Movie Review: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
The 2019 film season continues to be less than stellar for me so I haven’t been excited enough about the current film offerings to make the effort to hit the theaters. The constant reminders that I haven’t posted anything recently had me put out a call for suggestions. Shout out to Robert Howard for heeding the call and suggesting Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. With another week of brutal temps ahead and Guillermo del Toro being involved in the screenplay, sounds like the perfect time to hit the theater.
First things first, Scary Stories certainly isn’t breaking any new ground or moving the horror genre forward into some new territory. It’s quite predictable and familiar to even the most casual of horror viewers. Nonetheless, after a somewhat slow start, this 108 minute period film delivers on entertainment and is visually rich and acts as a cautionary tale against trespassing, breaking & entering, petty larceny, and eating food that miraculously appears in your refrigerator. Not to mention leaving suspect reading material alone.
With the exception of Dean Norris all the principle actors are unknown to me. The young cast was fine and their acting serviceable (they avoided the lame/obnoxious kid trap thankfully), but overall nothing to get overly excited about. Best acting moment for me is the laugh-out-loud one liner by Chief Turner. Made the film for me.
No, the real joy of Scary Stories definitely lies in the CGI work and the creatures. They deliver next level creepy and take the spine tingling in this PG-13 film to the next level. They have del Toro written all over them and they doesn’t disappoint. Great adaptations of the original source material.
A little more dark/scary than Goosebumps, not as scary as IT, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark falls somewhere in between on the “jack up some kids” scale. Not a bad way to get out of the heat and spend some time in the movie theater. Glad I went, and thanks again for the recommendation Robert. I’m giving this one a 7.5 and look forward to the sequel.
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