So apparently there were Friday the 13th and Halloween young adult novels. YA horror tie-ins to slasher franchises. This was a real thing that happened. I recently read two of them: The Scream Factory by Kelly O’Rourke (Halloween series) and Mother’s Day by Eric Morse (Friday the 13th series).
Both published in the ’90s. 90s YA Horror novels – who knew? Both featured teenagers doing questionable things. Both ended badly for most of the characters.
The Setup: Two Franchises, Same Problems
Mother’s Day takes place at, where else? Camp Crystal Lake. A group of college kids head out for a weekend getaway. There’s Carly (the virgin), Paul Sexton (yes, that’s his actual surname), and a couple literally referred to as “Kyleandsuzanne” (one word). Our killer this time isn’t actually Jason (because Jason’s on vacation in Hell?) Instead, it’s a hunter who finds Mrs. Voorhees’ severed head in a soggy cardboard box and decides to follow her instructions.
The Scream Factory is set in Haddonfield, Illinois in the ’90s, where Michael Myers has become kind of an urban legend. Laurie (not that Laurie) and her friends are throwing a Halloween party when threatening messages start arriving.
The Wait: Nothing Happens for HOW Long?
Here’s where it gets interesting. Mother’s Day makes you wait until page 124—that’s 70% through a 185-page book—before the first real kill happens. Then nothing again until page 157. So you’re reading about college kids having a nice time at a lake for most of the book.
Meanwhile, The Scream Factory apparently goes full gore from the start. Multiple death scenes, plenty of blood and violence. For a YA novel from the ’90s, it’s surprisingly graphic.
So we have one book that’s too tame and takes forever to get going, and another that’s gleefully violent but makes some questionable choices with the source material.
The Problems: Franchise Fumbles
Mother’s Day has a killer using a gun. A GUN. In a Friday the 13th story. Jason Voorhees is known for creative kills—sleeping bags, machetes, that whole thing. There’s also a scene that’s basically just the hunter talking to Mrs. Voorhees’ severed head, which feels borrowed from another franchise entirely. Not saying it’s Psycho, but it’s definitely Psycho.
The Scream Factory has its own issues. Michael Myers is treated as an urban legend even though he killed people like ten years ago in the book’s timeline. The characters would’ve been old enough to remember. Also, the Myers House is suddenly surrounded by woods that don’t exist in the actual films. Michael even makes growling noises and attempts to bury someone alive, which feels off-brand.
The Characters: It’s the ’90s, What Did You Expect?
Both books feature casts so stereotypical they could be paint-by-numbers. Token virgins, token bad boys, token nerds. Mother’s Day has a guy so handsome that “it was hard to look at him directly. It was as if he were this bright light and you had to shield your eyes.”
That’s not a person, that’s a description of looking at the sun.
The book even includes a survival probability breakdown based on who’s having sex and who isn’t. There’s literally a section analyzing each character’s chances of survival based on slasher movie tropes. Which is pretty meta for a book that’s supposed to be taking place in a world where these are real events.
The Verdict: Trashy But Fun?
Here’s the thing about both these books: they’re not good. They know they’re not good. The writing is plain, the characters are wooden, the plots are thin. Mother’s Day doesn’t even have Jason in it, which seems like a significant oversight for a Friday the 13th novel.
But readers keep saying they had fun with them anyway. Mother’s Day is described as a “guilty pleasure” despite Jason being a no-show. The Scream Factory is “so unapologetically of its time” that its flaws become part of the charm.
Both books were clearly cash grabs trying to extend dying slasher franchises into the YA market. Both have serious problems with pacing, character development, and staying true to their source material.
And yet both accomplish something: they apparently capture the spirit of low-budget ’90s horror while being readable enough that people actually finished them and want more.
The Bottom Line
Would I recommend them? Only if you’re a die-hard slasher franchise fan or someone feeling nostalgic for ’90s YA horror. These aren’t books you read for quality. They’re books you read because you want to experience what it was like when publishers threw everything at the wall to see what stuck.
At least they tried. And honestly, they’re probably better than Jason X.
Now if you’ll excuse me, there are two more books in each series that I need to tear my way through.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Severed Heads in Soggy Cardboard Boxes