A review of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

This was written by Gabe, one of our summer interns. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue.

(mild spoilers)
For a movie based off a book series full of short urban legends and local folklore, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ties the five independent stories into a surprisingly cohesive narrative. Featuring “Harold,” “The Big Toe,” “The Red Spot,” “The Pale Lady,” and “Me Tie Dough-ty Walker,” Scary Stories follows a group of friends in 1968 living in Mill Valley, Pennsylvania, haunted by a mystic force with a magic book. If that sounds cheesy, it’s because it is. 

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is not terribly scary, but it never was. The illustrations were always more haunting than the stories themselves. “Harold” is terrifying: a scarecrow that comes alive and skins two farmers and stretches them across the roof is terrifying, but the illustration of a disjointed, rotting, old scarecrow is so much worse. “Wonderful Sausage” is creepy and strange, but a hand pulling a piece of its forearm off with a fork is gross. The movie understands this, and Guillermo del Toro respects the source material, so all the creatures are haunting and genuinely unsettling.

Horror movies are seldom about the plot though. The Fly (1986) is accepted in most circles as an allegory for the growing AIDS crisis of the time. The body horror, the fear of passing the strange disease to a child, and the outcast persona of the main character all point towards the fears of the times. It’s what horror as a genre does best: create discussion about real problems through fake ones. It Follows (2014) is about STDs too, most easily seen in the sexual nature of the monster. 

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is no different. It’s about the Vietnam War. The facts that it takes place in 1968 and that one of the main characters, Ramon, is a draft dodger point heavily to the theory. Ramon’s fear about returning home in pieces from Vietnam like his older brother was (and still is) a very real fear for folks going to war. The film is often interspliced with shots of Nixon commenting on the war and how well it’s going for the US. 

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is everything you’d expect out of a horror movie: it has jumpscares; it has dialogue that can lean towards cheesy; it has a straightforward, predictable plot; and it uses all of that and more to create a story about telling the truth against a lying authority with the Vietnam War as the backdrop.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I recommend watching it with friends, and I recommend watching it as a comedy, because all horror movies are better when you laugh at everything that’s happening.