The Monstrous Body of Works: "Fear Street: Silent Night" and Raven's Fear of Santas

The Fear Street series was a rather extensive series as is most of R. L. Stines' works. More than once he decided to make festive holiday-themed release. Enter Silent Night (see also Silent Night 2 and Silent Night 3, This girl does not catch a break). This work is obviously a Christmas-themed horror story that focuses on one of the most terrifying scenarios: working retail during the Holidays.

Our story, as well as the subsequent sequels, star Reva Dalby a spoiled brat character who is the daughter of a wealthy department store owner. What could be worse than working with the owner's daughter who only has the same job as you as a punishment? To be fair Reva gets put through the wringer more than once at Christmas time and does survive some horrible events. Poor girl probably has a lot of Christmas-related trauma for the rest of her life. Not to be crass, but it is kind of funny to be a teen or adult scared of Santa. I can say that now that I am an adult who does not trust Mall Santas.

Reva in this first horror is, as previously mentioned, forced to take a job at her father's department store to teach her a lesson of responsibility. She of course takes on this job with a sense of entitlement and superiority. The sympathy is laid on thick for her coworkers who need a job, but are stuck babysitting the boss' teenage daughter. We do occasionally shift our POV to her cousin, Pam, who is neither rich nor spoiled. Her story intertwines of course and helps add to the intrigue of Reva. I suppose something could be said about the poor character being used to prop up the rich character, but I digress.

Now a real fear is presented here that may be uncomfortable for some readers. Reva decided to break things off with her boyfriend and she does so in a way in which she states she hopes it will upset him. His reaction however is not what she expected. He threatens her, telling her she is going to regret it. His scene haunts Reva as misfortune slowly starts to arise. However, in the moment Reva chooses to torment him one last time before making plans to steal another girl's boyfriend. Reva is meant to be the epitome of the rich spoiled brat archetype. She is the victim of horrible circumstances, but she's also very easy to hate.

Now it is important to mention that Fear Street covers a variety of horrors throughout the whole series. There are ones that lean heavily into the supernatural and focus on ghosts or other monsters. However, there are plenty that have real-world fears to be found on Fear Street. Some of the most memorable stories are the ones that blend the two fears and keep you guessing if there is a real danger or if something much more creepy is going on.

This book ensures Reva has plenty of enemies who could be out to hurt her. Between her ex, a disgruntled security guard, her own cousin, or any of her coworkers. While not every Fear Street book is a mystery this one certainly props itself up as one as the suspect list only seems to grow as the story progresses.

The horrors that happen to Reva are intense. Let's just say that this book is the reason I swatch-test my lipstick before every reapplication. Reva gets tossed around a lot as her ex grabs her several times to physically threaten her. Of course, nothing seems to phase Reva until she gets cut by a pin in her lipstick and is gifted a perfume bottle full of blood. Its an interesting choice to make a character like her admit she is in danger only when she is being gifted creepy things and being hurt by makeup. They've taken her love language and twisted it to hurt her. Things of course only get much worse for her. After all things get worse before they get worse.

Pam leading our B plot gets involved in her own horror, peer pressure. Pam's friends have for one reason or another been wrong by her cousin, Reva, or the Dalby's in general.Her friends hatch the brilliant idea of robbing the store, and Pam gets roped into the scheme. The robbery goes completely wrong as most crimes planned by teenagers do. The group of teens take off when confronted by an armed guard after hearing a shot ring out. However, the news the next day shares the story of a murdered security guard and $25,000 stolen from the Dalby's store.

The teens are left with no idea of how it could have all spiraled out of control, swearing that they didn't even have a loaded gun, the security guard was shot from behind, and they never got to steal the money. Pam is now dealing with a caller saying they saw what she did and want a cut of the money to keep them quiet. The teens debate whether or not to fess up and see if they can clear themselves of the murder and theft.

It is worth mentioning that this story is a "super chiller" and these books are longer and meant to be scarier or more graphic. When it comes to fiction I don't give out many spoilers as I want you to be taken on the journey as well. So with that being said I will leave this part here.

Overall I think this is a great example of the world that R. L . Stine builds in Fear Street. There are characters we hear about again or from earlier books. Of course no matter how much wealth you have or how far removed you think you are, Fear Street can take hold of anyone from Shadyside. Later on, I may do a full post just to explore the basic concept of Fear Street, but for now, consider this your initiation.

Final Review 3/5 Stars. While I love this story a lot and I love Christmas horror, there are some issues. There are plenty of cheesy moments, which I don't think is a bad thing necessarily. However, at times, it can make certain big reveals awkward in the moment. Some complain that the story is dated, which I generally say that's not a huge deal. For me, I love being able to immerse myself in a story that goes back a little, even if that's just 1990 (or 80, I love the 80s). If anything I would say there are moments where the story feels very improbable. Our groups of teens in their various heist scenes don't feel very realistic. While I think the ultimate reveal was clever it does leave me with quite a few questions instead of answers. Overall I do enjoy this book and I am happy to be reading it again for the Christmas season, but it is far from my favorite Super Chiller, let alone Fear Street.

-Sincerely Raven