapler to the head. It doesn't kill her, but slamming her into the big press definitely does. So that's two M's down, only Melanie left to go.

Back to Hope, who meets with Chris again. He notes the latest killing on campus, which makes Hope realize that Darryl has struck again. Despite the talk of grizzly murder, the date goes well and Hope starts to realize that Chris really likes her. She returns to the Phi Delta house to find Darryl waiting for her. She tells him to stay away from Chris and to stop killing, to which he reminds her of Mark Grazer, the boy from her high school. So yeah, remember that small crumb of info back in part one about Darryl helping Hope in high school? Despite all the shit her mom put her through, she still was in a relationship with Mark, which included going out one night until about 2AM. It went great. That is, until she was handed a note in school from someone who revealed that Mark only went out with Hope as a bet. Because don't worry, it's not just her mom that's a piece of shit apparently. This is what manifested Darryl into her life. And Darryl helped Hope by running Mark over with their car. And now Hope fears the same could happen to Chris.

Back to Chris's narration. He's playing pool with Will and Big Al, who used to be Chris' apartment roommate before half the apartment burned down, forcing Chris into lodging at Fear Hall. He talks about Karen and how he likes her, but she seems so secretive and weird about everything. As they leave the pool hall, a car almost runs over Chris. It's actually another classic Matt prank and not, you know, Darryl putting on a repeat performance of making road pizza. Speaking of Darryl, it's back to his narration. He sneaks into the dorm room of the Three... I guess one M now, and finds Melanie sleeping. He readies a pillow to smother her, but sees that it isn't Melanie, but another girl. Another girl from the room attacks Darryl and keeps referring to him as her, which confuses Darryl. He runs to the door and manages to escape, running back to the Phi Beta building. 

Suddenly Hope snaps into the picture, confused about why she's running. Confused about the clothes she's wearing. She tries to remember everything, including that her mother Helaine's name rhymes with insane, which she wrote in a card once which, in fairness, the fact her mother's even still alive is surprising. She returns to the Phi Beta building to find it completely trashed. The next day she sees Chris talking with Melanie which makes her angry, but also worries that Melanie had mentioned Hope being the killer and all. She rushes back to the Phi Beta house and finds Chris there. He had seen her going inside the other night and figured that's where she lives. But suddenly Darryl shows up and attack Chris. Of course, Chris is confused as from his POV it's Karen attacking him, and in a panic he runs off, while Hope is angry that Darryl caused this. She then finds another note saying there's no escape from herself and realizes that it's her handwriting. She thinks it must have been Darryl who did it, who shows up saying he'll kill Chris tonight.

However, that's cut short as Chris and Melanie show up with the cops and Melanie confirms that Karen is indeed Hope. Hope panics with Angel and Jasmine showing up, trying to protect her, while Darryl is in a rage, but ultimately the four run upstairs. They have one last embrace before Hope goes over the balcony, falling to her death. We end with Chris and Melanie looking out the window and seeing Hope's corpse. The cops confirm that she's dead and note that of course it would happen in Fear Hall. Oh. Oh we're ending it like this? I'll get to it in my conclusion but god dammit, Bob you were so close. 

So... yeah. That's how we end this, huh? We just kill Hope. That I guess the overall message that Stine conveys is that she was beyond saving and that death was her only escape. I guess once Chris is introduced it feels more of a given that whatever the outcome is it won't be good for Hope. And, unfortunately, the choice Stine chose was her death. Which sucks because I honestly would have preferred an outcome where she isn't killed off. It feels like a bitter way to end this story. And feels like the worst way to finish this two parter. I'll get more into it in the overall conclusion, but it does feel like the ultimate representation of how Stine has never been good at handling mental health and, in this case, dissociative identity disorder. 

As for this book itself, it's mostly fine. There's a couple decent murders, with both Mary and Margie's deaths being gruesome, especially Margie's, which is dark even for Fear Street. But what this book ultimately feels like is bloated. Like Stine felt the need to make a larger story that does ultimately finish its main plot in the first book and the rest feels like filler. Here to just give you further confirmation as to what caused the mental breakdown of Hope and the manifestation of her personalities. But we also just get to the point that none of this is an interesting second mystery. We know what's going on, even if Hope really doesn't. So none of the big moments of Darryl committing the murders really land because you already know that Darryl doesn't fully exist. So you're just waiting through a lot of this drama and murder until you get to the conclusion, which, much like Hope, doesn't land too well. So, while this doesn't anger me with its conclusion like The Babysitter III, I still think it's mostly unnecessary filler to make a two part book instead of the more logical Super Chiller. So ultimately, I give Fear Hall: The Conclusion a C+. 

I had a funny feeling going in that the Fear Hall stuff really wasn't going to matter all that much to the story. That we weren't going to learn anything new about the Fear Family by going through this story. And even once the story starts going and you realize what Stine's trying to do, it starts off as a decent story. But it's also a story that could have been contained in one book and lost nothing. It's akin to the same reason Invasion of the Body Squeezers was two books. Gimmickry. Why have one complete story when we could stretch it into two parts? And there are cases where Stine's multi-part stories can work, namely with most of 99 Fear Street and even Fear Park. Here, it does feel more like Stine stretching a story that didn't need further stretching and really does set itself up and could have concluded itself in one book.

The biggest issue with the story is how it handles dissociative identity disorder. It's not good at all. Stine does an okay enough job as to why Hope ends up like this and why her different identities exist. Three pretty best friends to represent how she was treated for her weight and looks. A dangerous boyfriend created after being horribly treated by a boy in high school. Stine gives us enough backstory, especially in book two, about where the triggers came from. However, it doesn't really feel like it's a book trying to either rationalize or sympathize with people with DID. It feels like a gimmick. A gimmick built out of bad situations that gives light to the disorder and is more a reason for her to kill. All for a payoff that just kills her off anyway. It boils down to what I've always said about Stine and mental health. He's never been good at it. 

I think he wanted to do a better job at this than Babysitter III with Jenny thinking she's Mr. Hagen with no rational explanation, but it still feels as hokey as every other attempt. And I'm not saying you can't use DID for a horror villain, but I just feel how Stine handles it and how he just kills off Hope in the end, shows how not to do it. It even shows in how lesser of importance Jasmine and Angel are in this story. Mainly in that Stine now really has no place for them since the focus is entirely on Darryl and Hope. I think once he killed off Eden, the other two became more Superfluous Clay. Especially Angel who barely factored in the last book and even less here. 

And it sucks because I think Hope is sympathetic. Yes, she's killed, mainly under the identity of Darryl, but you can at least understand that Hope doesn't want to be a killer like Darryl. But because it is an identity that she can't get rid of, you feel bad for her. And if the book did a better job with that angle, I probably wouldn't have had such a negative feeling for its ending. I am left wondering though, why did this all happen? Clearly Hope graduated high school and clearly throughout most of the semester in Ivy State, she was excelling. So were the other girls and Darryl always with her throughout this, or did they return when Hope was starting to build her own life without them? Or was it Fear Hall? Given the stories of the place, was that what triggered the manifestations? Again, I wish the book did a better job doing anything with Fear Hall and the Fear family. The most it does is tell us that creepy things have happened there, but that's all we get. We don't get any of Duncan Fear to understand what his role in the family even was. Which sucks because I've often said that the best part of Fear Street is the history of the Fear Family.

So what we have is a pair of books that didn't need to be a pair. Has a story that overstays its welcome by playing its cards entirely at the end of the first book, isn't the best at handling a mental health issue, mildly sprinkles in history with the Fears but does nothing with it, and just feels like a gimmick that doesn't even do the gimmick it wants to very well. But I do think it has some decent kills, which I appreciate with Fear Street. It isn't as angering and left field as Babysitter III, but still feels messy and ends in a rather cruel and unsatisfactory way. Which, I get it. Horror isn't supposed to give you a happy ending. But here it just felt like the worst way to end an otherwise okay at best horror book. I'll give it a recommend, only because I'm sure my feelings vary, and it's far from the worst I've read of Fear Street or Stine in general. But for a two-parter labeled The Beginning and The Conclusion, this ultimately feels like a story stuck in the middle. Fear Hall as a whole gets a C+.