Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: A Scary Good Time

The books were collections of short stories where each story had a different creepy monster. In a genius stroke, the writers of the movie version stuck true to the books by interweaving six of those actual stories into one overall plot. You can expect “Harold,” “The Red Spot,” “The Big Toe,” “The Dream,” “Me Tie Dough-Ty Walker,” and “The Haunted House.”

The overarching plot pulling these stories together is a mix between Nightmare on Elm Street and Goosebumps. It’s stories coming to life to kill people like Goosebumps, but it’s much scarier. While still somewhat family-friendly at PG-13, this is no comedy. The movie is actually quite scary in parts. The main villain, like Freddy in Nightmare on Elm Street, targets the children of the town. While Freddy operates in dreams, and the other kids can often see what’s happening yet are unable to stop it, the villain of this film writes the evil stories as they happen to the children. The others can read what’s happening as it happens but, again, can’t do anything to stop it.

In 1968, on Halloween, a group of teenagers end up going into a supposedly haunted house to check things out.  It’s haunted by the ghost of the insane black sheep of a wealthy family. The girl, Sarah Bellows, would tell stories to kids through the wall from the room she was essentially held captive in. Having hung herself in that room, the ghost story goes she comes back to haunt you if, while in the house, you ask her to tell you a story.

Of course, one of the kids does this and also takes Sarah’s storybook with her when they leave. Naturally, the ghost goes on the attack against every single person that was in the house. Hint: there were six kids in the house, equaling the six stories.

Many of the events of the movie, you will see coming a mile away. There’s really nothing of the horror of the movie that we haven’t seen many times before. However, that doesn’t mean the movie isn’t fun to watch. It definitely is. There are a lot of jump scares, and a couple of the monsters are pretty scary looking. As for originality, you have to remember the movie is telling stories we’ve all heard some form of before. So, it isn’t going to cross new ground. Rather, it’s going to cross ground we all know, love, and are excited to see come to life.

The characters of the movie are fairly well done too, making the viewer sympathize with them and care about what’s happening. A lot of times, in horror movies, there aren’t many redeemable characters or characters aren’t developed very well. So, when they start dying, no one cares. Not so in this movie. While not everyone gets a deep back story, the characterization is done well enough that you’re rooting for them to survive. Even Sarah, the villain of the movie, gets a back story that makes you feel bad for her. So, she’s not entirely “Freddy-ish.”