Film Review - Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark

Based on in Alvin Schwartz campfire folklore favourite of short stories from the '80s. Andre Ovredal Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark follows a bunch of misfit teens in 1968 with Donovan's Season of The Witch setting the tone as the story kicks off. Stella (Zoe Coletti) and her two friends Auggie (Gabriel Rush) and Chuck (Austin Zajur) reluctantly go out on Halloween knowing that the will have to face bully Tommy (Austin Abrams) at some point in the evening. They do, pull a prank to get the best of the letterman wearing jock then end up in a padlocked haunted house, alongside Ramon (Michael Garza) a passing through town loner and Chuck Sister Ruby (Natalie Ganzhorn) who Tommy dumped on the spot. The locals inform Roman of the myth of the Bellows family that owned the home. Well to do town founders that started the paper mill. However, children went missing and were traced back to the house when legend has it that youngest Bellows daughter Sarah told children scary stories through the wall in her room just before they disappeared. The family kept her isolated never allowing her to go outside. In the home, Stella finds Sarah's book a collection of stories with strange titles all with a doomed lead character. Without telling her friends she takes it home sealing the fate of everyone that was in the house when she took it.

The source material clearly drew for Guillermo del Toro to the project. In Chuck's conjure, Stephen Gammell's drawing of the Pale Lady is brought to life a creation that could easily pass as a del Toro original.  Events play out linearly for the first teen to face Sarah Bellows rage at the theft. But when Sarah's pen turns to the next target Stella then Ramon see the story written on the page right before their eyes.

The five young main actors all play their slotted roles well. Zoe Coletti leads from the front as Stella. She lives with her dad, her mom had run off long ago. Her room is fully decorated with horror posters and she can quote The Night of the Living Dead by rote. Michael  Garza is quiet but resourceful as Ramon. He is a target of the town bullies and police because of his Mexican background but has an immediate connection with Stella after he assists in getting the friends out of a Halloween jam.  Natalie Ganzhorn does a lot more than the usual with the one dimensional pretty girl role of Ruth. She is willing to challenge jock Tommy and may be in the centre of the Scary Story that will resonate as the biggest fear of most The Red Dot.

Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark plays on the fear created though campfire stories. Schwartz's anthology housed universal stories. Stella states that you do not read the book. Instead, the book reads you playing on your darkest fears bringing them to life to paralyze you with fear first then kill.

*** Out of 4.

Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark | U.S.A. / Canada | 2019 |  111Minutes

Tags: Alvin Schwartz, Halloween, Haunted House, Small Town, Scarecrow Spiders, 1968 Election, Vietnam,  The Pale Lady, Asylum, Dreams, Anthology, Toe, Stew.