Freddy Krueger’s Tales of Terror #1: Blind Date
Bruce Richards
Tor Book, 1994
ISBN: 0-812-55168-0
There’s an interesting bit of time when we, as a nation, really embraced a child murderer as our new pop-culture hero. That time was the 80s (and into the 90s) and that hero was Freddy Krueger. Maybe he was a hero we deserved at the time, maybe we still don’t deserve a hero like the burned child murderer Fred Krueger.
Obviously, the character sprang from the mind of Wes Craven and was quickly seized about by the subconscious of the customer. A couple movies in and Freddy was big business. There were comic books, video games, clothes, costumes, 1-800 phone hotlines and even toys for the little kids of, yeah, that child murderer. I guess you had to be there.
It’s easy to see why Freddy was picked as THE horror icon of the day, while Jason was the strong silent type for his murder sprees, Freddy was a real character. A punny, wisecracking killer with a pizza-face and knife-fingered glove. He was a guy you’d like to have a beer with...wait probably not because of the murder. But for all his problems, there was something about Freddy and Robert Englund that struck a real cord.
By 1994 Freddy was on a bit of a downward trajectory with only Wes Craven’s New Nightmare on the docket and the long-gestating Freddy Vs. Jason was almost ten years away. So, what is a film company to do to keep a popular character in the public consciousness? Also, what is the cheapest way to do it?
BOOKS!
In the meantime in the book world, R.L. Stine had almost single-handedly created a new market in kids horror books for youngsters with Goosebumps and the teens with Fear Street. It’s a no-brainer that Freddy was suddenly the star of a young adult series of novels. Jason Voorhees found himself in a similar situation the same year. Teens were the main audience for the film anyway, why not produce something directly for them, instead of relying on sneaking into movie theaters or talking parents into renting VHS tapes?
Bruce Richards wrote a handful of young adult horror novels in the 90s with titles like Cat Scratch Fever where a high schooler girl finds herself turning into a cat or “The Most Dangerous Game” riff entitled The Killing Game. In the Freddy series he wrote three in two years. It was quite the time for authors wanting to frighten teenagers.
Blind Date is the first of the Freddy’s Krueger’s Tales of Terror books, after a nicely moody opening where Freddy dons a long black trench coat and sunglasses (at night) to scare main character Alicia on a dark and stormy night. She sees him lurking around the school's biggest nerd, called “Weird Evan” (clearly a lot of thought went into that) and she feels compelled to investigate. A hearse that Evan sometimes drives to school fits into this equation as well. But in true Elm Street fashion, was it all a dream?
Then we get the obligatory group of teenagers that populate these types of books. The book plugs along, giving us hints of Freddy poking his head around the corner of the book’s reality and making things go bad. After a terrible accident Alicia is rendered blind (blind date, get it?) and has to get an experimental eye transplant to see again but has to be put to sleep to get it and that’s not a great place to be with Freddy running around on your street.
This book is chock full of the stuff a lot of the teenage horror novels have. There’s car stuff because the freedom of a car meant a lot to teens. There’s the big dance on the horizon, because they were simultaneously exciting and nerve-racking to teens. There’s bad parents and bad friends that let you down. There’s animal torture to show how screwed up someone is. Plus evil and a doctor. And of course teenage romances because of all the hormones.
It’s a fairly easy–ride, obviously written simply for a younger audience than me. But in parts surprisingly dark and sometimes fairly mean. Bruce Richards could write a page-turner of a book, I ended up reading most of this one in a one-sitting, compulsively. His character work is very strong, all the characters, down to the minor ones, have enough personality to shine. “Weird Evan” is a pretty nasty character with nasty plans that probably wouldn’t get past an editor these days. Alicia started out as a better character, but kind of devolved into a sad-sack but still a fairly well-rounded character for a YA book.
Of course, what the book is missing is more Freddy, the restrictions of the genre probably had to restrict Freddy's full-on participation in the novel. But when he’s there he shines, Richards gets the goofy/dangerous charm of Freddy and the over-the-top vibe of the films.
All in all it's a very fun read, especially if you have indulged in some Fear Street re-reads recently, it’s got a little more of a vicious heart than Stine’s books. If you're a Freddy fan you’ll obviously love it. It really reads like a good episode of the short-lived Freddy’s Nightmare and I couldn’t keep Robert Englund’s voice out of my head while reading it. Unfortunately they only had one print-run and are scarce on the second hand market and pricey when you do find them, which is a shame but something that Freddy might like himself.
Roy Nugen is an award-winning writer, producer, property master, plus actor. He comes from a family of musicians, engineers, wildcatters, cops, lion tamers, and carpet salesmen. Evil Dead II changed his life and he once partied with Lloyd Kaufman.
He has written 15 short films including Bag Full of Trouble, Potboiler, Handle With Care, Death in Lavender, Hole in the Ground, and the feature film Arrive Alive, many of which have played across the country. He has been the property master on 17 short films and 2 feature films.
Roy is also a prolific book reviewer and collector of vintage pulp paperback books. You can read his reviews on his blog Bloody, Spicy Books and multiple magazines including Paperback Fanatic, Hot Lead and Sleazy Reader. He has also written afterwards for novels and for various websites. He lives in the only city that once arrested L. Ron Hubbard with his wife and cats.