31 Days of Halloween: Scary Scary Stories

“Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) ******* (7 out of 10 stars)

Director: André Øvredal
Producers: Guillermo del Toro, Sean Daniel, Jason F. Brown, J. Miles Dale, Elizabeth Grave
Starring: Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Zajur, Natalie Ganzhorn

“Some people believe that if we repeat stories often enough, they become real. They make us who we are. That can be scary.” — Stella Nicholls

Review: Ah, dear reader… there are tales, and then there are tales. Some are whispered around campfires, others scribbled in dusty tomes. But every so often, one crawls out of the shadows and asks to be seen. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is such a tale—a cinematic séance that beckons the spirits of childhood fears and dares them to dance.

I approached this film with the wary eye of a seasoned horror hound and the nostalgic heart of a boy who truly loved to read a scary book beneath the covers, flashlight trembling.I originally suspected it was an anthology, though entertaining, often suffer from inconsistent story telling. What I found was not a mere adaptation of twice stepped-on tales, but a conjuring. Øvredal, with del Toro’s spectral fingerprints all over the celluloid, has summoned a film that feels like a haunted scrapbook—each page a monster, each turn a memory.

The story unfolds in Mill Valley, 1968—a town cloaked in autumn and secrets. A group of teens, led by the earnest and haunted Stella, stumble upon a book that doesn’t just tell stories… it writes them. And once your name is inked, your fate is sealed. The monsters—Harold the Scarecrow, the Pale Lady, the Jangly Man—are not just grotesque; they are artifacts of fear, lovingly sculpted from the nightmares of illustrator Stephen Gammell’s original work.

The film is not gore-soaked nor relentlessly terrifying. It is, instead, a gateway—a haunted hallway for younger viewers and a nostalgic echo for those of us who remember the chill of being terrified by the skilled handiwork of a gifted storyteller weaving their stories in the dark. It captures the adolescent ache of being misunderstood, of fearing the dark not just outside, but within.

Zoe Colletti’s Stella is a revelation—fragile yet fierce, a girl who knows the power of stories and the danger of being forgotten. The supporting cast brings charm and chaos, and the town itself feels like a character—its rustling cornfields and boarded-up mansions whispering secrets long buried.

So yes, I recommend it. Not as a masterpiece of horror, but as a love letter to the genre’s younger ghosts. Watch it with the lights low, and perhaps—just perhaps—don’t read aloud from any old books you find in the attic. Some stories, after all, are waiting to be written… in blood.