Plot Synopsis courtesy of IMDb.com: “It's 1968 in America. Change is blowing in the wind...but seemingly far removed from the unrest in the cities is the small town of Mill Valley where for generations, the shadow of the Bellows family has loomed large. It is in their mansion on the edge of town that Sarah, a young girl with horrible secrets, turned her tortured life into a series of scary stories, written in a book that has transcended time-stories that have a way of becoming all too real for a group of teenagers who discover Sarah's terrifying tome.”

Directed by: André Øvredal (Trollhunter)

Written by: Dan Hageman (The Lego Movie), Kevin Hageman (The Lego Movie), and Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth)

Starring: Zoe Margaret Colletti (Annie), Michael Garza (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part I), and Gabriel Rush (Moonrise Kingdom)

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is rated PG-13.

The original Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was written in 1981 by Alvin Schwartz, and was a collection of short horror stories for children.  The book was based largely on folk tales and urban legends, and is well known for Stephen Gammell's drizzlingly ghoulish illustrations.  Schwartz and Gammell would go on to collaborate on two sequels to Scary Stories, published in 1984 and 1991.  This is the first adaptation of the property, and rather than approach the storied as an anthology, 2019's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark weaves a variety of classic tales together in a straightforward narrative.

In the fall of 1968, teenage friends Stella Nicholls, Auggie Hilderbrandt, Chuck Steinberg and out-of-towner Ramón Morales find a hand written book filled with short horror stories.  Upon opening the book, their small town is plagued by nightmarish manifestations of campfire tales. One by one, residents begin to disappear, and the young friends are forced to find a way to break the curse before they become the next victim.  Scary Stories manages to bring a variety of short stories together in a creative way, and although it is probably better suited for a younger teenage audience, it delivers a handful of successful jump scares and grotesque imagery.

What Scary Stories really gets right are the visuals.  The rogues gallery of creatures are all pulled directly from the page, and seem to have the same uncanny, inky quality as Gammell's drawings.  Where most horror films try to keep the monster just out of sight for as long as possible, Scary Stories seems to revel in the repugnance.  The only problem is that once the initial shock wears off, the film must resort to cheaper ways of eliciting fear, and it struggles to maintain a consistent level of tension.

Interestingly, the film itself is prominently placed with Richard Nixon's election and the Vietnam War as a backdrop.  To call it juvenile would be unfair, but the tone is clearly a step below high-concept horror films that boast poignant commentary alongside their thrills.  A side story surrounding Ramón's background seems to hint that the film is getting at very real and tangible horrors through a supernatural lens, though this line of thinking is only sporadically pursued.  At the very least, it is clear that the filmmakers tried to care about saying something with their film, even if it is unclear what it is that they were trying to say.

For the most part, the cast consists of actors I have never seen on screen before. While none of them were poorly cast, the film lacked someone with the charisma or gravity to anchor the film as a whole.  The characters who were not lucky enough to survive until the credits rolled were seldom missed, and appeared to have little impact on the story's trajectory.

If I had expected something more original, I would spend more time discussing how formulaic and derivative the story was, but to be honest that was more or less what I expected.  It seems that this film was made with the purpose of making audiences squirm and jump in their seats, and in that regard it will probably be a success. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is not a particularly well constructed film, but to its credit it remains entertaining throughout.  Ultimately, it ends up feeling a lot like a generic brand of Stranger Things or IT, and is probably not a film that will stay in my mind for long.

Reel Rating: 6/10

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark opens in cinemas August 9th.