Unlike how a lot of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark feature full-blown stories from start to finish, this movie gives you those flash fiction pieces that your eyes can gobble up real quick. They might not be fully fleshed out into hour-long shorts, but the stories in this movie still pack a whallop of scare for the characters facing them.
Is Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark worthy of me?
- Nice build-up to jump-scares
- Interesting stories in Sarah’s book
- Weird, but likeable characters
- Has a bumpy start to it
Spoiler Alert
There may be spoilers in the text written below, in case you haven’t seen the movie yet. You’ve been warned.
This show starts with a kid giving intellectual know-how into the world of stories by telling us about what stories can do and the power they hold, given that this is seemingly one of those stories from his own learning experience.
What triggers things into motion is the main bad-boy (Tommy) in his posse group coming out of a US army recruitment building, popping the buttons of his jacket open, (because that’s just the kind of strength he has when he pulls on it one-handed), and telling Thug 1 and Thug 2 that he did it. He’s going to ‘Nam. And with a bit of giddiness at the prospect, he gets his group amped up to scare some kids tonight. I mean, it is Halloween, so there’s only two options for everyone out there.
Get treats or get tricked.
Something tells me this group is more into scaring kids with their presence than with any costumes though.
After that we follow a girl (named Stella) riding on the bike that tells her dad she’d rather stay home tonight when he asks if she’s going out with her friends. Highly doubtful. Mainly because holy crap her room is decorated in posters that screams she loves all things horror and why wouldn’t she go out on one of the most horrifying nights where nobody can be trusted with their motives?
Friend 1 (Chuck) then contacts her via the walkie talkie in her room, as well as Friend 2 (Auggie).
Kinda sounds like something from Stranger Things, doesn’t it?
Anyway, they’re trying to get her to come out to get revenge. Like egging and TPing something. There’s also something thrown in about how this could probably be their last time Halloween together. So maybe they’re old enough to go to college next year then? And some of them might be moving away for it? That’s the only thing I can think of. What person grows out of doing things on Halloween when they have friends to do things with?
Next scene is of another character we’ve seen before in his car, glancing at Stella on her bike at the beginning. Possible love interest? Here he’s been given a flyer of some sort about Halloween Horror Double Bill? Something about Terror and Night of the Living Dead. I’m not really sure, but down at the bottom it mentions a theater. A double showing then.
What really sets the mood is the gang of bullies throwing beer bottles at a scarecrow named Harold, then beating it with a bat, right after it had bugs crawling around its face.
Yeah, they’re gonna die.
Harold’s gonna get his revenge on these ninnies.
And that’s the tipping point, basically. What sets everything in motion for the rest of the show. I’m surprised it’s a show, honestly. When I saw the title I figured it was going to be a series to watch. Kind of like Two Sentence Horror Stories was.
Seeing as Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is plural, I was expecting more than one story to happen.
I also didn’t expect much from Chuck in this whole thing, because how can I take a guy seriously when he meets up with a stranger and asks stupid questions with a stupid look on his face.
I mean, really.
I feel like his eyes are going to bug out at some point.
The three protagonists dress up for Halloween, of course. Auggie is what everyone thinks is a clown, but really he’s a pierrot…which is a type of clown. One of those sad ones that everyone mocks. It makes it all believable because he’s pretty upset that nobody understands he’s not a clown…despite being a clown. Chuck was supposed to be Spider-Man, but there was a mix-up and I guess his mom got him a costume that made him basically a man spider. And then Stella goes as a witch, completely overdoing the whole warts ordeal. I mean, most witches only have one major wart on their face, and she’s unlucky enough to have like six of them.
To end her costume, she smears lipstick across her throat in a deadly slash.
Not foretelling at all.
If she doesn’t get her throat slit, I’m going to be disappointed.
The three friends are walking down a street, apparently waiting for Tommy and his thugs to come around for something that they do every year. And Chuck gets excited when he finally sees a Pontiac Catalina rounding the street corner. One of the thugs reaches out and takes the white bag Chuck is holding, thinking it’s candy, but it’s old man undies.
When the car comes to a screeching halt, eggs are thrown at it as well as toilet paper.
Whelp, Tommy’s pissed. The car probably has more sentimental value than the date he has in his passenger seat (who is Chuck’s sister, mind you).
Chuck has one more gift in a bag, and that’s poop he scooped out of a toilet and now lights on fire to throw into the open window of the car. Miraculously it lands on Tommy’s lap, ablaze and astink. The car ends up swerving backwards into someone’s fence, and Tommy screams that he’s gonna murder them.
Another possible foretelling of them dying soon?
They all end up running into a movie showing with cars and climb into the random dude’s car we saw earlier to hide–we finally get his name, Ramon.
After a meet-up with the thugs, they go walking away because they’re in the way of the showing, and here’s the kicker.
Stella asks Ramon if he’d like to go to a haunted house.
Boom, the real story-starter has initiated.
All right, so I gave you that much, up to the trigger point of where the meaty part of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark should begin. Which begs the question of how worthy it is as a horror movie.
It’s kind of funny–not the movie itself–but how certain parts reminded me of some of the books that I read. Nothing happened like in the books I read, because those were all about cannibalism and murderers, but something about them walking through the door of the haunted house made me think of a character swinging an axe around the corner and lopping off a head.
I digress.
There were some jump-scares that got me in this movie. Even though I expected some, I’m surprised they nailed me on a few more.
The actual movie title comes from a book they find in the haunted house, but I still think I would’ve liked it if they made this some kind of series to watch. The book belongs to Sarah Bellows, the daughter of the Bellows’ family who’d been blamed of witchcraft and apparently was stuck in a sealed room of the house.
Where she could write her stories.
Personally, I love a good horror book. My interest piqued at this point. Plus, Stella wants to be a writer, so this book is right up her alley too.
The first story is called Harold, and what Stella reads of the story is basically going to come true–I told you that scarecrow would get his revenge! The writing even has Tommy’s name in it to set it all up as real life.
Which makes me think people get what they deserve when they’ve crossed someone who has the book in their possession? Except the characters in these stories aren’t just the protagonists of the movie.
An interesting concept that’s been done from time to time without ever seeming to get old
The start of the movie was a weird mixture of “Am I going to like this?” to “This is a bit cliche” to “All right, I think this might actually be good aside from the initial cringe.” I’m happy I watched it, because I liked it. I think it’s a nice concept and the stories were interesting enough with how everyone met their end.
It’s got the jump-scares going for it, that’s for sure, and I wasn’t completely horrified like some horror movies do.
FAQ
How did we find this product?
I watched it on Netflix.
