Fear Street: Halloween Party (R.L. Stine)

Terry and Niki hit the Fear Street Cemetery on Halloween night, but then hear someone screaming. At least Terry hears, but not Niki because she’s deaf, but of course it doesn’t bother her so it shouldn’t bother you, though it will be mentioned 700 other times in the book. She must be related to Regina Morrow. Murphy, an annoying guy from school pops up and pretends to eat their brains.

The book then jumps back to the past, when a few students got invitations to a Halloween party. Terry finds his in his locker and Trisha, his good friend, also got one. They have a short talk about the party, which basically consists of (a) the party’s on Fear Street, which is incredibly creepy and (b) it’s being hosted by Justine Cameron, a new girl who no one really knows very well.

Terry’s girlfriend Niki also got an invite and everyone at school keeps talking about the party. It turns out that the Cameron mansion where Justine lives, is haunted. Well of course it is, it’s on Fear Street. There was some accident and people died and now their spirits haunt the house. She lives there with her uncle, but no one ever really sees him. It turns out that she invited a random mixture of people, including Niki’s ex-boyfriend and Terry’s former best friend Alex. Ricky something or other is also invited, which is only notable because he was in The Overnight and vaguely mentions it in this book. Of course he does it in one of those “this really horrible thing happened and I can’t talk about it” kind of ways.

It turns out that Justine only gave out 9 invitations to the party. Everyone invited is either a “jock” or a “nerd” and they immediately pick sides. Justine seems to have a thing for Terry because he saves her from some crappy rebel guys who go off on her for not inviting them to her party. There are also some lame scenes involving the jocks playing tricks on the nerds, but it’s stupid stuff like putting a rubber snake in someone’s locker. Then Niki, because she’s deaf, reads Justine’s lips and sees her say “they’ll pay” about someone…

We finally get to the big Halloween party and Justine looks super hot, dressed as Elvira. Niki dresses like a carnival reveler and I literally have no idea what this means. Terry dresses up like a greaser from the 1950s, which is better than Alex, who shows up in an outfit that sounds like he wrapped himself in aluminum foil and then topped it with a cape. Her uncle Philip also shows up, dressed like some creepy clown.

The party itself amazes me, especially keeping in mind that it was only meant for nine people. Justine has pizzas of every kind, a bunch of appetizers including stuff she learned to make in a bunch of random foreign countries she once lived and a bunch of drinks. She also talks about how she once lived in Italy and it seems like she’s way too cool for Shadyside.

The lights go out and Philip runs to check on the circuit breakers, which leads to yet another prank. Sorry if I don’t go into details, but most (i.e. all) are pretty lame. The thugs who picked on Justine before pop up and demand some fun. They drive their motorcycles around the house and ask for wine coolers. This part was so funny to me that I read it out loud to my boyfriend. You’d think they’d want something like Jack Daniels or at least beer, but nope, these thugs want their wine coolers.

Justine then sends everyone out on a treasure hunt. This is turning into a lame party. I think everyone should rebel and demand a game of seven minutes in heaven. While everyone else is searching the house, Niki sneaks into Justine’s room. The closet has only the clothes Justine wore at school, but a secret closet has thousands of outfits, including fancy stuff like fur coats. She also finds a picture of Justine with some old guy and thinks the girl is having an affair. She also finds prescription bottles for Enid Cameron.

Terry finds Alex hanging dead in the ceiling and runs to tell everyone, but of course it’s just a prank. It turns out that he stuffed his costume with paper and hung red steamers from it and given that this freaked Terry out, he loses some credibility with me. The jock team found all the stuff on the treasure hunt list while the geeks ran around. Ha-ha, you care more about people than prizes! Speaking of prizes, Justine gives the winning team a box of French chocolates. Yum?

Justine makes everyone play a game of What’s the Worst Thing you Ever Did, but it fails pretty fast. Then they find Les, one of the party goers dead and Niki turns up missing. When Niki finally shows up, she has a newspaper article that talks about a couple named Cameron who were killed in a car accident, leaving behind their daughter Enid. Apparently a bunch of teens caused the accident and all of the teens at the party are the children of those kids. It’s convenient that all of them had kids within a year of each other.

Niki also finds proof that Justine is actually Enid so Justine is 30 and pretending to be a teenager. Hey! This reminds me of a movie I just watched…They accuse her in front of everyone and she acts like it’s part of a big joke on the party goers. She heads into the dining room where she has a conversation with someone who doesn’t talk, but everyone believes that it’s a joke.

Justine leads them into the dining room, where they find the dead body of Les at the table. She sets it up so that they live her parents last moments and tell them what happened. She pipes in fake engine noises and smoke. Niki takes a dumbwaiter downstairs to the basement, where she finds Philip. Philip tells her that he didn’t expect Justine to take it this far and then helps Niki get everyone out of the house.

Justine freaks out on Philip for revealing her secrets and he tells everyone that he really is her uncle. She tries to run back into the house, but Terry goes after her. The smoke is too bad so Alex helps him. They save her life (why?) and then calmly sit and wait for help to arrive. Niki smiles and tells everyone that It’s always Halloween on Fear Street…