Hello, Spongey here.

We’ve gone back to Goosebumps and Fear Street during these monthly Stine reviews, so I think it’s time to go back to the series that’s basically a combination of the two. Yep, we’re headed back to Ghosts of Fear Street/

If you need a refresher, these are basically just Goosebumps plots that happen to be set in Shadyside, I’m not quite sure why this series exists in the first place, really. Advertisements boasted that “Now your younger brothers and sisters can take a walk down Fear Street” but like, isn’t that what Goosebumps is for?

This felt like the Fear Street publisher just wanted to cash in on Goosebumps and used the series they already had to do it. I guess even Stine didn’t feel like really doing these, because as some of you may recall, these are all ghost-written. (Although he was once claimed “the plots were mine” which I guess just means he pitched the basic concepts) So much so that the actual writer is listed on the copyright page.

I’m glad they mention it up front at least, gives the writers slightly more freedom than if they were forced to hide behind Stine’s name totally. Even if the books still had to somewhat keep the kind of stories Stine does.

Anyway, I previously reviewed Fright Christmas (aka R.L. Stine’s ghostwriter’s A Christmas Carol) back on Blogger, and then Camp Fear Ghouls about 5 years ago. I quite liked the former and as flawed as the latter was, it at least tried to have character development in some way. Oh, and there was that failed TV pilot that was…something.

Honestly, I’ve enjoyed most of this series from what I’ve read, in that way I enjoy Goosebumps of course. I haven’t found any bad ones yet, but of course there’s a fair bit to go for me. But that’s enough setup, we’ll talk more about the series itself as we talk more about the books.

For this trip back, we’re going to the very first one, and seeing if it was a good start. By the way, this came out in July 1995, so this series is as old as I am. Anyway, our ghostwriter is Emily James. The name is generic enough that I can’ttell which among the ones that came up in my google search is the one I’m looking for.

I hope it’s the one who writes food based mysteries. So, let’s get into it.

This, is Hide and Shriek

The main cover artist for this series was Broeck Steadman. This first cover is okay. I like how radical this skeleton is, and his hat. My problem is that this has nothing to do with the book. Spoilers, this is a ghost story and the ghost has no skeleton form. Still, it’s memorable enough at least.

We begin with our protagonist Randy Clay getting ready for her first day of school Yes, her. This is a female character named Randy. …Now suddenly Wade looks pretty normal. It’s short for Miranda, but come on. The name nonsense doesn’t stop there, as she has an annoying little sister they call…Baby. Yes, really. Even she keeps wanting them to call by her actual name, Barbara. But given that she’s pretty annoying, I’m calling her Baby.

Anyway, we’re starting off with moving to a new house, because of course we are. They live on Fear Street, which is always a good thing. When she gets to school, she sees a calendar that has June 10th circled, with words saying “18 more days until Pete’s birthday”. Before we can stew on that, a boy runs up to Randy with blood on his hand!

…But it’s just a prank, bro. Yep, Emily has Stine’s style down pretty well already. His name is Lucas, as a girl that pops up informs us. This is Sara Lewis, which is one H away from me asking if she’s going to go review movies in a car or whatever.

In class, we meet more kids such as David, Laura and Maggie. They all act weird about her being the new kid, with one whispering a warning. She meets with Lucas at lunch, who is not bad when he isn’t fake-bleeding. Not much interesting happens for the next couple chapters, just more foreshadowing and then some of Baby being really annoying. But she has a running thing about watching Batman, so she’s not all bad.

I actually kind of like the leisurely pace of some of this, it just doesn’t give me much to talk about and it is taking a while to get going. Anyway, Randy is invited to a sleepover at Sara’s house, and we thankfully just cut straight to that night.

Things start off pretty well but eventually the conversation turns to this Pete fellow. We finally get the story of Pete: He was a kid who lived in Shadyside, and died on his twelfth birthday. No one knows how he died, he was just found all shriveled up in the woods.

Then one year later, some kids were playing hide and seek in the woods when one yelled “It’s Pete!”. Then to make a long story short, Pete took over the body of one boy for a year and used it to do things like sleeping in the cemetery.

If I got to have a living body for a year, I wouldn’t use it to do random gross things but then again, I haven’t been dead for a year, who knows what that would do to me. Anyway, now every year everyone gathers in the woods every June 10th for a hide and seek game where the loser gets taken over by Pete for the next year.

The reason they do so is because on one year no one came to play, a bunch of bad things started to happen. So much so that I feel if this actually happened, this would be accepted more as fact by the adults. However, since this is going for an urban legend feel, I think its supposed to be left ambiguous as to which parts are real. The kids are only saying what they’ve heard over the years, of course some of it may seem weird and may not be true.

Granted, given how much sense these books tend to make, you can’t blame me for thinking its all likely true but you get what I mean. I like the feel this story sets up, reminds me of a similar scene in Ghost Camp.

Randy isn’t sure what to believe, but she is told that Pete likes new kids, so she’s in bigger danger than the others. Oh and she is reminded that Pete is likely inside a kid at school at the moment, so our mystery is now to figure out who it is and also get some “Cold hard facts”

She goes to school the next day and looks for kids who look tried. But it turns out a lot of kids in school look tired, almost like looking for this in a group of kids who have to deal with grueling school work wasn’t the smartest idea. Lucas approaches her and mentions her being new, and also seems a bit intent on her playing the hide and seek game.

So of course these small things mean Pete. Okay, Randy does calm down and thinks that this isn’t enough evidence. Glad that she’s at least somewhat sensible, she’s too adamant about this to Sara though. However, David agrees to spy on Lucas so they figure out the truth before the game.

That night, they got to Lucas’ house, where he steps out and they follow hm. But they quickly lose track of him and end up in the woods, where they only hear some kids playing and assume it’s ghost kids or something. I got this confused with another, more riffable scene from later on. This is just whatever.

The next day, the girls have gym with the boys, as the coaches are pairing them for square dancing. The kids even get to pick their partners, and Lucas picks Randy. Oh no, you’re going to square dance with him, the horror!

Although really, you don’t have to worry about him doing anything until the big game. If he took you over now, that would be cheating and THAT would make him evil. Thankfully, it doesn’t come to that as she fakes being sick, robbing us of the scariest square dance sequence ever written.

Randy walks home later and ends up passing by the cemetery, where she sees Lucas digging up worms and lowering one to his mouth. This is now the second time since starting these back up that I’ve been able to make a Go Eat Worms joke, weird.

Oh and yeah, that’s good evidence I guess. Between that and some scary noises she sees later on, she now lnows for sure that Pete is real and wants her. I will now allow us to move on before I think too hard about how Pete wants a 12 year old’ girl’s body.

The next night, Randy’s parents go out, leaving Randy to take care of Baby. Be glad I’ve been skimming over her scenes because as I said, she’s one of the most annoying younger siblings I’ve seen in these.

“Sometimes I feel sorry for her. No one ever listens to her. But then she’ll do something obnoxious…and I wish she’d get kidnapped by aliens”

Considering you basically want someone to come get Barbara, I think you should replace aliens with zombies.

A few hours into the night, Baby stops being annoying long enough to instead scream at the image of Lucas creeping in through the window. But then he just vanishes and when the parent’s come back exactly a minute later, they did not see him on their way in.

If even if his Pete, he’s gotta have superspeed. Randy chooses to lie and say she was scared by something else, because even she’s self aware about the parents in these. We than move to the big day, June 10th., as Randy is naturally quite nervous. But at least she knows she simply has to avoid Lucas. The kids all meet up in the woods and because they’re nice, they sing happy birthday for Pete.

“I’d never heard Happy Birthday sung so grimly before. But then, I’d never been to a birthday party for a ghost before”

So like, do you have 12 candles on the cake or do you put how old he would have been by now? Anyway, the game begins! The kids all run and eventually Randy hides in a tree and is worried when she sees someone is there with here but it’s just David.

But the more she’s with him, the more she smells a pretty terrible smell, that only seems to get worse. Then David talks about how Pete’s not so bad. Yep plot twist, it turns out David was Pete, not Lucas. You mean the person that was constantly thought of being the bad guy wasn’t the bad guy? What I surprise.

I do like how this is revealed, with the smell and blood stain that forms on his shirt. Also, David showed no major signs of being Pete, so it’s possible Pete doesn’t do most of the stuff the stories stated, so that’s why I’m forgiving of some possible logic issues there.

A chase ensues and eventually Lucas appears and mocks Pete for wanting to spend a year in a girls’ body. Don’t remind me of how…interesting that is.

“A girl named Pete–that’s a good one!”

Not much weirder of a name for a girl than Randy. Lucas basically uses himself as a distraction so Randy can run away, which is nice. She manages to make it back to base, safe and sound. Not much of a climax, but I’ve seen worse.

The game ends and the kids go home, but Randy is worried that she hasn’t seen Lucas. Gee, I wonder what the twist will be. The next day, David is out sick because being taken over by a ghost takes a lot out of you. Randy meets up with Lucas and apologizes for assuming he was a ghost, but you can’t blame her given how creepy he was at times.

He explains that he was digging up worms for bait. That’s…really contrived. No one raises bait to their mouth, just saying. As for the time he was almost a prowler, he just heard screaming from Baby and checked to see what was going on, then vanished in record time to make him look creepier. That’s slightly better but still clear he wasn’t the best thought out red herring.

Then Lucas starts acting oddly, then says that Pete really wanted her. Yep, Pete got to Lucas, dun dun dun. A basic twist ending but not a bad one, and it was stretched out oka….wait, that’s not the end? There’s more book left? The hell?

…Okay then. But seriously, why does Pete want Randy so damn badly? Pete chases her and they end up in the cemetery, where they get attacked by some ghost kids who call Pete a loser. I guess these are other kids he’s taken over through the years.

They mock him for playing with humans instead of ghosts and rough him a bit. They force Pete out of Lucas’ body and pull him into the grave, and we even find out his full name is Peter Jones. So that was our real climax and gotta admit, that was a cool defeat but I wish it was confirmed that they were previous victims of his so it could land better.

Lucas is normal again and thanks Randy for saving him, even though she didn’t really do anything.

“I’m never playing hide-and-seek again”

“Me neither”

“And I never did”

The end, for real this time! A bit abrupt after stretching things out but whatever. I think this was done so we could have the “lame joke the male and female protagonists make while being cozy to each other” ending the main series has all the time. That’s nice but the others drop all attempts to fit in with the main series so this is a bit odd.

Anyway, onto the verdict.

Final Thoughts:

I didn’t mention this at the start to save room, but I read this one a few times back in the day and was mixed and looking back, I don’t quite get it. I think I was hung up on minor things. For the most part, I actually like this one.

I’d put on the upper side for these, for the most part. My main problem is that it can drag. The slower pace can work in some parts, but in others it just feels padded, which may be why at 127 pages, it’s slightly longer than most of these are. I feel like we could have gotten to the game sooner, and maybe made some of that more intense. And of course, Lucas is a weak red herring. I’m not sure how to feel about the ending, I like it more than I don’t and it’s cool that Pete that got fully defeated and we defied the usual twist.

Baby is annoying but she’s not in it enough to ruin anything. As for what works about the book, I do think it has a certain creepy-ness to it at times. I like the urban legend feel with Randy wondering if Pete is real or just some stories they are honoring. The concept is a good one and I like the mystery of who Pete is, even if again, Lucas was a poor red herring.

Randy is also a decently likable protagonist. It’s just mostly a solid one, with a few pacing and logic problems here and there. Even then, the general vibe and concept are enough to carry it for him. It’s also a good start to the series, doing a Stine-ish plot but with minor bits of Emily James tweaking things a bit, like with the ending and having somewhat more natural conversations with the female friends.

The other entries do get more wild and out there but we’ll get to those in due time. Oh, and this book had a sequel. We’ll get to that too. But for now, Hide and Shriek was a solid enough entry to begin with Not-Stine series with.

Rating: Good

Despite me liking this one, I will say that Fright Christmas is still the better of the Ghosts I’ve reviewed. Since it was a blogger review, you may want me to re-do it on here, but I don’t quite feel like it. But you know what, there is a next best thing.

Since that book was of course not written by Stine, you may wonder how the real R.L. Stine would handle A Christmas Carol.. Let’s find out, next month.

See ya.