Books Teen Horror Time Machine Fears and Cheers: The Scream Team  Gimme a D – E – A – T – H !!! By Alissa Burger | Published on June 25, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share For many readers, R.L. Stine’s Cheerleaders trilogy (1992) and its follow up, The New Evil (1994) are some of the most memorable books of the ‘90s teen horror cycle, featuring a supernatural evil that possesses the bodies of the Shadyside High Cheerleaders, turning them against one another with fatal results. But the members of the Shadyside squad weren’t the only cheerleaders fighting for their lives. In her 1993 Nightmare Hall book The Scream Team, Diane Hoh upped the competition to the college level, with the terrifying ordeal of Salem University students trying to win a spot on the junior varsity cheer team. Competition for Salem University’s JV squad is fierce, with nearly seventy competitors vying for a total of eight spots (six cheerleaders and two alternates). All of the students who are trying out were cheerleaders in high school and some of them, like protagonist Delle Arlen, were team captains, and the skill level is high across the board, from cheers to stunts. For most of the competitors, being a cheerleader is a core part of their identity and there’s nothing they want more than to make the Salem University cheer squad. On the first day of tryouts, “They’d come hopefully across the grass toward the old Peabody Gym, some sleepy, some clearly early risers, all trying to look like they were The Ones. Winners. The Cheerleaders To Be” (2).  And it’s not just the students trying out who are intense: the competition is a week-long bootcamp style experience, with the potential cheerleaders all relocated from their dorms across campus so they can live together in Abbey House, either as a team-building activity or as a kind of hazing, designed to find out who is really willing to give up whatever they need to to dedicate their lives to cheerleading. There’s a new coach this year as well, Coach Truite, and her expectations of the cheerleaders are similarly demanding, as she sets the tone on the first day of tryouts by telling them that “Cheerleading is not about popularity or looks or partying. It is a sport” (3, emphasis original), and she expects them to take it as seriously as any other athlete on campus.  Cheerleading is all-encompassing in The Scream Team. The school year seems to be underway at Salem University: all of the students are moved in, life around campus is pretty bustling, and when tryout week is capped off with a public competition, the gym is packed. But the students trying out for the cheerleading team do NOTHING but focus on the tryouts. They don’t go to class, they don’t see any of their non-cheerleader friends, they don’t do any extracurricular activities, they don’t call home and chat with their families about how things are going. They are together in workouts for several hours each day, spend their free time together in the evenings, and all live together. This tryout process is insular, isolating, and a bit unsettling in and of itself: if a person makes a spot on the cheerleading squad, they are clearly expected to continue this pattern, devoting themselves to ALL cheerleading ALL the time.  There are only two cheerleaders returning to the junior varsity team from the previous year, Marla Pines and Rory Hanahama, and they could not be more different from one another. Marla is constantly bullying the competitors, while Rory is more encouraging and supportive. Another former cheerleader, Jennifer Li, is helping out with the tryouts but has opted not to return to the team, after an accident that left her on crutches. And it turns out this accident is the reason that the junior varsity team is basically rebuilding from the ground up: aside from Marla, Rory, and Jennifer, all of the former cheerleaders are dead. A few months earlier, the cheerleading team was “returning from the annual Regional Cheerleading Camp and Competition at the end of June. The new junior varsity team, chosen last spring, had done very well. The bus in which they were riding apparently skidded out of control” (15). Marla and Rory were the only two cheerleaders not on the bus (Marla had left the competition early with the flu and Rory had caught a ride with some friends); Jennifer was on the bus but was thrown clear and miraculously survived. While most people consider what happened a tragic accident, Marla disagrees, insisting that “the Salem junior varsity was murdered” (13, emphasis original). There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that this was the case, aside from the inconclusive finding that “The police said they ‘couldn’t rule out the possibility that someone had tampered with the brakes’” (14), but Marla is adamant that someone was out to get the cheerleaders.  And as tryouts continue, it starts to look like she just might be on to something. No one knows for sure whether someone wanted to hurt the cheerleaders who were killed in the bus accident, but someone is definitely targeting the potential new squad. Someone sets a fire in the trashcan in Delle’s room while she’s sleeping, a basketball backboard falls in the gym near where the cheerleaders are practicing, a bloody doll and a threatening note are left in one girl’s room, and a stunt harness is tampered with, which results in another competitor being badly injured. As the danger mounts, it becomes abundantly clear that there is a legitimate threat to the would-be cheerleaders, but the source of this threat remains a mystery. It could be the same person who allegedly targeted the cheerleaders over the summer, resulting in the fatal bus accident, or it could be one of the students trying out, who wants to make the team so badly that they’ll do whatever it takes to eliminate some of the competition. Or it could be The Red Lady. The Red Lady (also frequently referred to as the Lady in Red) is a Salem University campus legend. A girl named Mojo (short for Morgana) is trying out for the squad and just happens to be well versed in the supernatural, happy to tell Delle all about the Red Lady. The Red Lady is a staple of Salem University history, dating back to the early 1900s, when there was a tragic fire in the girls’ gym. As Mojo explains, “the old gym, which was also called Peabody Gym, burned down […] And one of the girls who was in it got trapped and couldn’t get out. So now she like appears, y’know? When something terrible is going to happen” (18). Rumor has it that the Red Lady was seen shortly before the former cheerleaders’ fatal accident, glimpsed through the gym windows. Delle encounters the Red Lady when she wakes up to find the fire in her room, seeing “A tall translucent figure in flowing red garments. Garments that moved eerily in the steadily increasing flame” (21). Late one night, Delle sees a similar figure through the windows of the Peabody Gym, though when she goes to investigate, the woman disappears. The motivation and significance of the Red Lady is just as mysterious as who is behind the attacks during cheerleading tryouts, but one thing is certain: it’s definitely NOT a good sign if you see her.  While Coach Truite emphasizes the importance of teamwork above all else, the cheerleaders have a difficult time coming together as a team, because they can’t help suspecting one another, as they try to figure out who’s behind all the terrible things that have been happening. Marla is angry and suspicious of everyone, but is also one of the only ones who wasn’t on the bus when it crashed, which automatically makes her a suspect. While Rory is kinder, the same is true of him, though why the survivors—who are now co-captains of the squad—would want to target the new cheerleaders is a bit of a mystery. Jennifer is traumatized by her near-death experience and no longer cheering, so she could be driven by jealousy or revenge. And none of the new potential cheerleaders are above suspicion: they’re all used to being superstars on their high school teams, they all believe they deserve a spot on the Salem University junior varsity squad, and they’re all willing to do just about whatever it takes to claim one.  The only person no one really suspects when it comes to the accidents is Coach Truite and really, that’s because the competitors are busy thinking she’s terrible for a whole host of other reasons, including the grueling workouts and her constant screaming at them. But it turns out that the coach is really just out to torment and punish them before she kills them. This is Truite’s first year as a coach at Salem University, a job she took specifically to get revenge. Her younger brother, Reginald Trout, was one of the cheerleaders who died in the bus crash. (As one of the cheerleaders helpfully points out, “truite” is French for “trout,” which doesn’t seem like much of a subterfuge, but then again, no one actually says the names of the cheerleaders who were killed in the accident until after the tryouts are over, so maybe she didn’t even need to go to that much trouble. Aside from Marla, Rory, and Jennifer, no one would have recognized poor Reginald’s name). Coach Truite trained her brother; as she tells the terrified cheerleaders, “I taught him gymnastics. I taught him everything. And then he came here. I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want him to go away. It isn’t safe out there, I told him […] And then he was killed. So I came here. To punish. To pay back. To make you all suffer as he suffered” (159). Coach Truite terrorizes the would-be cheerleaders throughout the tryout process, enjoying their pain and fear, but in the end, it’s bigger than the team and she wants to make as many people pay as possible.  The new members of the junior varsity cheerleading team are announced at the memorial service for the cheerleaders who died, which is the most horrifying element of The Scream Team, as the university publicly acknowledges the dead while turning the event into a celebration of the new cheerleaders who are literally going to take their places. Coach Truite does a lot of over-the-top and terrifying things throughout the book, but her anger about this feels pretty justifiable. Salem University is paying lip-service to her dead brother and his teammates, before immediately turning around and essentially erasing and replacing them. There doesn’t seem to be any logical reason for this insensitive combination, and even the new cheerleaders are uncomfortable with this set up. Joy, one of the new team members says “It makes me feel funny, though, you know? I mean, being presented as the new cheerleaders and all” (149) at the memorial service for those who died. Mojo weighs in with a dry humor: “‘I’m sure they’ll be extremely tactful about it,’ said Mojo in a voice that said NOT” (149, emphasis original). The prevailing feeling is that this is an inappropriate combination of events, but no one speaks up or stops it. As a result, it is fitting that Coach Truite’s revenge takes place at the memorial service and targets the larger campus community, not just the cheerleaders. Immediately following the announcement of the new cheerleaders, she locks the doors and sets the gym on fire, looking forward to watching them all burn as she triumphantly screams “You’re all going to DIE!” (156).  Cheerleading got them all into this mess and it’s cheerleading that gets them out. As everyone in the gym panics, Delle cheers them back into order, with spirited impromptu instructions: “SALEM U, SALEM U! THIS IS WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO! DON’T PANIC, STAND STILL, DON’T PANIC, STAND STILL” (154). The other cheerleaders pick up the chant and it does calm the crowd, which at least prevents people from being trampled and crushed against the locked doors, but thank goodness the fire department shows up on the scene quickly, because this is not a viable survival strategy. Delle tries to talk some sense into Coach Truite, but the woman is beyond help, driven mad by her grief, and plunges into the flames, the only casualty of the Peabody Gym fire.  And as for the Red Lady? Well, it turns out everyone has had her wrong all along: she’s not a menacing harbinger of doom, but more of a benevolently protective warning system. As Mojo explains, the Red Lady is nothing to be afraid of, “A ghost who wasn’t a messenger of death, but trying to save a life” (163). When she appeared before the other cheerleaders’ accident, showed up in Delle’s room, and was spotted in the Peabody Gym during tryout week, she was trying to warn and protect people, not harm them. She died in the old Peabody Gym and as the new(er) one goes up in flames, it seems like the Red Lady will disappear along with it. As Delle reflects, “‘She’s at peace now’ […] The Lady in Red wouldn’t need to haunt this world anymore” (164).  While the cheerleaders’ current nightmare has been laid to rest, this feels pretty optimistic: weird stuff is always happening at Salem University, whether through human action or supernatural shenanigans, and it seems like there would be plenty to keep a protective spirit well occupied for the foreseeable future. But maybe the Red Lady is tied to the gym specifically and as long as they don’t build ANOTHER Peabody Gym, the poor girl can rest in peace. Or maybe she’s the spectral guardian angel of cheerleaders specifically and it’s smooth sailing for the team from here on out. As long as the next coach the university brings on doesn’t have a murderous vendetta against the team, there seems to be brighter days ahead for the Salem University junior varsity team. That’s definitely something worth cheering about.[end-mark] The post Fears and Cheers: <em>The Scream Team</em>  appeared first on Reactor.