Rated: M
Directed by: André Øvredal
Written by: Dan Hageman & Kevin Hageman
Screen story by: Guillermo Del Toro and Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan
Based on the series by: Alvin Schwartz
Produced by: Guillermo Del Toro, p.g.a., Sean Daniel, p.g.a., Jason F. Brown, p.g.a., J. Miles Dale, p.g.a., Elizabeth Grave, p.g.a.
Executive Producers: Peter Luo, Joshua Long, Roberto Grande
Starring: Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Abrams, Dean Norris, Gil Bellows, and Lorraine Toussaint.
“Sarah Bellows, tell us a story.”
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark pieces together the fabled fiction of Alvin Schwartz (who wrote the series), where screen story writer Guillermo Del Toro (along with Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan) hang the film on the idea that: “Stories can hurt, and stories can heal”.
Set in 1968 where, ‘If it’s in the newspaper it has to be right,’ but really there’s a lot wrong, like the Vietnam War and the fact Stella’s (Zoe Colletti) mum has left her with her dad (Dean Norris); Stella’s only friends in the world, Chuck (Austin Abrams) and Auggie (Gabriel Rush).
But having buddies makes life easier to live until they decide to show new-kid-in-town Ramón (Michael Garza) the Mill Valley haunted house. On Halloween.
The story of the haunted house being the young daughter, Sarah Bellows was a child killer. That she killed the children of Mill Valley who listened to her scary stories on the other side of the wall of her locked room.
Her family hid Sarah away because they said there was something very wrong with Sarah.
So when Stella finds Sarah’s book of scary stories in the haunted house, she thinks it’s a good idea to take it home to read. She’s a writer too.
Then new stories start appearing in the book. New scary stories like, ‘Who took my toe?’. It’s worse than it sounds. Particularly when the stories start coming true.
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark feels like one of those coming-of-age movies but really, it’s a scare-fest with body parts that come to life and bugs crawling out of empty eye-sockets.
The monsters are impressive with director, André Øvredal not holding back on the nightmarish imagery, while adding subtle details like the skin chewed around Stella’s fingernail.
I was absorbed and surprised as monsters came to life in cornfields and glaring red-lit corridors… But then the film became a crusade.
The story still holds and hey, it had to go somewhere; but I just couldn’t put myself into the shoes of Stella because there didn’t seem to be any fight or build to the strength of her character. How did this kid suddenly get to be so strong?