Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)

Good: The main story that is tying the 'scary stories' together is interesting and a fresh take as the 'scary stories' are short and filler needs to be made for a feature film. The direction from Øvredal is great finding the right amount of scares to be had with built suspense from the grisly production by Del Toro.

Bad: The cast is fine, nothing spectacular or atrocious, it is something you would expect from a horror film. Some lines are cheesy and laughable. The main story could have been shortened.

Overall: Although there is nothing innovating it is still a solid fresh straight-up(less jump scare, more imagery) horror of 2019 that can pass the time with entertainment and chills to be made.

3.5/5

Fmovies: The trailers really mislead this one. It appeared to be a dark and ominous horror film. Instead, it's a very mild mystery with some great visuals. No scares at all in this one. Somewhat interesting, but overall I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

The books are quite enjoyable, but this film has diluted what makes the books what they're. Consider this movie a light, soft and diluted grapefruit juice for kids, this could be starter movie for infants that like horror movies, but even if that's the case there are better movies for them to start with.

If you just like horror movies, you will not miss anything if you just skip this one. The story arc is weak and fulfilled with the same old clichés that the industry regurgitates over and over, the characters are laughable, hell... the movie doesn't even focus on the SCARY STORIES but it's more about the kid's drama. SAVE YOUR TIME, SAVE YOUR MONEY!

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark fmovies. To my surprise, this movie was not what I was expecting at all. From the title, I was sure I'd see a portmanteau movie of unconnected short stories, similar to 1983's "Twilight Zone: The Movie". But with a kid-centric plot and set in a small American town, the formula is similar to "It" or "Super 8". However, the episodic nature of serial "incidents" aligns it more with the style of the "Final Destination" films.

Stella Nicholls (Zoe Margaret Colletti) is a horror geek and aspiring writer living in Mill Valley, a small Pennsylvanian town during the Nixon election of 1968. Stella has a couple of friends: the requisite Scoobie Doo Shaggy character Chuck (Austin Zajur) and the 'sensible' "it's all science" character Auggie (Gabriel Rush). But pursued by local hoodlum Tommy (Austin Abrams), Stella, Chuck and Auggie are thrown together with draft-dodging outsider Ramón (Michael Garza).

They escape into the local spooky house - a house where legend has it that terrible things were done to a strange albini girl, Sarah. That legend has it that Sarah used to tell local kids scary stories through the walls. And Stella finds a book... a book that appears to be unfinished....

This is a time when horror films are either "old school" or more psychological in nature (like "Hereditary"). This one has Guillermo del Toro's hand behind that of lead-writers Dan and Kevin Hagerman. And it's firmly old-school. There are some effective (but at times comically created) spooky moments that are scary without being hugely gory. This earns it a UK15, rather than a UK18, certificate. It's disappointing that doesn't stretch to 12A to attract a younger teenage audience, since the source material is actually from a "Goosebumps"-like set of short stories by Alvin Schwartz.

The story's 'episodes' are nicely varied. At the gross-out end of the scale is an episode with Chuck's sister Ruth (Natalie Ganzhorn) that might get arachnophobes running for the exits. My personal favourite? A 'red room' episode with the oncoming fate comically arriving in slow-motion like the steam-roller in "Austin Powers"!

This is another film that relies on the quality of its young cast, with the only moderately well-know cast name being Gil Bellows as the local sheriff. In this regard, the stand-out performance is that of Zoe Margaret Colletti who does a fabulous job as Stella. She's been in a few films in the past ("Annie", "Wildlife" and "Skin") but this is her breakout performance in a starring role. She's done her CV a great favour here.

Directed by "Troll Hunter" director André Øvredal, I really enjoyed this one. I'm not a massive fan of 'slasher' style horror films. I have no burning desire to be constantly reminded of what the inside of my body looks like. So this turned out to be much-more to my liking than the normal horror flick. It had enough spookiness to make me turn on the lights when I got back home, but not enough to pervade my dreams.

The young cast perform well. They are given enough back-story and personality by the script to make you care about their fate.

So overall, this one comes with a "Recommended for wimps" (like me)!

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While this film doesn't break any new ground or add innovation to the horror genre necessarily, it brings the stories we grew up with to life and gives them a richer visual identity. Ovredal/Del Toro excel at giving us chillingly well constructed tension filled scenes of ominous creatures, haunting spirits, and just an atmospheric overall feel that puts the viewer right into the stories. While the teen characters are by the numbers and wreak of goosebumps/IT/Stranger Things influence, they are serviceable for the particular story. The horror visuals take the main focus and steal the show for the 108min runtime which is actually longer than most horror's of this nature and build off scene to scene effectively. Even viewers that are unfamiliar with the classic stories of the same name will be very satisfied with this film and hopefully be inspired to go back and read the books. I hope this film spawns a franchise and I'm happy to say this thoroughly surprised me as i was cautiously optimistic as to how they'd adapt it.

The movie has it's scares, the plot is a bit messy at some point's. After the movie, when I went to try and make conversation about it, I forgot what I had just watched. The movie is good if you're looking for some really corny popcorn flick, and maybe have a few laughs. I was just disappointed, I guess I had expected too much from a film that at the time I didn't realize was PG-13, it was a Guillermo Del Toro film. The same director who had directed Shape of Water (2017) which had won several nominations. Hellboy (2004), Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Hellboy: The Golden Army (2008), and Pacific Rim (2013) So many great movies from such an amazingly unique director! Even though I was disappointed for how easily forgettable the movie could be, it had very little CGI, only 10% of CGI was used for the monster's while the majority 90% was practical effects, so good job for the special effects team. That's the only compliment I can really give this film.