SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK MOVIE REVIEW

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark Review: In 1968, the small American town of Mill Valley has a spooky house rumoured to be haunted. On Halloween, a group of teenagers decides to check out the mansion when they come across a book filled with scary stories. Stella, (Zoe Margaret Colletti) takes the book with her, and as she begins to read it, she realises the scary stories in the book have actually happened. If that wasn’t bad enough, they are now being written in real-time and, the stories are about them. From this point on, none of the teens is safe as each of them gets attacked by monsters.

Although there’s nothing unique about this premise, it still sounds like a decent setup for a scary film. Director Andre Ovredal tries to create an emotional backstory for these teens, and he achieves that to some extent with Stella and her father Roy (Dean Norris). But we don’t learn much about the others, and whatever little character development there is, doesn’t have much consequence eventually. As a result, the whole setup takes a while to get going, and it doesn’t help that the cast isn’t too convincing either. Zoe Margaret Colletti does her best as Stella, but it’s not enough to relate to her. This results in pacing issues, although the climax picks up.

The VFX is pretty solid as well. But certain scenes are underlit as the makers try to establish a gloomy atmosphere, and it ends up being distracting instead. The film’s creature/ monster designs are terrifying which shouldn’t come as a surprise since producer and co-writer Guillermo Del Toro knows a thing or two about horrific monsters. Due to the lack of character development though, you might not care too much if the teens survive the encounters with them. The screenplay ends up as a jumble of unexplored ideas onscreen rather than a cohesive narrative. However, if you only enjoy horror films for creepy monsters, you’ll manage to get a kick or two.

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