In addition to Fear Street and Goosebumps, R.L. Stine wrote for Point Horror, a Scholastic Inc. series home to various suspense authors. Nothing of his under the banner is too dissimilar to his Fear Street output, seeing as teenagers were still the targets of terror. Yet these standalone books gave Stine room to roam; he could write outside the confines of a franchise and experiment. The 1992 novel Hit and Run is a prime example of the popular author not only finding new ways to imperil teens, but it is also redolent of his work as a humor writer.
Set in the town of Avondale, best friends Cassie, Scott, Winks, and Eddie find themselves in deep trouble after a night drive. The first time, Cassie and Eddie are practicing for their driver’s test when resident jokester Winks plays another mean prank on Eddie. But as furious as he is with his friends, Eddie later makes up with them and goes for another drive on the same empty stretch of highway as before. This time, though, Eddie hits someone; a pedestrian named Brandt Tinkers. Rather than calling the police, the four agree to leave and try to go on with their lives.
Soon after, a call to Eddie’s cousin Jerry at the morgue confirms Tinkers’ body was brought in but has since gone missing. Cassie and the others then start receiving creepy messages, phone calls, and “gifts” from an unknown party. On top of that, Winks falls into a coma after being run down by the stalker bent on torturing the wrongdoers. Cassie and Eddie are eventually the only ones left to solve the mystery.
Readers would be remiss not to point out the similarities between Hit and Run and Lois Duncan’s I Know What You Did Last Summer. The 1973 novel has the same setup, but the victim in Duncan’s story is a child. The weight of his death understandably creates a heavy and morose atmosphere more in tune with the time period’s ethos. Although the late Duncan was appalled by the 1997 film adaptation, Jim Gillespie still captures the gravity and sullenness of the characters’ misdeed.
Meanwhile, Stine takes a different route; the tone does not entirely match the crime. The author, who started his career writing comedy for kids, retains his trademark sense of gross fun in Goosebumps, but the Fear Street books are more grave. In Hit and Run, he somehow keeps things relatively jocose in spite of the fact Cassie and her friends fled the scene of an accident and are now being pursued by a vengeful witness. As Stine told GQ, he uses humor in his books to “lighten things up” when they get too intense.
A common complaint about the book is Cassie and the others are unpleasant and irredeemable. This brings up the argument about whether or not people can enjoy a story if the characters are too unlikable or repellent. With a horror movie, the viewer can find something else to focus on if the people are unappealing or difficult to root for. A book is a different experience because the writing is all there is to keep the reader engaged, so it makes sense if loathsome characters are hard to look past. On the other hand, horror is meant to repulse and evoke discomfort. The genre draws people in for a multitude of reasons, and empathy does not necessarily have to be one of them. And simply put, audiences sometimes want to see people, who do bad things, get their comeuppance.
Winks is to blame for what ultimately happens in Hit and Run. Bruce “Winks” Winkleman is an unfunny class clown whose sole objective in life is apparently making Eddie Katz’s life so miserable. And it is because of Winks’ countless jokes that everyone now calls Eddie “Scaredy Katz” behind his back — a nickname Winks came up with, by the way. From scaring Eddie with a real human eye he got from Jerry, to stealing his pants in gym so he would have to wear dirty shorts all day, Winks is an A-grade jerk. This is one of those cases where readers have to ask, how can anyone tolerate this obviously obnoxious person, much less be their friend? As for Eddie, he takes everything on the chin — then he feels guilty for getting upset. Cassie and Scott, who find incidental pleasure in Winks’ immaturity and Eddie’s reactions, do nothing to stop Winks from scaring Eddie, nor do they ever feel the need to admonish Winks’ bullying. Cassie even validates their actions by telling Eddie “people only play jokes on people they like.”
Finally, the identity of the person who has been menacing everyone should come as no great surprise. Tricking the readers by having Eddie be the antagonist all along is a risky choice. Not everyone will like this outcome, but it works in the same way the movie Terror Train does when the bullied becomes empowered and fights back, or when everything that happens in April Fool’s Day ends up being faked. Here, Eddie’s form of revenge is downright disturbing; he borrowed “some homeless guy” from the morgue and propped his body up in the road with Jerry’s help. Of course, he did mow down Winks and threaten everyone else. And what was the motive? In Eddie’s own chilling words to Cassie as he tries to finish her off — “I wanted you to know what it’s like to be afraid, really afraid.” Being the butt of every joke evidently took its toll on Mr. Katz.
Stine’s stories usually go out on a joke to regain some semblance of normalcy and offer relief after endangering the characters. The author truly outdoes himself here by having Jerry scare the others with the corpse one last time, minus Eddie who is “getting treatment from good doctors.” This is just further proof of Hit and Run‘s dark humor and bizarreness that sets it apart from Stine’s other horror books.
source https://bloody-disgusting.com/books/3671957/r-l-stines-1992-point-horror-novel-hit-run-still-wild-ride/
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