Haunting My Childhood: The Fear Street Series

The Series That Dominated ’90s YA Horror Fiction

R.L. Stine published the first installment of the Fear Street series, The New Girl, in 1989. The franchise is mainly set in Shadyside, a cursed and haunted American town with an improbably high murder rate.

Shadyside was founded long ago by the mysterious Fier family. The Fiers are featured in several of the books and the Netflix movie trilogy.

The novels consistently featured the same plot devices:  teen protagonists, a murder mystery, and a twist ending. Many, but not all, included supernatural elements.

There was never any shortage of ghosts, crazed stalkers, and homicidally jealous exes in Shadyside. Fifty further installments followed from 1989-1997.

Stine was able to crank these books out with remarkable proficiency. They were short and formulaic. In an era before Twilight and Harry Potter, publishers believed that young adults wouldn’t have the patience to read anything long or complicated.

The Fear Street novels were consistent bestsellers in the YA horror genre. They were, in ’90s parlance, da bomb. Millions of copies were sold, establishing Stine as the king of young adult horror literature (sorry, Christopher Pike!). 

Keeping up with all things Fear Street was a herculean task in those days. The success of the main series led to several spinoffs, including Fear Street Super Chillers, Ghosts of Fear Street, Fear Street Cheerleaders, 99 Fear Street, Fear Park, and The Cataluna Chronicles.

Don’t listen to the stories they tell you about Fear Street. Wouldn’t you rather explore it yourself…and see if its dark terror and unexplained mysteries are true? You’re not afraid, are you?

As a ’90s teen, I was the perfect age to get into this series. They had everything I wanted: mysteries, plot twists, creepy monsters, and spooky atmosphere.

I remember going to the local bookstore and poring over the remarkably vast collection of R.L. Stine books, trying to figure out which ones were worthy of my allowance money.

I tried a couple of Stine’s ultra-popular Goosebumps books, but they were too juvenile for my taste. Maybe Goosebumps would have been my jam if I had started reading horror novels at a younger age. The Fear Street series, on the other hand,  were mainstays in my bookshelf for years.

The creepy cover art was a major part of their appeal. Paralleling the retro horror illustrations showcased in Grady Hendrix’s book Paperbacks from Hell, much of the cover art featured pretty girls being menaced by monsters or watched by ominous figures lurking in the background.

My favorite Fear Street novel is Halloween Party. It’s the eighth installment of the franchise and, surprisingly, the only one with a Halloween theme. Terry and Niki are a high school couple. They are surprised when they get invited to a Halloween party hosted by Justine, a transfer student that they barely know.

The party is fun at first. There’s dancing, bobbing for apples, and a scavenger hunt. But Niki can’t shake the feeling that something is off. Will she and Terry survive to see another Halloween?

Halloween Party has a simple plot, minimal character development, and a wacky twist ending. That’s R.L Stine (and Fear Street) for you! I wish Stine had set more Fear Street’s on Halloween. It fits the series perfectly. What sets this apart, besides the eerie setting, is the unique protagonist. Niki is a plucky deaf girl who is an expert lip reader.

This was an era where disabled people were rarely represented in fiction. Deaf characters are more common today, for example in the movie Hush and the Hulu series Only Murders in the Building. These and other fictional portrayals have received a mixed reception from the deaf community.

Stine gives Niki plenty of personality, guts, and intelligence. I’m not sure if her lip reading skills are realistic. It would be interesting to see a review of the novel by a deaf person.

Stine did a nice job finding the right content balance for the series. The novels didn’t contain the graphic gore and profanity of adult horror fare. But they weren’t tame fluff for little kids. People could, and did, die on Fear Street. At first, Stine’s publishers were leery about him killing off characters. But the body count expanded as the series continued.

Stine discontinued Fear Street in 1997, although some of the spinoff series continued for a bit longer. The YA market changed rapidly in the early 21st century, making Fear Street seem like a quaint relic from a bygone era. But the series, like the evil that lurks in Shadyside, was never truly dead. Soon, it would be time for a new generation to experience the terrors of Fear Street.

Resurrected For A new Era

Stine started writing new Fear Street books in 2014. I haven’t read them, but they (like the Netflix movies) are reportedly longer and more violent than the ’90s series, matching the more mature outlook of modern YA fiction. Speaking of those Netflix films…

In the summer of 2021, Fear Street burst back into mainstream pop culture with the hit Netflix trilogy. After a series of deaths, a group of young friends try to solve the supernatural curse that has plagued Shadyside for generations.

They trace it back to Sarah Fier, a young woman from the 17th century who was accused of witchcraft. The trilogy takes many elements from the book series, but they are not direct adaptions.

The cursed town, teen protagonists, and spooky atmosphere of the books translated well onto the screen. The first installment was Fear Street Part One: 1994. It was quickly followed by Fear Street Part Two: 1978, set at the notorious Camp Nightwing, and Fear Street Part Three: 1666, which explores the sordid origins of Shadyside.

The movies do a solid job recapturing the creepy fun of the series, while also updating some aspects to fit the 2020s. Deena (Kiana Madiera), who is arguably the trilogy’s most important character, is gay and a person of color. The protagonists of the ’90s Fear Street books were almost all White, and LGBT folks were nowhere to be found.

This isn’t an indictment on Stine. He wrote those novels in a fundamentally different era. Would he (or any author) have been able to find a major publisher willing to release a YA book with a lesbian protagonist in the ’90s? No way.

Today, an all-white, all-straight Shadyside would be weird. The trilogy reflects how society has changed over the past couple decades. But the difference in representation is just one of several ways that the books and movies diverge.

The film series is gorier and more overtly sexual than the books. Most of the kids in the ’90s Fear Street novels were relatively naïve and innocent. They didn’t use drugs or drop f-bombs, a stark contrast with the more jaded teens in the movie series.  Of course, both groups deal with the typical teen drama (dating, breakups, school struggles), so perhaps they’re not that different after all.

The Legacy Continues

The key to the long term survival of any franchise is the ability to effectively adapt to changing times without losing the key elements that made it successful in the first place.  Can Fear Street stay relevant? It’s set to continue with a fourth movie, Fear Street: Prom Queen. This time, they are using an ’80s setting.

Unlike the previous trilogy, this will be a direct adaption of a novel: Fear Street #15: Prom Queen. If it’s as well received as its predecessors, it may launch a lengthy franchise. I would love to see Halloween Party adapted into a movie, especially if they kept the ’90s setting.

It will be fascinating to see what the future holds for Fear Street. If history is any indication, the franchise will continue to bring chills and thrills to new generations of readers and viewers.