Return to Fear Street: R.L. Stine’s Party Games By the Numbers

Grab a box of Cheez-Its and climb into your blanket fort: we’re all going back to Fear Street! This Tuesday, R.L. Stine is resurrecting the long-running series (1989–2005) that put dead cheerleaders, homicidal mean girls, and all manner of page-turning terror into the hands of freaked-out teens and tweens everywhere. For some of us, classic titles like The Boy Next Door (“They were flirting—with death!”), Silent Night (“Happy Holidays—you’re dead!”), and Cheerleaders: First Evil (“When the cheers turn to screams…”) were as much a part of our after-school lives as microwave s’mores, latchkeying it, and Clarissa Explains it All. A Twitter campaign brought Stine out of his retirement as the evil svengali of Fear Street’s twisted teens, and we couldn’t be happier. Next Tuesday, you’ll be able to get your hands on the first new title, Party Games (“The only way to win a party game on Fear Street is to be the last one left alive…”), in which Rachel Martin ignores the warnings and heads to isolated Fear Island to celebrate the birthday party of creepy Brendan Fear. While you wait for its arrival, we give you Party Games by the numbers:
3: Urban legends told about the Fear Street woods
2: Creepy run-ins with wildlife
2: People warning lead character to stay off of Fear Island
1: Haunted mansions
31: Classic cliffhanger chapter endings
8: Non-canonical references to Facebook, cell phones, and the internet
5: Super-cool outfits described
2: Ghost stories told
1: Ghosts spotted
1: “Ghosts” spotted
3: Members of the Fear family present
4: Threatening, punny notes
6, depending how you look at it: Party games played
4: Dead animals put into beds
3: Number of times the heroine fails to stay with the rest of the group despite the obvious threat of terrible danger
1: Bone ladders built
3: Bad boyfriends
2: Green-eyed characters
4: Masked men
Are you going back to Fear Street with Party Games?