Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, review: Stays true to the books but forgets that horror is a genre of allegories

While it’s a loving and faithful adaptation of Alvin Schwartz’s short stories, it gets lost in its attempt to wrap the whole thing up in a neat metaphor

Dir: Andre Ovredal. Starring: Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Abrams, Dean Norris, and Gil Bellows. 15 cert, 107 mins

There are those among us who feel a chill go down their spine at the very mention of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Alvin Schwartz’s collections of short horror stories, paired with ghoulish illustrations by Stephen Gammell, seared themselves into the imaginations of many a young mind over the years. Stuffed with decapitated limbs and rotting corpses, they pushed the boundaries of children’s fiction and made their readers think they’d come across something truly forbidden. The film, directed by Trollhunter’s Andre Ovredal, is a loving and faithful adaptation, even if it gets lost in its attempt to wrap the whole thing up in a neat metaphor.

Most crucially, Ovredal’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark has been given the blessing of horror maestro Guillermo del Toro, who acts as a producer. For years, the director has helped nurture smaller projects and his name is attached to several gems, including The Orphanage and Julia’s Eyes. Del Toro’s influence on the production is clear, since there’s a sharp sense of detail when it comes to the film’s monsters. It’s true of the corpse on the hunt for its missing toe and of the pale, naked lady with her inviting smile. Each is rendered as a close copy of the original illustration, brought to life by talented performers such as Javier Botet, whose mastery of the physicality of his characters brought pure terror to the likes of It and The Conjuring 2.

There’s also a healthy dose of Gothic atmosphere. Set in 1968, the film centres on a group of teens who break into an abandoned, reputedly haunted house and come across a mysterious book. It’s said to have been written by Sarah Bellows, the daughter of a wealthy paper mill owner, who spent most of her life locked in the basement. It also seems to have a mind of its own and, soon, Sarah’s stories start to come to life. As each gruesome episode begins, a shadowy hand brushes over the scene. Someone is playing a game, but the reasons behind it are a mystery to the game’s victims. And, while there are scares galore, the film stays true to the source material’s younger-skewing audience and never lets things get too gory.

At the heart of this adaptation, penned by Dan and Kevin Hageman, is the power of storytelling itself. “Stories heal, stories hurt,” the film’s aspiring writer, Stella (Zoe Colletti), muses. If we repeat certain stories enough, they become true. Yet, there’s such a deliberate effort to impose this theme on every aspect of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark that it soon loses its potency. Everything starts to feel strained. You can barely get through a scene without a shot of a TV or a poster alluding to Nixon’s campaign for the presidency, built on a falsified narrative that promised “peace with honour” in Vietnam. Horror is a genre of allegories and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark does itself no favours in making everything so literal. It repeatedly spells out how we should feel about Stella’s guilt over her mother’s abandonment of the family and why a kid called Ramon (Michael Garza) appears to be sleeping in his car. It also brings attention to any unnecessary detours, particularly the sudden dip into the world of voodoo, which adds nothing to the story and relies on the old tropes of wise and mystical black characters in horror.

The film is at its very best when the narrative fades into the background and the monsters take over. It’s also striking in the moments between the dialogue, when we can sit back and take in the world that Ovredal has crafted with such care. Events take place both during the literal autumn and during the autumn years of the 1960s, with every frame rich with the feeling of fading innocence. The sky is still bright blue (an exaggerated blue, in fact, that’s reminiscent of the twisted fairytale worlds of Tim Burton), but the streets are far from bustling and are littered with dead leaves. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is a wonderful tribute to Schwartz’s work, if only it didn’t struggle so much in finding its own voice.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is released in UK cinemas on 23 August