Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark

The cute, soft film is neither scary nor gory enough, but it shows some quality work with the environment/set designs and nicely captures the 1980s. It would have been more successful if it had also been made in that era, as contemporary horror viewers – including the youngest ones – are used to a more intense, goosebump-inducing experience and jump scares, even in movies with worse writing and direction. But intensity is what the audience craves, and intensity is lacking here. (13.09.2019)

The result is pretty much by the upper boundaries of the realistic expectations for a PG13 adaptation of a scary book for children. The scenes that adapt the scary stories are brilliant. They can be tense, scary and sometimes even give you the chills. Obviously, the viewer would wait in vain for blood and gore, but even then, it seems that the creators were allowed surprisingly plenty for a “kids” rating. Certainly, there is more horror in Scary Stories than in, for instance, the third season of Stranger Things. I’d love to see more of these scary short stories; more monsters and beasts. But, unfortunately, the binding between the “stories” is a problem. It’s not interesting enough, especially given how much time it gets. The main characters aren’t much of a problem, though it can’t be said that most of them are very likeable. I thought how it would have been if the creators had ignored the story and the entire town would somehow “read” the book, and the monster mayhem started. Overall I’m satisfied, I liked the film. But this year I’ve given four stars to far more significant and interesting horror films, and, also, the previous two works by Øvredal were stronger, so Scary Stories will have to make do with a three. (09.08.2019)

André Øvre has done it again and after The Autopsy of Jane Doe he serves another solid horror film that will not be missing in this year's TOP 5. It's a kind of children's adventure set in the 70s on Halloween. The kids find a book in an abandoned house that starts writing stories that immediately become reality. At times it en reminded me of Final Destination. No link in the story is weak, but each has its own thing and a perfect central evil (wonderful practical effects!!), plus a decently dense atmosphere that thrills, chills and at times scares. I was sweating like a gymnast at the end and that hasn't happened in a long time. The kids are quite likable, the visuals are solid, the pace is very fast and the film doesn't get boring. there hasn't been a pure horror entertainment like this in cinemas yet this year. For me, a great satisfaction and as an appetizer before It: Chapter 2 I couldn't get anything better. 80% (09.08.2019)

Average, and barely that. I definitely expected more from the director of The Autopsy of Jane Doe, especially with Guillermo del Toro overseeing it. And the beginning was promising enough – my favorite Donovan song, "Season of the Witch", the unassuming and pleasantly ordinary young heroes, the hyperbole, the trip to the haunted house. But then it all went wrong. The individual ghost stories are pretty predictable and lack suspense or surprise (with the possible exception of the first one), the stunts are literally all over the place, the script has no logic but pretends it does, and most of all... mostly, the characters alternately behave like geniuses (they solve mysteries in a flash, they know immediately to look under the bed) and idiots. It struck me as a slightly more narrative TV movie, or possibly, given the ending, the pilot episode of a TV series. Not great. ____ P.S. The Czech subtitles hold up to the quality of the film, as at one point we read "Morons! It's 9 o'clock!" instead of the correct "Morons at 9 o'clock!" or when the police chief is referred to as "the boss". (13.08.2019)

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark reminded me at certain points of Darkness Falls and Goosebumps, where the story also worked with urban legends, revenge and dangerous stories from books. I liked the look of the monsters, even if we’ve seen more "poetically" designed creatures in Guillermo del Toro, who co-wrote the film. I also praise the choice of locations and the production design, whether it was a red hospital, a haunted house, or a cornfield (which looks eerie even in broad daylight). Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark doesn't (fortunately for me) overflow with an abundance of scares and hectolitres of blood, rather it offers a few atmospherically uncomfortable scenes and, as a result, a slightly above average tale of stories that hurt but can also heal. Better three stars! (10.09.2022)

So, as I was going through the user comments on this film, I came across several references to a "70s/80s vibe" for a film set in 1968. Which reveals an interesting fact about how it doesn't really matter when any film is set, because the only thing that matters about that era is that it's retro and the whole illusion of the era is just a kind of winking backdrop that, in various elements, harkens back to a time that might not have been. The retro here is really instantaneous, because despite the old cars, Nixon on TV, and recruitment centers in small towns, you don't feel like you've gone back in time at all, but you can feel exactly how half a meter behind the camera the rest of the crew are boredly scrolling through Twitter on their phones, looking for what to buy on Amazon. Several times I found myself wondering why the characters don't just use their phones, before realizing that it was actually the sixties. Because everyone here is behaving at the very least in a contemporary way. The redheaded freckle-faced nerd the film convinces us is somehow outsider-ugly is evocative of the forty-year-old porn actress who makes ponytails so her video can be labeled "barely legal", the Hispanic hunk has as much acting and visual equipment as anyone on the Disney Channel, and the last of the foursome – Merry and Pippin – are riding the acting school of teen comedy supporting roles in their second half. When I add in the utterly incompetent patchwork that someone dared call a script and whose character work is in crayon, then my rating doesn't make much sense. Well, that's of course the fault of the supervising del Toro, who is very likely behind the design of the three monsters the film brings us. And as much as we don't enjoy the first one, and the last one is such a digital piece of junk, the second monster, which I've dubbed 'Mommy', and its brief scene make for more horror than the rest of the film. That's when the real horror peeks out for a moment, the real and basic horror premise of something slowly akin to something seemingly ridiculous and therefore disturbingly hideous. That sequence actually generated a full three stars. (08.11.2019)

I don’t consider this film to be particularly good. I was expecting a horror film, but I would probably need an instruction manual or explanatory notes to find an actually scary moment. This way, it seemed like a horror film for a considerably younger demographic, which I found a bit boring. (01.03.2020)

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is an American modern horror movie and an example of what people want. However, I could not get into it at all, although it is great that there is a horror movie with a pretty strong narrative that has some potential. I almost wonder if it would not have been better to have read the original books than watch this movie adaptation, which cannot decide if it is purely for adults only or also for a younger audience. (13.03.2020)

A tired 2.5 stars. The best thing here is clearly the exposition and period atmosphere, but that really ends the list of positives. Until the stories are "discovered" and start being told, it's pretty good for the reasons mentioned. Overall, though, it's a terribly routine affair that offers nothing new at all, and which unfortunately is neither scary enough nor comic enough. In fact, the whole thing felt like eating three-day-old bread with butter. You can eat it, and you will eventually (if you have nothing else at home), but you'd much rather have something fresh and more nutritious. (15.08.2019)