Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (2019)

The Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books are the primary reason I like reading today. I would always check these books out any chance I could especially when I would be going to camp. The trilogy of books are collections of folklore, myths, urban legends and rhymes that were reimagined for easier reading without lessening the macabre themes. Add in a very talented artist to generate haunting ink drawings to accompany each story, a few of them even now I get chills looking at, and you have a classic anthology series. 

When I heard that Guillermo Del Toro was going to produce a movie I was ecstatic. Guillermo has a talent for paying proper attention to what his source material is made of aesthetically and to use that for his films. Look at Crimson Peak for an example trying to bring out the classic Ghost story mixed with Italian giallo film. So if anyone could make a good rendition of the Scary Stories series it would be him. I’m happy to say that the crew hit that mark. With some small missteps overall the movie is what I hoped for and look forward to more.

A larger storyline is used with the scary story elements as small scenes within the narrative. While I would have liked to see more of the stories from the books presented this choice worked best to render them without trying to make a satisfying segue between each. Considering many of the stories from the books were single pages this was a choice that worked well. The shorter stories could be blended into the larger storyline as snippets or background objects and sounds.

The story is set on Halloween during the Nixon/Watergate era, with a group of three high school kids preparing a prank for the school bullies, which is successful. They meet up with a draft dodger around their age and he joins them in their flight from the school bullies. The actors here have a great chemistry and they all feel like they’ve been friends for years. They stumble upon an old book within the basement of an abandoned mansion. This mansion was home to a family that was killed off under mysterious circumstances. Now the house is the source of a local legend involving a woman’s voice telling stories through the walls. The group finds out that this book is linked to a malevolent spirit that begins writing stories of those that entered the home, leading to their demise. This is where the Scary Stories come to play. 

The costuming and effects hit the look of the original artwork, recreating the single images perfectly. Each story plays out in similar steps to hit the right feel. For instance ‘The Big Toe’ was meant to be a campfire tale, a steady build to a sharp scare to finish. Likewise, there is a build up leading to a jump scare. ‘Harold’ was more of a slow menacing entity in the source and in this film it stalks and toys with the victim finishing with a visceral scene that really pushes that PG-13 rating creatively. The use of actors capable of unnatural movement brought out their characters  and made the effects all the better with their performances. The attention to detail was wonderful, the use of ‘The Hearse Song’ in a music box and even the soft barking of a dog in rhythm to the creature’s chant from Me Tie Dough-Ty Walker. Subtle, but was definitely there showing a dedication to making sure the stories were rendered right.

The overall theme of the film is the power of stories, whether fiction or non-fiction to change the world around us. It was an interesting choice to use the Watergate scandal, which is presented through TVs and posters you see around the town as a background showing the power of the media. The spirit uses stories to be malicious but potentially, at least as the protagonists believe, telling the spirit’s story may stop the deaths. 

A faltering point with the writing was a feeling that ideas were added without considering previous scenes. With multiple writers touching the script the potential for this went up. One moment we have a character speak about a dream he had. A woman in a hallway telling him not to go to the RED room. Nowhere previously did he mention or did we get a scene showing he was not getting proper sleep. This lack of foreshadowing caused that line to feel like it came out of nowhere. In another instance, soon after an attack where a character looked relatively fine, barring some wounds. We later hear that ‘She didn’t make it’ so that threw some confusion to the status of the victim.

The finale was strong in its content, not fearing to nudge itself to some darker topics and properly letting the audience experience them. The ending circles back to the original idea of stories able to change the world and the finale felt right while a little awkward. With three books in the original collection I look forward to more if we will get the same love of the source material as we did here.

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