'Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark' A Review

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark is a PG-13 horror film set in a small Pennsylvania town in 1968, a quasi-adaptation of the children's book series. A group of friends get revenge on their school bully only to be chased into the local haunted house where they get trapped in a secret room and discover a malevolent book, which has a life of it's own...!

The cast is a solid group of mostly unknowns(aside from defacto extended cameos by Lorraine Toussaint, Dean Norris and Gil Bellows) and the core group of friends played by Zoe Margaret Colleti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, and Austin Abrams have confidence and charisma enough to carry this visually interesting but narratively mostly by-the-numbers adaptation. The effects are mostly practical and the monster performances are a treat.

Some evocative horror sequences and pleasing period design elevate the potentially pedestrian production. Similar in conceit to 2015's Goosebumps, the source material book existing and the stories manifesting out of it, but with a clearer intent towards thrill and scare rather than camp. The film strikes a fine balance, walking right up to the line of too-much but never crossing it. The attempts at socio-political messaging are mostly a failure but don't detract.

A great, stylish entry into horror for adolescents overshadowed a bit by the volume of similar nostalgia fare like Stranger Things and It.

Rent It.