Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark | Film Review

Hey Guys x

I knew practically nothing about this movie before I went to see it last night, but I'm a sucker for a good horror movie, and anything that has 'scary' in the title can't be that bad, surely? Especially anything with Guillermo Del Toro's name attached!

Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti) and her friends break into an old haunted house with a terrifying history on Halloween. Once inside, they find a book of scary stories belonging to one of the home's former residents. However, these scary stories seem to have a habit of coming true. But can Stella discover the source of the stories, and the true intent behind them, before she loses everyone she loves?

As I said, I didn't know anything about the film. But going off of the fact that Guillermo Del Toro is heavily involved in it, the trailer (which was great, if a bit spoilery) and some of the reviews online, I went in with high expectations. And while I liked the film, I didn't like it as much as I wanted to.

One of the best things about the film was the originality of it. Anyone complaining about the current remake and reboot trend in Hollywood right now should definitely watch this film. It's based on a book of the same name, but you can't ignore the originality of the premise. It completely ignores the usual horror tropes, and it was really refreshing to see the different paths that the film took. It's the kind of film that reminds me why I love horror so much.

For the most part, it had really great characters. Particularly Stella and her friendship group: Ramon (Michael Garza), Chuck (Austin Zajur) and Auggie (Gabriel Rush) who were all really fun characters to watch.
And in addition to this, I really loved the fact that the film was filled with relatively unknown actors. And by this I don't mean actors who have never worked before, but actors who aren't mainstream or popular, bringing in money. I loved this so much because I love finding new actors and talent to obsess over. And it really allowed me to sink into the world of the film without seeing a really notable face pop up every other second.

The movie was also really well written and directed. And by this, I don't mean the dialogue or anything, but literally the story and what the characters do. I don't know how much of the source material was used in the movie, but I can totally see why it was chosen for a big-screen adaptation, because the story itself was great.

But then, there were a few things about the film that weren't great.

For a start, while the 'monsters' and the stories that surrounded them were really original, they were a bit bland. For the creatures, the film relies heavily on jumpscares, because once the scare has happened, the creatures are no longer scary. And in one of the scenes where they didn't use jumpscares and just tried to rely on fear (The Red Room, for anyone that's seen it) it didn't really work. You could see that the character was scared, but you don't feel scared yourself.

And with that, comes the fact that it just wasn't a particularly scary movie. The premise is great, and there were some fantastic jump scares. But the problem is that the horror of the film is based on things that are personal to the characters. Because those things are made up, and don't mean anything to the audience, it's hard to actually be scared by them.

In addition to this, in the UK this film has a 15 certificate, and it definitely feels like it was geared towards a younger audience. It didn't feel like that in the beginning, but as the film went on the creatures got more and more childish and funny, rather than scary.

And while I said that the film is really original, the one classic annoying horror trope that they kept was the group of people who do stupid things and don't know how to mind their business. The entirety of the film could have been avoided if the characters didn't do stupid things, and that was really annoying.

Lastly, the film was let down by the ending, and the reveal of the truth behind the stories. The true reason felt a bit convoluted and unnecessary (why were the kids targeted?). But in the ending, without giving anything away, I expected certain things to be reversed due to the severity of how they happened in the film, so it was disappointing when they weren't.

Overall, this was a good film and I would definitely recommend it, even though there were things about it that I didn't love. Plus, I have to support original stories, particularly in my favourite genre!

7.5/10

Lou