Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark underwhelms in the horror and fright departments but maintains a solid entertainment value, especially for the teens and tweens looking for a scarier treat in the summer movie schedule.

I had no background or info on the movie going into it, as I was under the impression that it would be an anthology of movies, however, it sticks to the old horror film setup instead.

A group of teenagers go into a boarded up haunted house, stumble upon a secret room and take something that doesn’t belong to them. A book, whose owner they believe to be a crazed young girl locked up in a room with only her scary stories to write to keep her company.

However, by taking this book they have awoken something… someone. Every night the book writes its own story, each time describing the deadly end to one of the kids there, in that house that night.

There are worse horror/scary movies setups than this.

The cast is a bunch of misfits and outcast that have become popularized in recent hit films/series such as Stranger Things and IT. But unlike those characters these ones are a bit limited in character depth and just plain interest.

That’s not to say they were played bad. The main characters lead by Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti), an only child raised by her father with aspirations of becoming a writer and Ramon (Michael Garza), a Hispanic drifter in the wrong place at the wrong time were solid leads… but nothing truly remarkable.

But maybe that’s the point. This is a PG-13 film and under the banner of Guillermo Del Toro in the promotions you would think there would be some mind bending Del Toro creations but for most of the film the fear and fright never lived up to the hype of the Del Toro name.

Probably because he was a producer despite the billings of “from academy award winner Guillermo Del Toro…” Hollywood is good with those inspired by real events or from the writers of the last best comedy when it was a backup writer who filled in for a day… more fiction than reality but it looks good on the coming attractions trailer.

Nevertheless, this PG-13 flick fails to capture the fright of a movie such as the PG-13 rated The Ring and falls more in line with the 1990’s Nickelodeon TV series Are you afraid of the Dark?

Both good options but only one of those I actually liked.