Moral of the Story: Vampire stories can be really great when they aren't written by Stephenie Meyer.
The Usual Suspect(s): Vampires April, Irene, and Kylie
The Actual Suspect(s): Vampires!!
Body Count: So high!! People have to die so the vampires can live. Even animals perish in this one (a dog and a seagull).
Tagline: It's the kiss of death.
Plot: So, guys, I HATE vampire stories. It's everywhere in culture. I can't fucking stand it. So unoriginal. I've defected to Team Zombie, though even they are getting on my nerves for being everywhere. However, this Fear Street Super Chiller was super entertaining. Onwards with the goods! ... by which I mean bats, blood, and stakes (oh my)!
Nate, Jay, and Billy (our protagonist) are spending their summer at Sandy Hollow, a resort area. A little bit off the shore of Sandy Hollow lies Vampire Island. Lots of bats are around this summer, but Billy knows they are really vampires in disguise. He is Billy, Vampire Slayer, of course. His girlfriend, Joelle, was killed at Sandy Hollow by vampires last summer and Billy has come to take (I mean stake) his revenge. He's spent the past year in a mental hospital getting over things, and he's not a happy camper. In fact, he's pretty emo. He's so hellbent on killing vampires that he does nothing else the whole book except brood about it. Our trio is first greeted on Sandy Hollow with a rather somber sight: a gang of bats has just taken hold of a dog, and they FLY the dog up into the air. I've always hated when writers involve animals in horror. I think it's extremely gratuitous. I had to ignore this scene because it made me so sad.
Over on Vampire Island we meet bitchin' vampire babes April (from the first book), Irene, and Kylie. Having not yet been introduced to Tru Blood (or whatever the Twilight vamps are smoking), they are itching for "nectar" (read: human blood). They head out to the mainland and, as luck would have it, spot our main trio. What good fortune! The ladies make a bet to see who can sink their fangs into their man first. Winner gets the other two as well. Good luck with that!!
The BVB (bitchin' vampire babes) invite Nate, Jay, and Billy to partake in a vampire play that is being put on at the local theater. What a fine choice! Kylie is hoping for the lead, as well as Billy's succulent neck. Nate and Irene pair up, as well as Jay and April. Everyone gets a role in the play, but a girl named Mae-Linn gets the starring role. Billy invites her out for a Coke later that night. Kylie is none-too-pleased with the sudden turn of events. She needn't worry for long. Mae-Linn turns up on the beach that night dead from a vampire's kiss. I'm pretty upset. I liked Mae-Linn.
Billy finds a bone (er, vein?) to pick with April. She's been spending an awful lot of time with Jay, and he has become very sick and lethargic. Billy wants to get a good look at his neck, but he's all, "Bug off, you vampire-loving creep." Billy is worried, because this is just how his girlfriend Joelle was last summer before she was ultimately killed by the vampires. Billy's pretty dense, because he focuses all his attention on April but doesn't notice anything uncharacteristic about Kylie or Irene. Like the fact that neither one of them eat any food.
Kylie gets a wild hair and decides to take Billy to Vampire Island. Really, she just wants to win the bet and eat Billy first before the others. I'm sure she could wait a little longer if she knew that she doesn't have much competition. Billy thinks he'll sneak in some good vampire staking time on this exciting excursion. And, in fact, he does manage to snake one vampire disguised as a wolf. It was pretty weird sounding. Where does RL Stine get this stuff? He and Kylie manage to stumble over another dead body killed by vampires. What a sucky vacation!
At this point Billy becomes a vampire-killing maniac. Not that he actually manages to kill any, just that he keeps mentioning vampires to non-believers Nate and Jay who are really sick and tired of his shenanigans. Billy convinces Jay to let him prove to him that vampires really exist. They are going to set a trap for April in the theater. After the party that night, they are going to take April to the basement of the theater and keep her there until morning when they will open the door and expose her to sunlight and she'll immediately die.
It works perfectly for Billy. There is rain that night, and he, Jay, and April all run to the basement theater. Jay helps Billy stall for time until sunrise. Come morning Billy shoves her in the sunlight but - wait! April's not a vampire. She's Diane, Vampire Killer. April, from the previous book, was her cousin who got bit last summer. The real April couldn't live with herself and killed herself when they got back to Shadyside by stepping in the sunlight. Now THAT'S the sequel I would have liked to have read. Not that this one isn't good, but that would have had so much more depth. Anyway, Diane is back on the island pretending to be April because they lookalike and because this way she will be able to kill Irene and Kylie and get revenge.
Now that Billy and Diane play for the same team, they head for one last jaunt to Vampire Island. As white people often do, Billy and Diane split up. Billy comes upon a burned down cabin with three coffins inside. The first one has nothing but girls' clothes. The second one holds Irene and Kylie. Billy has about 1,000 stakes in his backpack, but he hesitates over Kylie's heart, because he is a dumbass. Naturally it is a delay in the story so that Kylie can wake up. She and Irene wake up and immediately lunge for Billy. He's tricky, though, and stabs Kylie in the eyeballs with his fingers. Awesome! He then stakes her through the heart. Diane shows up at this point to watch Billy melt Irene in the sunlight. (It was night only moments ago).
They celebrate all this vampire slaying by going to a pizza joint. What is it with Fear Street and pizza joints? I love pizza too, but I'm just saying. They don't eat anything else! Except blood, that is. So Diane and Billy are joking and having a good time until he cuts the pizza for Diane but ends up cutting his finger. No blood comes out. What?? Yep, Billy is a vampire. That mental hospital he was in last year was actually a coffin hiding him from the cold, cruel daylight. I'm not sure, then, why the sunlight that killed Irene didn't also kill him. Anyway, he reaches over to Diane and sinks his teeth into her neck in the middle of the restaurant. Perhaps people will just think it's more rehearsal for the play??
Gaping Plot Holes: Why didn't these vampires sparkle? I'm joking. Also, at the end Irene gets killed by sunlight when the sun was just about to go down. Tsk tsk. Anddd can't vampires recognize their own kind? How on earth could Billy not sense Irene and Kylie were vampires or that April/Diane really wasn't one, and vice versa?? And why would Billy try so hard to save Nate and Jay when I'm sure he really just wants to kill them? Wow, lots of open ends in this one.