SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK WANTS TO TELL YOU A STORY

 Better late than never, I suppose.

In Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, the year is 1968, and the setting is a small town named Mill Valley in Pennsylvania. On Halloween night, a group of friends (Zoe Margaret Colletti as Stella, Michael Garza as Ramon, Austin Zajur as Chuck, Gabriel Rush as Auggie, and Natalie Ganzhorn as Ruthie) break into an old haunted house while trying to escape from some bullies. Once inside, they stumble across a diary by Sarah Bellows, the town urban legend and alleged evil witch. When Stella takes the diary home and begins reading the stories within, her and her friends find themselves becoming the stars of new stories that Sarah has written just for them. As her friends slowly begin to be absorbed within their respective tales (disappearing as a result), Stella and what remains of her gang will have to find a way to end the stories and stop Sarah's wrath.

Surprisingly, this is actually a pretty cool flick. It's set in 1968 on Halloween and the days immediately following said holiday. The characters we follow have minimal development, but the focus here is on the scares, the creatures, and a surprising mystery involving a long-dead supposed witch who is responsible for penning the titular book, as well as a rash of child murders.

Our leads are all likable enough (with my favorite being Austin Zajur as Chuck), the atmosphere is rich at times, the creature designs are super-cool and freaky, and the film manages to be very creepy (My favorite portion was the one with Harold the Scarecrow). It's certainly odd that the flick wasn't released closer to the haunting season, as Scary Stories makes for a perfectly acceptable Halloween-time watch. There's also a last minute message that feels shoe-horned in but is still timely and appreciated.

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark is definitely one of the better PG-13 horror films. It's guaranteed to freak out it's teen demographic and will undoubtedly get them talking (I foresee many late night spooky story sessions inspired by the film). Scary Stories will also likely get kids to grab copies of the titular Scary Stories book series the film was adapted from and inspired by. I know if I saw this when I was a teen, it would have easily become one of my new jams. Yes, that's a recommendation.

3.5 STARS