'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark': Film Review

  • 📰 THR
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 51 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 24%
  • Publisher: 53%

Entertainment Entertainment Headlines News

Entertainment Entertainment Latest News,Entertainment Entertainment Headlines

Guillermo del Toro came up with the screen story for this lackluster adaptation of Alvin Schwartz's popular children's horror books.

The late author Alvin Schwartz's "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" series — three books in total, each comprised of between 25 and 29 tales that mostly run a page or two — have captivated children since the first volume's publication in 1981. They've also, due to their macabre subject matter and eerie illustrations by Stephen Gammell, drawn ire from prudish adults.

The cleverest conceit is to give the "stories" themselves their own origin. They're the product of a vengeful spirit named Sarah Bellows , who writes them in blood within a cursed tome. If you're the subject of the tale, your doom is assured. As one of our petrified protagonists notes, "The book reads you!"

It's all rather ineffective window dressing , though give del Toro credit for at least mentioning 'Nam where Quentin Tarantino cheekily and recklessly effaced it from his own 1960s head trip,however, for setting a scene at a drive-in showing and reformatting that film's 1.37 aspect ratio to a modern-era friendly 1.78. Sacrilege! We'll call the needle-dropping of "Season of the Witch" by Donovan a draw.

All of these beasties are "scary." Though they'd be much more so if they felt less like franchisable IP and more like fervent expressions of the ills of the eras on which the film aims to comment.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 411. in ENTERTAİNMENT

Entertainment Entertainment Latest News, Entertainment Entertainment Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' to Feature Lana Del Rey's 'Season of the Witch' CoverLana Del Rey to cover 'Season of the Witch' for ScaryStoriesMov ScaryStoriesMov LEGEND ScaryStoriesMov BrookeHenige THIS IS IMPORTANT
Source: THR - 🏆 411. / 53 Read more »