Logan Sork Film Reviews
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Going into this film, I had no idea what to expect. I remember hearing about it at the beginning of the year (there were even Superbowl ads for it) and I knew that legendary director Guillermo Del Toro was attached as producer. Soon after hearing about it however, it sort of fell off my map before popping up again. I hadn’t read any pf the books this film was based on, so I went in totally clueless just to see if it was any good. Much to my surprise, this was a really fun movie, filled with great atmosphere, excellent directing, and plenty of good scares.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is directed by André Øvredal, written and produced by Guillermo Del Toro and is based on the collection of stories of the same name by Alvin Schwartz. The film stars Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Zajur, Natalie Ganzhorn, Austin Abrams, Dean Norris, Gil Bellows, and Lorraine Toussaint. The story is set in a small 1960’s town and centers around a group of friends who break into the supposedly haunted on Halloween night. While exploring the house, they stumble across a book that belonged to the estranged daughter of the previous occupants that contains scary stories she wrote when locked in her basement. After they leave the house everything seems normal, until Zoe (Colletti) realizes that a new story has appeared in the book, featuring the name of someone who has disappeared from the town. After she loses one of her friends to a story written in the book, she believes that it has been cursed by the previous owner and will kill those around it. Together, the group of friends must work to figure out how to lift the curse before they meet their grisly fate in a newly written story.
After viewing the film, one of the biggest surprises that I took away from it was how well the creepy atmosphere was created throughout the majority of the runtime. From the opening sequence in which we are introduced to our main characters to the various locations they visit, there is always a sense of creepiness emanating from the film. Part of this is due to the Halloween setting but the majority of the effect comes from Øvredal’s excellent direction. Rather than use jump scares and cheap gimmicks to scare the audience like most modern horror film shave been doing recently, Øvredal instead creates an atmosphere of unease by slowly showing us around the different locations through well directed camera movements, hinting ever so slightly at what’s to come. Even when there is a jump scare, it is surprisingly effective and feels earned thanks to the suspense that has been generated beforehand. The kills are also surprisingly gruesome, especially for a PG-13 film, which further heightens the effect of the final scare. As a result of the creepy atmosphere and well executed scares, the film is surprisingly effective, in fact, I found my self scared more times than I have in quite a while. And for someone who’s become kind of bored with recent horror films I’d say that’s quite the achievement.
While Øvredal’s direction really elevates the film in terms of freights, it would not be frightening if it weren’t for the wonderfully realized monsters and creatures on screen. Like many of Guillermo Del Toro’s other productions, this film doesn’t shy away from showing the creatures in their full glory which, thanks to a fantastic makeup team and body actors, have been brought to life in a frighteningly fantastic way. The monsters are based on drawings by Stephen Gammell that accompanied the originals stories and they are pretty darn accurate. And because the film is based on many different short stories, there is a large variety to be found in this selection of monsters. From rotting corpse looking for her toe to a unsettling scarecrow and many more, the variety of the creatures populating the film help to keep it fresh and allow for many different types of scary situations.
The film also keeps the horror engaging by putting mostly likable characters and actors in these situations. So often these days horror films are mostly populated with annoying or unlikable characters, so that when something does happen to them, we really don’t feel that bad. While there are definitely those characters here, the main cast is mostly extremely likable, with all the actors turning in good work. This creates an emotional connection to the characters, which makes you feel more invested as we hope that nothing bad will happen to them, rather than sit by and watch a bunch of annoying kids end gruesome fashion. However, I will say I was disappointed with how thinly written most of the characters were. Despite the actors turning in good performances, the only characters that had any real development were the main lead and her love interest, with the rest of the cast being reduced to tropes and other conventions we’ve seen before.
This brings me to my biggest issue with the film and that’s the screenplay. While Guillermo Del Toro may be an academy award winner who has written many other great films, this screenplay is surprisingly weak by his standards. The mystery that surrounds the film is by no means terrible, but this type of mystery has been done so many times before that you can see the twists coming a mile away. In the end, the central mystery of the film serves as nothing more than connective tissue to help bind these stories together. But since the connectivity isn’t all that interesting, the film probably would’ve been better if it had just been a straight up anthology film, where the stories aren’t connected at all. This would allow all of the creatures to shine and serve up a variety of scares without having to be forced into an overarching narrative. Again, this is by no means a terribly written movie, I just think the film would’ve been stronger had it ditched the mystery and had its individual stories play out as separate entities.
Despite the weak script and uninteresting characters, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is still a surprisingly spooky good time. This can be attributed to the fantastic direction and atmosphere and the films monsters that provide enough variety to keep one entertained even when the narrative falters. If you are a fan of horror films, I suggest you check this one out as soon as possible. But if you need to wait a little longer, Halloween is just around the corner and I can’t think of a better new release to watch around that time.
8/10