'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' Review: Alvin Schwartz’s short stories come to life in the chilling horror film

Based on Alvin Schwartz’s series of children’s books frightfully illustrated by Stephen Gammell, “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” comes to life with the help of executive producer Guillermo del Toro under the direction of Norwegian filmmaker André Ovredal who brought us “Trollhunter” and one of 2016’s most underrated horror films, “The Autopsy of Jane Doe.” You don’t need an R-rating to elicit chills and there are plenty here as the film resides on the horror scale between “Goosebumps” and “It.” The tension builds, the special effects are gruesome, and most of all the film is fun for both young and old moviegoers.

It would have been easy to turn “Scary Stories” into another anthology film especially since there has been a resurgence in the format over the last decade but del Toro and the writers behind “The Lego Movie” and the last few “Saw” films (5 writers are credited in total) have fused together several of Schwartz’s stories into one narrative.

It’s 1968 in Mill Valley, Penn., which sounds like the setting for every horror film that takes place in the Mid Atlantic. The Vietnam war and Richard Nixon weigh heavily on the minds of most Americans but for teenagers, Stella (Zoe Colletti), a horror fanatic, Chuck (Austin Zajur), the group prankster, and Auggie (Gabriel Rush), the nerdy gentlemen, it’s Halloween night and their plans include having fun and pranking local bully Tommy Milner (Austin Abrams).

Things go from bad to worse for the trio after the prank goes wrong and they find themselves on the run from Tommy and his cronies. They hide out at the local drive-in (showing Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead”) finding refuge in the car of teenager Ramón (Michael Garza), a stranger new to the area.

Later the four venture out to explore a “real haunted house” once owned by the prominent Bellows family. The dilapidated and long-abandoned mansion has long been the center of local folklore. Rumor has it that the sadistic family that ran the local paper mill kept youngest daughter Sarah locked up in a dungeon where she passed the time writing scary stories using her blood for ink. When the group stumbles upon the hidden room where Sarah was imprisoned, Stella finds her book of scary stories and takes it home with her. Not a good idea. Soon the book begins to write itself with new tales of horror centered on Stella and her friends.

The black and white illustrations by Stephen Gammell were enough to cause many sleepless nights for the youngsters who discovered Schwartz’s books that many parents tried to get banned from school libraries. For the film, del Toro used the team at Spectral Motion to bring the nightmarish creatures from the book to life. Harold the Scarecrow, The Pale Lady, The Toeless Corpse, and The Jangly Man (a new character invented for the film) are truly frightening creatures created with good old practical FX, not the current CGI benchmark.

“Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” is a lot of fun with plenty of tense sink-down-in-your-seat moments. The young cast does a solid job plus we’re treated to performances by character actors Dean Norris and Gil Bellows and first-rate special effects that bring Stephen Gammell’s illustrations to life. As someone who grew up watching George A. Romero and Wes Craven’s handiwork, I thoroughly enjoyed Øvredal’s film and if you’re a parent with kids here’s one Halloween film that you can watch together.

(3 stars)

Now showing at Cinemark 12