Happy Halloween! This month I’m going to try to post something every day. Just to give you all the horror content you need for a fulfilling and terrifying spooky season.
Of course, spooky season is all year long here at Weird Wyrlds. But, you know, we’ve got to go all out for the holiday.
Way back in June, we talked about a beloved, if somewhat unknown, children’s horror series called Shivers. I ordered a few copies of some of my favorites (getting railroaded in the process). In the process, I was reminded of a horror series that I’d forgotten entirely.
Fright Time.
Published from January 1995 to January 1997, Fright Time is a collection of young adult horror stories. They’re one of the many knockoff Goosebumps series that could be found in the 90s. And as a broke horror addict in the 90s, they were catnip.
While the books were edited by Rochelle Larkin, the stories were all written by different authors. And each book contained three separate stories. Of the three, at least one was probably good. So you really got some bang for your buck.
Seriously, here’s one with the Dollar General sticker. It was literally a buck.
Much like Shivers, Fright Time was certainly darker than Goosebumps. They seemed to take the lack of name recognition as permission to do some bonkers shit. For instance, issue one included a man stalking the main character and doing his homework for him, so that he could kidnap him.
Kidnap!
Another story is about a kid whose older brother is turning into a literal animal.
Because the stories were written by different authors, the quality varies. Usually each book has one story that sort of feels like filler. But the good stories were good. One in particular has stuck with me for decades. That’s Terror Town by Jack Kelly, in issue three. In it, a boy named Matt is working his older brother’s paper route when his neighbors start turning into monsters. I won’t ruin the twist ending for you, because I didn’t see it coming. But it was genuinely startling. And not in a ‘my family were the monsters all along’ sort of way.
Not that I didn’t love The Girl Who Cried Monster. But Terror Town’s twist was significantly better.
Of course, I can’t talk about Fright Time without talking about Creepshow. Fright Time feels like Creepshow’s little sibling. And part of that is because of the cover art. Whether intentional or not, the artwork on Fright Time books reminds me of a slightly toned-down version of Creepshow covers. Which is, of course, the thing that got my attention first as a kid. I mean, come on, what child is going to walk past this cover and not want to read the book?
If you want to get your hands on some Fright Time books, they’re available on a lot of second-hand platforms. As none of them survived my childhood (being shoved into backpacks, left behind at diners, read outside and then forgotten in the rain), I did grab quite a few for a nostalgic kick. (I feel like I should be able to write these off on my taxes.) I do recommend checking them out for the little horror fans in your life. Or if you, like me, just want to feel like a little horror fan again.
Did you read this series as a kid? Let me know what your favorite story was in the comments. And let me know if there’s another nostalgic series I should talk about.
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