Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Review

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Dir: André Øvredal

Starring: Zoe Margaret Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Zajur, and Dean Morris

“In the dark and the gloom, it is easy for someone listening to imagine all sorts of strange and scary things.”

Alvin Schwartz’s collection of scary stories for children played a pivotal role for many young horror kids in the 80’s and 90’s. The creepy tales, urban legends, and campfire yarns opened the creaky door to a generation of scary kids who would fill their summer reading lists with short stories about ghosts with bloody fingers, a corpse looking for their lost toe, and hook-armed killers stalking teenagers. It served as a gateway for many young horror fans into the world of the strange, the unusual, and the scary. 

The pivotal novel finds its big screen adaptation at the hands of director André Øvredal, who’s big monster film “Troll Hunter” and unnerving supernatural film “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” seem fitting entries for a filmmaker tackling the eerie yet playful tone found within the short tales in “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark”. 

The film is positioned in 1968, Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti), Auggie (Gabriel Rush), and Chuck (Austin Zajur) are going out on Halloween night with a plan to get revenge on some school bullies. Things take a turn for the worst, a stranger named Ramon (Michael Garza) steps in to protect the group of friends at the drive-in, and before Halloween is over they are all exploring a haunted mansion with a dark town secret. While searching the house, the group stumble onto a collection of books featuring stories from Sarah Bellows, a girl locked away for her entire life by an evil family.

From the opening moments, which features a voiceover that emulates the foreword from the novel, Øvredal establishes an atmosphere that is wholly creepy and mature but very quickly turns tailored for a younger audience. Having a group of young people as the focal point is a great touch, the composition of the friends have a vibe most familiar to “Stranger Things” with interesting touches from films like “Stand by Me” and “The Monster Squad”. It works well in establishing the environment of the film which starts with lighthearted and humorous banter between the group of friends, who have great chemistry with one another, before turning towards the scary elements. The composition of Stella, played nicely by Zoe Margaret Colletti, as a horror movie loving nerd is especially fun.

The screenplay, with a story by Guillermo del Toro that’s scripted by Kevin and Dan Hageman, does the difficult task of adding the overarching narrative with the kids and the haunted house within the anthology of stories from the novel. There are some really strong elements incorporated in parts of the film and a few problematic pieces that glaringly come to light when everything needs to be wrapped up at the end. The strong moments exist with the establishing of the characters and with how the stories from the books come to life in the film, specifically the story of a scarecrow and another about a walking corpse which are both completely creepy. Unfortunately, the film needs to find a conclusion to the story of four friends trying to escape the scary stories of a vengeful spirit, and in the process of maneuvering the twists and turns introduced through the tales of Sarah Bellows, the concluding 30 minutes is lost in its own maze of stories. 

The frights throughout the film have fun building tension with payoffs that are mostly loud jump scares which works until the scares begin to thread on similar ground. The best of the scares work when the film commits to practical effects design, it just feels creepier and more threatening than the computer-generated effects which simply aren’t scary.

“Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” is having a lot of fun tailoring a film for a new generation of fright fans. While some aspects within the script don’t come together so nicely from start to finish, the overall tone feels just spooky enough to open the door for that young horror fan wanting to make the jump into the genre.

Monte’s Rating

3.25 out of 5.00

  

The Shape of Water Review

The Shape of Water

Dir: Guillermo Del Toro

Starring: Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Doug Jones

There has always been something tortured yet romantic about the characters in Guillermo Del Toro’s films. Whether the plight of a little girl who escapes her war torn existence by discovering a fantasy world in “Pans Labyrinth”, the fascination of an old man who finds a destructive device that will give the owner eternal life in “Cronos”, or the wandering earthbound red demon who is trying to find acceptance in the human world in “Hellboy”, Mr. Del Toro handles fantasy, horror, action, drama, and comedy with characters that are traversing the struggles of their tortured existence but also approaching it with an abundance of love and passion.

These same sentiments could be distinguished towards Mr. Del Toro’s enchantments with filmmaking, mixing his fandom and artistic capabilities with stories that are many times combinations of the best and worst aspects of reality and fantasy. “The Shape of Water” is the director’s crowing achievement, a film that composes all the influences that have shaped and molded the auteur’s work over his entire career. 

In 1960’s Baltimore a research facility has just received a mysterious creature prime for experimentation. Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) has captured this monster (Doug Jones), an amphibious humanoid with sharp teeth and webbed extremities. Strickland, who carries an electric cattle prod, maintains a torturous hand over the creature while awaiting instruction from his government contacts. Elisa, a nighttime cleaner for the facility who is also mute, stumbles into a violent mess that puts her face to face with the creature. Where the scientists and government officials see a monster, Elisa sees something wholly different.

Guillermo Del Toro gathers his influences from numerous places like classic film, folklore, culture, literature…the list is vast. “The Shape of Water” will resemble the Universal monster movie “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” but only on the surface level characterizations. Here the director lavishes in atmosphere and composes characters in a central story that are longing for an escape, even if only for a moment at a time.

Sally Hawkins and Doug Jones, beneath impressive practical effects, craft an enchanted love story that is built upon expression and movement. Their relationship starts with a chance encounter, one that opens an empathetic door for Elisa to help the creature. This blossoms, wordless, over the sharing of food and the experience of music. Ms. Hawkins and Mr. Jones operate these characters as if in the middle of a complicated dance, the film actually succumbs to this indulgence in a beautiful moment. Ms. Hawkins, with her quiet yet powerful demeanor and striking eyes, provides a performance that is filled with affection. Mr Jones, even underneath extensive makeup, moves with sensitivity. 

The always dependable, and completely intriguing in nearly everything the actor does, Michael Shannon shows up to the play the villain. But, as with most of Mr. Del Toro’s work, the antagonist is painted with as much complexity as the protagonist. Mr. Shannon embodies the realism of the world with the character, the normalcy of the era but also the deviance that exists within it. The gender abuse with the dominance that men have over women at this specific time, both the emotional and physical abuse, are displayed through Strickland’s demeanor in his bright suburban home and within his professional home in the gloomy depths of the facility. It’s a reflective touch that is unfortunately timely in the present day. 

Del Toro composes all the characters with an arc that has a beginning and end, even small characters like the ones played by Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins are offered moments to shine. These stories further accommodate and enrich the journey Elisa is going through. It’s a difficult feat to fit these secondary characters so seamlessly into such an already dense character driven story, but Del Toro accomplishes this with ease.

The director has proven throughout many films that he can find beauty in even the darkest of places, so when something so tender and touching is on display, as it is in “The Shape of Water”, the film is filled to the edges with elegance. While in some moments these stylings have the tendency to be a tad overbearing, it’s nonetheless exquisite to watch. The film feels texturally like a mix of a film noir, classic horror, and a musical all at once. The camera moves with the fluidity one would feel while watching water flow and splashes with greens and blues that resemble being underwater. 

“The Shape of Water” is visually stunning and filled with excellent performances. Guillermo Del Toro composes another fairytale, this time with a romantic touch that permeates far beyond  the premise might suggest. It is movie magic at its finest.

Monte’s Rating

4.50 out of 5.00