'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' Film Review: Teen Horror Anthology Spins Some Spooky Yarns

In the opening moments of director André Øvredal’s “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” a child’s voice tells us that stories have the power to hurt or heal. They make us who we are. True to its word, “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” delivers an entrancing thriller that explores the power of narratives with a few screams to boot.

It’s welcoming enough for teens and perhaps just creepy enough for the average grown-up horror movie fan, since producer and co-writer Guillermo del Toro is one of the filmmakers bringing the monsters from Alvin Schwartz’s original novels to the big screen.

Like a late-’60s send-up of “Stranger Things” (itself a reference to other horror-movie inspirations from the ’80s), “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” follows a close group of friends, all outsiders, as their paths cross with a nefarious, supernatural presence. The movie is chock-full of references to older horror movies, and ardent genre fans may enjoy the old posters on a horror buff’s bedroom walls while those fresher to the genre can follow-up this movie by watching the original “Night of the Living Dead” and “Halloween” if they haven’t already.

Watch Video: Children's Horror Tales Come to Life in 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' Trailer

“Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” begins in the rather innocuous Pennsylvania small town of Mill Valley on Halloween in 1968. The world’s real scares seem to be outside most of the place’s view, although Richard Nixon’s upcoming re-election and news of the Vietnam War loom large in the background. But for high schoolers Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti, “City on a Hill”), Augie (Gabriel Rush, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”) and Chuck (Austin Zajur, “Fist Fight”), their minds are on spending Halloween night getting back at their school’s resident bully, a letterman jacket-wearing jock named Tommy (Austin Abrams, “Euphoria”).

In the trio’s misadventures, they’re joined by a new face in town, Ramón (Michael Garza, “Wayward Pines”), and then seek out a haunted house with a tragic history, a place where a woman was once hidden from the world by her cruel family, one of the town’s richest and oldest founders. The ghost of Sarah Bellows (Kathleen Pollard) still haunts her family’s old boarded-up manor, but it’s her ghostly fondness for telling bone-chilling stories that will really keep the teenagers up at night.

Also Read: Will 'Dora and the Lost City of Gold' Catch the Box Office Crown From 'Hobbs and Shaw'?

Under this unifying arc, the movie feels less of a collection of short stories and more of puzzling mystery to solve through good old-fashioned dives through newspaper archives, medical records and a search for one of the last living souls who remembers Sarah. The kids’ race against the next deadly story to claim one of their own turns out to be just as entertaining as the stuff that nightmares are made of — zombie-like corpses breaking into your home or a wayward zit sprouting a spider leg. Cinematographer Roman Osin (“The Autopsy of Jane Doe”) plunges many of these monsters into dark blue and green tones. Others pop out under bright fluorescent lights, pitch-black darkness, flickering lights or under the glow of foreboding red alarms. The creatures’ assorted visual styles maintain the essence of the books’ anthology structure and keep the audience in suspense for whenever the next one will jump out.

Though most of the movie is a pure delight, some bumps in the night aren’t as smooth. Writers Dan and Kevin Hageman (“Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia”) share screenplay credit with del Toro and two previous authors, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton. It’s possible that the flurry of writing activity may have left behind some rogue lines of clunky dialogue or underwritten new additions. The movie seems to want to make some connection between today’s culture of fear through Ramón’s run-ins with racist cops and bullies and Nixon’s mug dominating TV sets, but it stops short of fully tying these themes together.

Also Read: Bradley Cooper in Early Talks to Star in Guillermo del Toro's 'Nightmare Alley'

Although perhaps not the most terrifying movie to hit theaters this season, “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” is effectively spooky, working as both a potential genre gateway drug and nostalgic catnip for readers of the original trilogy. If you were one of those unlucky kids forbidden from reading banned books, now’s your chance to find out what you missed all those years ago. You don’t need to be familiar with the source to enjoy the movie.

“Scary Stories” feels surprisingly welcoming for a horror movie, leaving aside excess gore and chills for a solid yarn about teens on a thrilling horror adventure romp in their small town.

16 Horror Movies Set in Broad Daylight, From 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' to 'A Quiet Place' (Photos)

Many iconic horror films lay their jump scares like mines behind dark corners, but there is also a subgenre of horror going back to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" that basks its characters in the blazing sun.

Are you afraid of the dark? It doesn't matter, because the movies below are proof that nightmares can lurk even during daylight hours.
Universal/A24/Paramount
"The Birds" (1952)

Alfred Hitchcock takes the everyday fear of being attacked in the street by city pigeons to the next level, having what feels like every bird in the city of San Francisco attack humans without warning. What adds to the horror is that the birds attack when people are most on the move; one scene depicts a flock of crows attacking a group of school children. "The Birds" stars Tippi Hedren as the lead Melanie Daniels, with Rod Taylor starring alongside as criminal defense attorney Mitch Brenner.
Universal Pictures
"The Wicker Man" (1973, 2006)

"The Wicker Man" is similar to "Midsommar" in that foreigners -- in this case police sergeant Neil Howie -- travel to a remote location where villagers follow an ancient pagan religion. Howie (Edward Woodward) is quickly entangled in the village's May Day celebrations, where he discovers the villagers are going to use the missing child as a sacrifice. Nicolas Cage starred as the lead in the 2006 American remake.
Warner Bros.
"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974)

Sally (Marilyn Burns), her three friends and father Franklin are attacked by the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) when their car runs out of gas and have nowhere to go. Sally is put in a race against the dwindling sunlight as she does everything she can to escape.
Vortex Films
"Jaws" (1975)

During the opening scene, we are introduced to Chrissie Watkins (Susan Backlinie), who decides to take a dip in the ocean after leaving a beach party. The John Williams score starts to swell when Chrissie suddenly feels something pulling at her from underneath. The terrorizing shark, even though it was shown only briefly during the actual movie, left audiences fearful of ever going back into the ocean. "When you go out into the water, there’s this idea you’re incredibly vulnerable," a clinical psychologist told the New York Post in 2015. “Literally anything can kind of happen. We’re built to kind of fear that, we’re built to fear the unknown.”
Universal Pictures
"The Hills Have Eyes" (1977, 2006)

A family's trip from Ohio to Los Angeles goes awry when their truck explodes in the Nevada desert. They soon realize they're surrounded by a clan of cannibals lurking in the hills. "The Hills Have Eyes" director Wes Craven shot the film in the New Mexico desert, while the 2006 remake was shot in Morocco.
Fox Searchlight
"Dawn of the Dead" (1978, 2004)

A zombie uprising leads a group of human survivors to camp out in a shopping mall. Why are the zombies drawn to the mall? The movie explains to us that it's where the humans were used to being when they were alive.
MKR Group
"Predator" (1987)

Arnold Schwarzenegger leads a special forces rescue team on a mission to save U.S. officials captured by the Soviets. The story plays out much like a Cold War action film, except for the fact that their foes aren't only the Soviets, but also an alien species armed with advanced hunting weapons and the power of invisibility.
20th Century Fox
"Tremors" (1990)

Valentine (Kevin Bacon) and Earl (Fred Ward) try to save a small town from carnivorous "megaworms" in this early '90s creature feature, much of it taking place under the arid heat of the Nevada sun.
Universal Pictures
"Anaconda" (1997)

Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube and Owen Wilson. Sounds like a great group to go on an exotic trip with, except when they're a documentary film crew traversing the dangerous Amazon in "Anaconda." The crew is taken hostage by a hunter (Jon Voight), who forces them to help him capture a monstrous snake.
Columbia Pictures
"Lake Placid" (1999)

A crew investigates the disappearance of a scuba diver off the coast of Maine, only to find a gigantic saltwater crocodile dwelling below. The movie stars Brendan Gleeson as Sheriff Hank Keough. The actor also appears in other entries on this list, including "28 Days Later" and "The Village."
Fox 2000
"The Ring" (2002)

Newspaper reporter Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) investigates why people are dying seven days after watching a cursed videotape in this remake of a Japanese horror film of the same name. Similar to other thrillers that followed "The Ring," the film emphasizes the green and blue colors in the frame, adding to its eeriness in either day or night.
DreamWorks Pictures
"Ju-On: The Grudge" (2002)

A Japanese social worker is taking care of an ill mother when she realizes the house she's working in is cursed from a murder that took place in that very home. The vengeful supernatural force takes the shape of a young woman and boy with pale blue skin.
Lions Gate Films
"28 Days Later" (2003)

Cillian Murphy wakes up from a coma to discover that London has been decimated by a virus, leading those who are infected to turn into rabid zombies. A friendly tip: Just like when trying the "Hot Ones" challenge, don't let any of it get in your eyes.
20th Century Fox
"The Village" (2004)

Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix and Sigourney Weaver star as members of a small countryside community that fear a predator outside of their village is set to attack them.
Touchstone Pictures
"A Quiet Place" (2018)

Lee (John Krasinski), Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and their kids are forced to live a life of silence when blind aliens with armored skin invade Earth, attacking anything that makes the slightest sound.
Paramount Pictures
"Midsommar" (2019)

In Ari Aster's horror flick, four American tourists go on a trip to a remote commune in Sweden to immerse themselves in a festival during the summer solstice or "midnight sun," a period of time when it's almost exclusively light out. And then things get really trippy.
A24

1 of 17

Movies like ”Jaws,“ ”The Birds“ and ”The Hills Have Eyes“ prove you don’t need to be in the dark to be horrified

Many iconic horror films lay their jump scares like mines behind dark corners, but there is also a subgenre of horror going back to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" that basks its characters in the blazing sun.

Are you afraid of the dark? It doesn't matter, because the movies below are proof that nightmares can lurk even during daylight hours.

View In Gallery

16 Horror Movies Set in Broad Daylight, From 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' to 'A Quiet Place' (Photos)

7DAYFREETRIAL

7
DAY
FREE
TRIAL