Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (2019)
Directed by André Øvredal
Before we get into the film I need to lay my cards on the table, I was pumped for this movie. Some of the first horror stories I ever read were from the Scary Stories book series and boy did they scare the hell out of me. The illustrations, the campfire story approach, the sometimes gruesome and gritty endings to the stories all worked so perfectly to appeal to my budding horror fascination. I like the books so much that my wife recently bought me a reproduction set as a gift that I now cherish. Please take that all into consideration when I say that liked the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark movie.
A Slightly Mixed Bag
I don’t think it was perfect, not by a long shot, but this was a genuine attempt to make a gateway horror film that could appeal to a wide audience while still having the scary core that the original stories had, and it mostly succeeded. The film starts off on Halloween night of 1968 and follows a group of friends as they run afoul of a mysterious book full of Scary Stories (that could be told in the dark) that cause real life scary things to happen. Scares ensue.
Visually Awesome!
Speaking of the Scares, these are by far the best parts of the film. Even though the direct content of the stories was changed, and that was pretty disappointing, the visual style of the segments, particularly when it comes to the monsters, was just awesome. Seeing some of the classic stories come to life was great by itself but it was helped by a keen sense of visuals and some incredible effects given the relatively tiny production budget this film had. Not just how monsters looked but how they moved, how they sounded, that all blended so well together and made these segments effective and memorable.
Not As Good Writing-Wise…
Unfortunately, I didn’t get the same joy from the main storyline that tied all these sequences together. The premise of a group of kids finding a mystical book that unleashes monsters on their small town seems eerily similar to the Goosebumps movie that came out a few years prior. I’m not accusing the writers of stealing this idea, just that it wasn’t terribly original to begin with. Also I really didn’t get the point of why this was set in 1968, the original stories are so timeless and it felt unnecessary to put a firm year on the film. Did the writers think they had to justify a plot point where a small town sheriff is racist by having it be set 50 years in the past? Because if they did then boy do I have some bad news for them!
The 60s Happened I Guess?
Getting back on track, the whole first act felt a bit uninspired and I think I would have preferred a more straightforward wraparound story around an anthology of stories with different settings and characters that could have been more faithful to the way the stories were told in the books. That being said, I do like the commitment they made to make the setting feel like the 60s instead of just saying it’s the 60s and carrying on. Even if I’m not a fan of the setting I can appreciate that an attempt was made to make it faithful. How successful that attempt was I have no idea, but it looks okay?
Took A Bit Of Time But I Got Into It
Once I got past the first act, I really started warming up to Scary Stories, even when some of my niggling issues would pop up now and again. As the film goes on it captures more and more of that familiar spooky mood that the books succeeded so well at getting at, and that’s when the movie really clicked for me. Both the middle and the ending, for the most part, were pretty exciting and delivered on what I was hoping for in an adaptation of the classics Scary Stories series.
A Good Attempt But Definitely Toned Down.
It’s not perfect, not by a long shot, with some script issues and changes from the source material that maybe shouldn’t have been made, but eventually they succeeded in capturing a glimmer of what made the original stories work. The end result is a tad more kiddie than I’d like, but hopefully that just means that it will be a good gateway feature to introduce newer generations to the original books. And to their credit the filmmakers did capture a truly terrifying moment of American history. The day Nixon won the presidency.
If you’re not offended at the idea of slightly less intense horror stories, check it out!
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