Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark [Blu-ray]

We've waited a long time to finally see this, mainly because I could never find it anywhere and Amazon was always sold out. I have 5 kids ages 5-15. We watch scary and action movies often, never anything over PG-13. This was definitely one of the more scarier ones we've seen. It was too scary for my 5 and 12 year old (they ended up leaving and going to play video games upstairs halfway through), but perfectly awesome for my 7, 10, and 15 year old. I've read the reviews that says this is full of "leftist propaganda". It did concern me a bit because we are a conservative family, but after watching it I'm left confused. I believe they may have been referring to the few instances of racism towards a Hispanic individual, but you've got to remember it's 1968 and in a very small town. That kind of stuff happened so I feel it was realistic. They may have stretched it a bit but I don't feel it was leftist or propaganda in any way. It wasn't excessive and didn't take away from the movie. I appreciated the nostalgic recreation of the characters and stories in the books we used to read as kids. They did a great job with that, imo. If you're used to rated R gory/scary then this may not be scary to you. If you're used to spooky then this will be scary. We will add it to our list of movies to watch in October in preparation for Halloween. I was pleasantly surprised. Overall a good movie and one we will watch again.

Excellent movie. Would recommend.

I thought they did a pretty good job bringing some of the classic stories into this. They brought the classic stories to the screen very well. Some of the scenes were creepy, and have a lot of good build up. Some of the creatures are fantastic looking. My only real gripe, which has become an annoyance for me with some of these newer horror movies... The "startle" scares. These are cheap and add nothing to the movie. This is another movie that likes to drop the dialogue volume down to nothing, then suddenly you're hit with +20db loud noises, sometimes they're not even part of a monster scare. It's just loud for the sake of being loud. - This is a cheap way to get scares in a movie, and it doesn't count. Quit being lazy. This movie didn't need them. Easily a 4 star movie without the startle scares. The atmosphere and build-up were good enough. Edit: I went back and updated my rating to 4 stars. We've watched this movie several more times and it gets better with every viewing. I can look passed the very few LOUD NOISE startle scares. The meat of this movie is downright delicious.

This movie arrived in great condition and played perfectly on my player. The 4K resolution and the sound were excellent. Like "Trick r Treat" and "Sleepy Hollow" it's likely destined to be one of the few movies like the original "Holloween" to become a classic Holloween movie tradition. And why not when it's a Guillermo del Toro project, like his top movie projects "The Devil's Backbone," Pan's Labyrinth," "Crimson Peak," Oscar-winning "The Shape of Water," and more as well as the series "The Strain." While somewhat suspenseful at times like "Trick r Treat" and "Sleepy Hollow," it's not a "horror" film like the slasher "Holloween" movies are considered to be, with questionable horror scenes that bring as many or more laughs and feelings of satisfaction as horror reactions and are typically low budget, poorly written and directed, and somewhat cheesy, lacking originality and made with low quality cameras and sound equipment. You won't find that here and if looking for true "horror," don't bother buying it and then complaining about it afterward like a number of reviewers did for this movie. Instead, like "Trick r Treat" this benefits from a very original plot, and like it and "Sleepy Hollow," is highly engaging, well-directed and written, with very good special effects, resolution, and sound that benefit from rather expensive productions. This movie does lack well-known actors, but it didn't need them as they were well-chosen for their roles and well-directed. The original "Holloween" is an anomaly that deserves credit. However, one wonders if the lead role had went to a typical little-known actress but without the same acting ability and subsequent success and exposure of Jamie Lee Curtis--where the movie and its slew of bad sequels would stand today.

Okay, so like a good number of people I was excited for this movie because I loved the books as a kid. This could have easily been a fantastic horror anthology a la "Creepshow" or "Twilight Zone: The Movie" but for whatever reason, they decided to thread all the stories together in a narrative. The monsters in this film essentially serve no reason exist other then to tie the books together with the movie. "Hey, remember that story about the spiders? Here it is!" "Hey remember that story about the monster coming down the chimney? Look, here it is!" The storyline itself is boilerplate horror movie fare: kids find a spooky house, one of them invokes the magical macguffin of the film, bad things happen, now its up to the kids to fix all the things. There is political pandering, but I wouldn't go so far as to say as its "propaganda" but some topics feels very shoehorned in there. One character is of Mexican descent and the movie decides to throw in racial tensions in there for the first 30 minutes before the movie largely forgets about it and the actor has nothing to do than be the sidekick to the "misunderstood nerdy girl" trope character. Also the movie is set, for some reason, in the year 1968 around Nixon's election so the movie makes passing mentions to Nixon and the Vietnam War. This doesn't serve anything to the plot except to make an inference about as well developed as saying "War is Bad and Scary and Nixon was a Meanie" before jumping back into kids being terrorized by supernatural entities. But I digress - the horror elements are... okay. The effects on the monster is mostly done well, but some of the CGI feels a bit underwhelming. Despite the cast being mostly kids, the movie does show some violent acts being depicted upon them, but nothing terribly gratuitous. Also, just in case there are parents more worried about language than on-screen violence (and I know there are who exist), there is a fair amount of expletives being used. Again, if you're a horror movie fan, its nothing really outstanding, but I thought I'd mention since this is, after all, a movie based after a kids book series. I won't spoil the ending of the film, but if you're familiar with how other Del Toro monster movies depict the creature antagonists like the creature from "Mama," then you won't be terribly surprised how this all plays out. It's not terrible, but it felt very predictable. tl;dr - This is a rental at best - then go buy the original book trilogy which you will probably enjoy exponentially more than this movie.

Nice

I'll admit, I originally click on this as "just something to watch" based on the high rating. I expected to just 'let it play in the background' as I did other things however it ended up pulling me in. How pleasantly surprised I was at how very good it is. The "story behind the story" is a bit of a trope, but the film doesn't focus on it or try to give it a new spin. The main plot is not new but still somehow feels fresh. The acting is quite good (with one or two exceptions). And the end, while not a surprise, is done very well. Overall a great movie.

The movie itself was great! I love the unique setting and takes on all the short stories while making them fit into the setting. The special effects are excellent, and I like the military draft subplot. The ghost girl story was a little weird, but it worked enough to give context for the stories existing in this world. If you've read the original books and thought they were scary, you'll like it more. Other than that, the only issue I can say is that it's not too scary, with its PG-13 rating, so it's pretty soft compared to other movies.