History of Fear Street

R.L Stine began writing horror novels in 1986 some titles included Blind Date, The Babysitter, and The Girlfriend. These novels are sometimes mistaken for Fear Street novels because of the horror and mystery elements.

These novels were part of Point Horror Scholastic’s young adult horror series. Point horror includes authors such as Christopher Pike, Caroline Cooney, and L.J Smith to name a few.

Sometime later Stine left Scholastic and began his own horror series, Fear Street, with another publishing house. A collection of stories taken place in Shadyside revolving around the teenagers who attended Shadyside High. The first one in the series being The New Girl.

Fear street is a fictitious street in Shadyside which derived from the Fier family. This family was cursed and bought the curse with them when they moved to Shadyside in the 19th century and altered their name to Fear.

There were many novels in the series and sub novels that included the history of the family and how the street came to be.



A New Fear Street 

Fear Street Super Chillers

Fear Street Cheerleaders 

99 Fear Street  The House of Evil

The Cataluna Chronicles 

Fear Street Sagas 

There are two sagas one of the beginnings of curse set in the 1900’s and the second sagas are those of Nora Goode and Daniel Fear who try to end the curse.



Fear Street Seniors 

Fear Street Nights



The Ghosts of Fear Street is also included but were ghostwritten.



The Fear Street series came back in 2014 with new stories.

Party Games

Don’t stay up late 

The lost girl

Can you keep a secret?

The dead boyfriend 

Give me a K-I-L-L

You may now kill the bride


**Blog originally on HorrorAmino - Written by Horror Society Member Betty B Deadly

From Novel To Film (2018 Releases)

This upcoming year we will see more novel to film adaptations. The first novel was published in 1962 and was the last book by author Shirley Jackson. She also penned The Haunting of Hill House. 

 Synopsis: Mary Katherine “Merricat” Blackwood lives with her uncle and sister. Six years before the novel the family Blackwood experienced a tragedy that left the three survivors isolated from the rest of their village.

The film stars Sebastian Stan, Alexandra Daddario and Tassia Farmiga. It has been in the works for a while (2016) but should be released sometime this year. It’s unknown if it will be theatrical or VOD.

This next author has had a lot of her novels adapted to film. Lois Duncan (I know what you did last summer) will have another of her novels on screen. Down in a dark hall was written in 1974, it’s the only gothic fiction novel she has written. 

Synopsis A girl, Kit, has been sent to boarding school by her parents where only four other girls were admitted. The girls begin to discover certain talents which manifest in their sleep.

The film stars Uma Thurman and Annasophia Robb. It will be released on VOD on August 17.

The last adaptation is probably the one I am most excited about. John Bellairs novel, The House with a clock in its walls was released in 1973. It is a gothic novel intended for children and was illustrated by Edward Gorey.

Synopsis: When Lewis Barnavelt, an orphan. comes to stay with his uncle Jonathan, he expects to meet an ordinary person. But he is wrong. Uncle Jonathan and his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Zimmermann, are both witches!

The film will be released in September and stars Jack Black, Cate Blanchett and will be directed by Eli Roth. 

Carter and Lovecraft

There are a lot of novels out there about the Lovecraft mythos, but this is the first in a long time to break the mold. 

The story begin when ex-NYPD Daniel Carter inherits a bookstore.  Carter has recently retired from the force after a case went bad.  Having nothing pressing he decides to go check out the store he's inherited.  He finds the store is being managed by a woman named Emily Lovecraft, the last known descendant of H.P. Lovecraft.  She also happens to be African American.  Which knowing H.P.'s well documented racism, is a bit of a shock. 

The novel is very fast paced and while filled with the Cthulhu mythos, it nevers feels bogged down by them.  It's refreshing to read something that is original and offers a new twist on old stories. 

This was the first in the series, the second novel "After the End of The World" was released last year and I enjoyed it even more than the first. 

These novels have TV series written all over it and I would love to it made into a Netflix series. 

Happy Death Day

College student Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) must relive the day of her murder over and over again, in a loop that will end only when she discovers her killer's identity.

This is one of those movies I was on the fence about.  I heard good things about it, but I still wasn't sure if we needed another Groundhog Day inspired movie.  It turns out we did. 

While the film follows the basic formula established by GHD it adds enough twists to separate itself.  There is also enough humor to lighten the mood and make you really like the characters. 

Jessica Rothe does a great job of going from the bitchy sorority sister to final girl.  To make a great slasher movie you need two things, a great final girl, which they have in Rothe.  The other thing you need is a great killer.

While the killer never gets a name he manages to be very creepy and still have the morbid sense of humor we want from a slasher. 

Produced by Blumhouse for under $5million it managed to make over $100.  While a sequel seems unlikely I'm always glad to see horror films do well.