Writer(s): Dan and Kevin Hageman, and Guillermo del Toro, from a story by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton. Based on the books by Alvin Schwartz.
Starring: Zoe Margaret Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, and Dean Norris
I can't think of another
book series that summed up my childhood more than the “Scary
Stories to Tell in the Dark” trilogy. The stories were pretty
creepy on their own, but it was the infamous illustrations by Stephen
Gammell that took them from merely creepy, to utterly terrifying. And
it wasn't just me that thought that: so frightening are the images,
that after years of increasing scrutiny, the books were re-issued
with less disturbing artwork to appease the apparently growing number
of concerned parents. (And were then re-issued with the original
artwork when there was a growing number of protests to the new images
in a rather odd about-face).
Naturally, when I heard they
were going to be adapted into a movie, I was pretty leery of the
whole idea, and the more and more information that came out did
little to alleviate that (not an anthology, PG-13, etc.). This wasn't
just a movie, this was more or less a piece of my childhood that was
going to be displayed on the big screen. And when that happens, no
matter how hard you try, it's virtually impossible to head into it
with an unbiased viewpoint. This is material I have sifted over
dozens of times, with both words images that have been permanently
ingrained in my memory from so many years before.
The one thing it had going
for it was the director, Andre Øvredal, the man responsible for Troll
Hunters and the Autopsy of Jane Doe, both of which are
fantastic examples of the fantasy/horror genres, respectively. I
still wasn't completely sold on the idea that even he could pull it
off, but he was a better pick than just about everyone else that
sprang to mind.
The thin plot finds a group
of teenagers who sneak into a haunted house, and discover a book
written by the previous tenant: a girl named Sarah Bellows who was
tortured, and used that trauma as motivation to turn her life into a
book of scary stories. Of course, the teens find the hidden chamber
housing the book, and double of course the leader of the group, a
redhead girl named Stella, decides to take the book home; this
doesn't sit too well with Sarah's restless, vengeful spirit. As the
helpless kids will soon discover, the twisted tales did not end after
her death, and one-by-one they find themselves starring in stories
written by a vengeful ghost from beyond the grave, from which there
seems to be no escape...
As much as I despise the
idea of using the stories within a linear narrative, rather than as
separate stories in an anthology, there are moments in Øvredal's film
when he really manages to make the idea work. Actually, he makes it
work for about the first hour, with a variety of the familiar tales I
read so much as a kid playing out in sometimes surprisingly gruesome
ways (at least, as far as PG-13 rated films are concerned). The
problem is that once the focus on the individual stories is gone, and
the threadbare story connecting them all together—in other words,
what should be the “filler” story--takes center stage, it doesn't
take long for the project to sputter to a grinding halt...and
unfortunately at that point there's still somewhere around an hour
left.
And boy is that last hour a
chore to sit through, giving me ample time to piece together a
comprehensive list of some of the things that went wrong. Here's a
list of some of the more egregious issues:
- The looseness of the story adaptations. You would think that being based on a book where the stories are literally only two or three pages, on average, the stories could at least be accurately adhered to. But, very few are straightforward adaptations: many of the stories are blended together, almost completely reworked, or even incoherent as-is. For example, a chapter on “The Haunted House” is started near the end, but is nothing at all like the actual “Haunted House” story from the book. In an even weirder “twist”, the terrifying creature from “The Haunted House” story appears as the ghost looking for her lost toe in “The Big Toe”, which is a completely separate story. Huh? Why?
- Confusing target demographics. Most movies play to their audiences, which is no secret. But what is confusing is just who this movie happens to be targeting: the PG-13 rating certainly suggests a teenaged crowd, but the original source material will probably be lost on most of them (which might be a good thing, as they have nothing to compare them to). Meanwhile, the nearly two-hour run time will make it a marathon for just about any possible target audience it's trying to win over. Making matters more confusing is the dark material, gross effects, and shocking number of swear words that honestly make things feel like it's literally one drop of blood away from an “R” rating. It's like that friend that so desperately wants to be liked by everyone that they adhere to everyone else's thoughts of them, rather than being their own person. What they should have done—and maybe they have—is make a PG-13 theatrical cut, and then have an R-rated version for DVD; considering producer Guillermo del Toro has pretty much stated from the outset they were going for a PG-13 rating, though, it's highly unlikely that this will happen.
- Overreliance on CGI effects. Despite his meager directing credentials, which consist of six completed credits (one of them being a short film), I would almost consider Øvredal to be a master director based on the strength of his latest two offerings (this one exempted). That's what makes the final twenty or so minutes of Scary Stories, which feature an obviously computer-generated creature that is a loose blending of two separate “Scary Stories” creatures as a “final boss” of sorts, so ferociously disappointing. Sure, there are other blatant moments of CGI peppered throughout, but they're generally quick sequences that, while hokey, aren't protracted enough to really tarnish the material. All of that is thrown out the window with the end baddie, which is so bad that I can't see anyone but the youngest of children—or most squeamish of teenagers—being able to take it with an even remote sense of seriousness.
- The deeply-political setting. The stories in the book were all based on folklore, so they were existing stories that, in many cases, were passed down from generation to generation for sometimes hundreds of years. The book's author, Alvin Schwartz, compiled all of them, whittled them down to their barest of essentials, and presented them as a horror book for children. With this in mind, this movie could have been set at any time and place while still being considered a faithful adaptation. And yet, of all time periods, it takes place in 1968, during the peak intensity of both the civil rights era, and the presidential election. But why? Despite frequent shots of the election in full swing, and a character being called a “wet back”, none of it plays any meaningful role in the film whatsoever, aside from maybe just serving as an education lesson to kids that these things happened? It just seems completely out-of-place in a “kids” film, where none of the events have any actual ties to either of those things.
- A solid beginning. This might not sound like a bad thing, but when all of your good ideas are used up by the midway point, it really does make every poor idea that ensues all the more frustrating. Look at it this way: If it was consistently bad throughout, it might have a chance at working in a campy, cheesy kind of way, where it's so awful it's at least entertaining. But once you give your audience a taste of greatness—and in the process, prove that you're not an incompetent idiot—then rapidly abandon everything that made it good to begin with in favor of strictly following a tired, by-the-numbers formula, all of the disappointment is magnified.
This isn't to suggest that
there are no redeeming qualities. In fact, there are some things to
like here: The make-up effects are brilliant, and on the rare
occasions a monster from the book makes an appearance, they look
amazingly accurate to Gammell's original drawings. There's also the
issue of this being a rather large, highly-marketed film, which means
chances are pretty good that there were massive amounts of studio
interference guiding the film in ways that Øvredal would not have
done on his own.
The acting is also up there
on par with recent shows like “Stranger Things” (which seems to
have been an inspiration here, especially in the groan-inducing
ending that functions as concrete evidence that, despite all the dark
imagery, this is an adaptation lacking bite), with the teenaged
actors giving mostly impressive performances across the board. And
that's no small feat: even as my interest went from “10” to “0”,
and as every predictable story thread was revealed and everything
started unraveling at such a rapid rate that my heart virtually
dropped into my stomach, the acting was never a cause of annoyance
for me.
Really, Øvredal seems to
have done the best that he could do with the source material, which
was deeply flawed to begin with: it all comes down to the godawful
story, which wouldn't have given anyone a chance to succeed behind
the camera. It starts off great, but once it goes off the rails, it
does so with such gusto and fervor that nothing—including one of
the most talented horror directors working today—could possibly save it.
But damn was that first half
promising.
OVERALL: 4/10
TRAILER
