With Writer/producer Guillermo del Toro's fingerprints all over its horror/fantasy DNA, SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK is a scream.
The film opens near Halloween day in 1968, with a small group of teenagers discovering a very dangerous diary in the town's legendary haunted house.
Stella (the terrific Zoe Colletti) is the reclusive, quietest of the bunch, perfectly content to stay home on Halloween.
Gabriel Rush (The Grand Budapest Hotel) is her shy buddy Auggie, Austin Abrams is the clown of the bunch and Chuck and Ruth Steinberg round out the friends, well played by Austin Zajur and Natalie Ganzhorn.
Exploring the small town's haunted house, they find the diary of Sarah, a long rumored dead girl in the mansion.
The book begins to write its own horror stories, all centered around them or people they know in the town.
For anyone that read the classic young adult book in the past few decades, del Toro and his production team bring ALL the creatures and horrors to life off the page seamlessly.
The stories feature killer scarecrows, determined corpses, endless hordes of spiders crawling out of a face, and a wickedly hideous creature that seems mighty hungry.
The young cast is up for the challenge, especially Michael Garza (Hunger Games) as a young migrant worker drawn into the group by bad fortune.
There are plenty of loud bumps and scares, all of the PG-13 horror variety, but effective and enjoyable without every delving into graphic/gross territory. (I mean, I already mentioned spiders crawling out of a face, so you'll have to apply your own internal gross out meter here-LOL).
Fans that grew up with this book or Goosebumps are very likely to have a great time.
I'll give it a grin inducing B-.
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