Read Negative User Reviews for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

2

msl555Aug 10, 2019

If loud noises amd jump scares are your thing, then this is for you. If however you were hoping for real scares, your completely out of luck. A story that makes zero sense. cardboard cut out characters and Saturday morning cartoonishIf loud noises amd jump scares are your thing, then this is for you. If however you were hoping for real scares, your completely out of luck. A story that makes zero sense. cardboard cut out characters and Saturday morning cartoonish monsters.Poorly directed, badly edited, weakly acted, all from a poor screenplay.… Expand

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2

TrevorsViewAug 16, 2019

Think about darkness… if a noise creaks, your imagination takes over… termites perhaps? Or maybe a burglar? Nothing will be known for certain unless you leave the comfortable bed to turn a light on, maneuvering around things on the floor onThink about darkness… if a noise creaks, your imagination takes over… termites perhaps? Or maybe a burglar? Nothing will be known for certain unless you leave the comfortable bed to turn a light on, maneuvering around things on the floor on the way. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark sounds like it would take on an anthology film format like Creepshow and Twilight Zone. It sounds like the key experience to feel sucked into exactly what makes the dark so scary. Wrong. It instead imitates the exact same genre familiarity without taking any creative risks, which is too bad, because if this was an anthology film, it would be more than another “young victims get killed off one by one until the virgin is left” kind of plot.

The sloppy production team behind this horrific horror picture show does nothing but mock genuinely good films of the genre. The first noticeable disregard to common sense is the white-fresh paper of the very old possessed book, then gets even lamer when the teenage leads access highly confidential city records without problem. Even when it tries to get scary, atrocious CGI doesn’t make a series of severed limbs reattaching themselves easy to overlook in the cheap finale. Director André Øvredal’s lack of control results in all logic being accidentally ridiculous, not over-the-top satirical like the unrealistic violence in Kill Bill. Any of its attempted creative ideas fall flat on passing as healthy art for the common viewer, as it relies on the evil book for the convenience of breezing past details with lazy dialogue.

At least the “creepy” scenes deliver okay, the best of them featuring a deformed woman who slowly creeps toward you down a hospital hallway; each edit cut she moves closer and closer like the overly-familiar fear of being followed, enough to help you overlook the thoughtless conversations in every other scene. It’s not worth it to sit through the unmanageable scenes though for this one moment, since nobody who oversaw auditions in the pre-production process said anything about how those who made the cast have no talent.

Zoe Margaret Colletti is one of the worst cast members, as her eyes never have a sign of terror when they are supposed to; she instead just sounds passive, reliant on a warm porch light to set the happy mood instead of bringing out life from her own presence. The other kids in the movie go through personal problems, including dysfunctional families and *gasp* zits! That’s it really, any other real problems are left out. It does attempt to chuck in political overtones with a radio that exclaims, “say no to war,” and many shots of Richard Nixon on TV. But none of these visuals affect the narrative in any way whatsoever, especially not the thought process of Zoe’s character, Stella.

It does attempt to look impressive by incorporating jump-scares, some of them just fake-outs, and one of them an attempt to quietly build up to the “mother of all jump-scares,” but all these attempts flop. There are problems in all other horror scenes too, one of them has a toe inside a soup, which succeeds at being gross, but is otherwise empty of any lasting impression besides the visual of clawed floorboards under someone’s bed leading to a wall.

The production crew should have taken notes from their costume designer Ruth Myers (L.A. Confidential) for inspiration. One boy wears a wonderfully pathetic Spider-man costume for Halloween (courtesy of mom), and it captures the tone the film should have had: self-aware in how much it stretches from being what is expected with a large aura of goofiness. Instead, it goes for dead serious but is goofy by mistake. One laughable attack on a blonde girl matches said level of ridiculous misinterpretation, with spiders intending gross reactions out of everyone but winds up getting the expected reaction only out of those with arachnophobia.

But here’s the dumbest part: the feature is bookended with monologues on why stories craft us, which is not insightful, but ironic, because the message is attached to something with mere entertainment in mind, not philosophy. Trust me, I know about the philosophy of film, and books.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark has no idea about those realities of literature, it’s just a piece of Play-Doh that molded itself into the shape of a puzzle piece to try and fit in. Since it can’t do what it should have done all along, it can’t make your skin crawl once the lights boom out.… Expand

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3

meydianarizki21Oct 31, 2020

Just not good in any way
'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' exemplifies everything that is wrong with the horror genre. There are some really good horror movies out there going unnoticed, while garbage like this gets a cinematic release.Just not good in any way
'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' exemplifies everything that is wrong with the horror genre. There are some really good horror movies out there going unnoticed, while garbage like this gets a cinematic release. Fake jump-scares, bad looking monsters, slow-moving monsters (didn't we work out they weren't scary 20 years ago) and horrible characters. This was not a fun viewing to sit through.

The concept in this movie is quite deceptive. To the naked eye is might appear clever and creative, but when you actually think about it it is incredibly lazy. A book where whatever is written down actually happens. So basically no limitations and no need to structure your story or create plausible reasons for anything to happen. Genius. No, it's simple and incredibly lazy and anyone with half a brain should see right through it.

How do people fall for these cheap horror movies that have no depth? It's like people have forgotten how good horror can actually be when it is done right. 'Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark' is not a film I would recommend. There are infinitely better watches available out there.… Expand

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3

BrunoVn00Aug 18, 2019

This movie has the reason I just don't like watching horror movies: Paper-thin and one-dimentional characters, full of clichés of the modern horror genre including: A halloween setting, haunted books, dogs barking at "paranormal activity",This movie has the reason I just don't like watching horror movies: Paper-thin and one-dimentional characters, full of clichés of the modern horror genre including: A halloween setting, haunted books, dogs barking at "paranormal activity", the characters investigate about the monster/paranormal creature, the characters consult an expert that knows about the thing, lights always fail and goes dark anytime the monster is near and the most annoying thing: JUMPSCARES. Pointless jumpscares that are there because the movie doesn't know any other way to scare you or to be creepy. It's always the same: Music stops for a while and then a loud noise. Sometimes they don't even make sense and one of the monsters literally makes a jumpscare to the audience. It's the most unoriginal, boring movie with no creativity and with all the clichés of the genre.

I can't believe Guillermo Del Toro was involved in this.… Expand

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3

hnestlyontheslyOct 7, 2019

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Ovredal and Del Toro’s adaptation of Scary Stories is a bit braindead, but not in ways that are completely obvious. The weakness of their muddled social commentary might have been easier to overlook if all of the monsters and scares hadn’t been given away for free in the trailer. What you’re left with is a film that will probably still scare the bejeezus out of your twelve year-old but not leave you very satisfied.

Some spoilers. “Scary Stories leans on its social allegories, but with little conclusive meaning,” write Aja Romano for Vox. I’ve written before about the need for horror films to have nimble metaphors and Scary Stories starts out strong with the way that it handles the disappearances of children by supernatural means. They are the invisible, the silent victims of forces beyond their control. That feeling of sudden loss and erasure is an apt description of the loss of the nation’s youth during the Vietnam War, and that message in and of itself is impactful for the nation’s youth of today who are yet again embroiled in a long, drawn-out, and bloody war. The time frame of the story, stretching from Halloween night through the election of Richard Nixon (2nd term) is also a really thoughtful structure that I don’t think I’ve seen before. Most Halloween movies end on November 1st and most election movies don’t mention Halloween at all. But aside from those spark of brilliance, the internal logic of the film doesn’t hold up very well. It’s thrilling when the deputy assumes that Stella’s friends have draft-dodged just like Ramone, but when Ramone leaves for war on the bus at the end, we’re sort of left wondering what lesson he’s learned from his experiences in the film. All in all, the film does a pretty poor job of commenting on the 60s just as much as it fails at encapsulating the problems of the present decade through the use of its horror metaphors.

Other kinds logical inconsistencies grate: we’re led to believe in a voice over toward the end that the lesson that Stella has learned from Sarah Bellows is “never to give up.” “If you keep on killing little children, someone will eventually solve the mystery of your death!” one Friend quipped afterwards. “There is no magic, only rage,” the old former help to the Bellows family intones during a farcically slapdash interview. This is often a problem in horror films. The chief perpetrator of the haunted violence is itself a victim, which tends to exculpate them of their present day crimes on account of “rage,” but is that really the right message? Is Sarah Bellows more rabid dog or disturbed foster child? Why is no one punished for the death of a cop at the end of this film? Presumably the other cop who leaves the children in prison for the night isn’t going to let them off scot-free? Even if I’m a little tired of giving supernaturals who act out a pass, it seems like meeting these traumatized ghosts on their level is the name of the game.

Richard Newby calls it “the Next Generation of Horror” and lingers on the empathic framework of the story and its characters which will prepare young movie goers for “social horror” films when they are more mature. Newby’s got it exactly right that Ovredal and Del Toro’s genius is about compelling the audience to sympathize with the grotesque, the radical integration of social groups that Northrop Frye describes as the duty of comedy is used as resolution in Del Toro’s work to great effect. It does no good to make the monsters evil–the woman in the hospital says, “This is a place of great evil,” not “I am a thing of great evil,” and that distinction is not quibble semantics.

My biggest sore point for the movie is that the film does such a poor job of creating a personal connection between the scary story and the person it’s associated with. Unlike in It, where each horror is designed to psychoanalyze the trauma of a band of school-aged friends, Scary Stories elects for “music over truth”, as Richard Hugo might’ve said. Probably the best scare is the first one in the corn field, and everything that you could possibly find scary about the other monsters is already laid out for you in detail in the trailer. The wax cylinder scene is a pretty good bit of horror no matter the age, but these moments are few and far between.… Expand

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3

Rr3209Dec 24, 2019

Extremely heavy-handed political narrative that focuses on irrelevant cultural points to the exclusion of compelling story and character development. I think Richard Nixon and modern commentary on Vietnam got more screen time than some of theExtremely heavy-handed political narrative that focuses on irrelevant cultural points to the exclusion of compelling story and character development. I think Richard Nixon and modern commentary on Vietnam got more screen time than some of the main characters. Every single modern film is simply a vehicle for political propaganda in 2019.A shameful waste of an awesome IP.… Expand

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0

CriticalwShltJan 30, 2020

Garbage. I give it a zero I would. It is pathetic stupid dumb and full of ****

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3

DaviduduDec 27, 2020

Very boring repetitive movie with very classical story, but realised wrong. Some characters as monster which wanted to kill Ramon are funny, not frightening.

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3

Davisb123Aug 14, 2019

I really cannot understand why people like this movie. The plot and the dialogue are extremely basic and lazy. These main characters are so forgettable and should not take up nearly as much screen-time as they do. What saves this movie fromI really cannot understand why people like this movie. The plot and the dialogue are extremely basic and lazy. These main characters are so forgettable and should not take up nearly as much screen-time as they do. What saves this movie from being complete forgettable **** is the spectacular practical effects and costume design that we all know Guillermo del Toro for. I can understand the child-friendly direction this movie was going for but to me it just comes across as bland and poorly written. This loosely put together stock plot that we have seen many times before makes this movie almost unwatchable.… Expand

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2

TVJerryAug 13, 2019

This is yet another bland ghost story with creepy creatures (thanks primarily to producer Guillermo del Toro's design). It's set in 1968 and features a group of geeky teens out to solve the mystery of a book that creates stories, whileThis is yet another bland ghost story with creepy creatures (thanks primarily to producer Guillermo del Toro's design). It's set in 1968 and features a group of geeky teens out to solve the mystery of a book that creates stories, while killing its victims. Unlike STRANGER THINGS or IT, the period references lack fun nostalgia and the kids are a bland combo of stereotypes. The title is a misnomer too. It's never scary…not even a good jump scare. The plot is predictable and the killings aren't original and definitely not frightening. The original books are written for young audiences, which explains why none of it works for grownups.… Expand

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1

ShiningLionOct 25, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It caught me entirely off guard that this film was as bad as it is, considering the names attached to its production. It's the worst movie I've seen in years. For starters it is visually ugly and horribly shot. There are moments where scenes are too dark, and you'll see four consecutive shots of who knows what because you're lucky to make out a shape or two on screen. Rather than build suspense it's simply disorienting. This film doesn't excite or thrill so much as it just makes you uncomfortable. Most of the movie is shot upwards at the actors faces from about waist height, giving everyone an unflattering odd appearance. Several shots have a bubbled fish-eye look like someone shot them with the selfie mode on their iphone. Conversations are awkwardly shot where when the camera switches between two people, both appear on the same side of the screen, so it looks like they aren't facing each other. From a film-making point of view this film looks like it was made by high schoolers with expensive cameras. Not kidding.

I wish the technical issues were where this film's problems end, but they're not. It's plodding, boring, and all of the "stories" featured in the film aren't even told or explained in the film, so if you aren't well-versed on the books you aren't going to understand anything going on other than "the book makes monsters come out b/c some tortured girl wrote them". Wow how deep.

Worst of all is that this film was a surprise bomb for weird woke propaganda, your daily BS reminder from Hollywood that white people, especially men, are evil. All four characters that die are white males, some we are led to believe deserved it, some just too weak and cowardly to defend themselves. A supposedly Mexican kid gets called a w*tb*ck and has his car vandalized by bullies, gets threats and intimidation from a white cop. There's even a way the film randomly manages to flash back to the dark time in American history when blacks were owned as slaves just so they can show a little black slave girl about to be beat. And don't worry, Asians, there's some victimhood reminders in there for you too, as the film is peppered with completely irrelevant (to the plot) shots of Nixon and the Vietnam war. None of the victimized characters get any real justice in the film, I should add, so it's even more pointless and confusing why they added these social justice elements.

The acting was bad and inconsistent. I knew from the moment I watched a character fish his own turd from a toilet on screen that something was off about this movie, and from there the whole film just became a big flaming turd of weird out of place woke propaganda, with nothing to say about its own story, or its social justice undertones. The film ends in the most cliche way imaginable (someone tells the ghost they'll set the record straight about them and their abusers, tell people the real story, and asks the ghost to stop being a meanie, and the haunting stops). Keep your kids far away from this film and any sequel that might come from it. It was an utter brain fart filled with confusing and damaging messaging. How "woke" that the only character in there that black kids might see as "representation" is a little slave girl about to get flogged. Why push this stuff on kids? The mini-stories within the film are never explained, including the weird phrase that the jangling man says, so it's basically an advertisement for the books that doesn't work as a stand-alone movie. The film's ending has the main girl preach to the ghost that enough is enough when it comes to rage for past abuse and she needs to not become a monster like them. It would almost feel like a jab at violent social justice warriors who use their obsession with past victimhood to assume the worst in everyone and harm others, if the film wasn't so tepid and confusing with its messaging. Rather it comes off as just poor writing with no real meaning. Is this film woke or anti-woke? Who knows. I think it was trying to say something on the topic but just pandered to both sides in the weirdest way and failed miserably to say anything real. The main character is a self-hating dork who blames herself for everything right up through the end of the film. That's apparently what the writers think the audience will relate to. How inspiring.

I give this film 1 star for the jangling man scenes because they did a good job on that monster being pretty freaky. Nothing else in this film was remotely interesting or scary, just gross, boring, and uncomfortable. Save yourself two overdrawn hours of your life and a handful of yawns. This aint the new Halloween classic you're looking for.… Expand

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2

LajaleaaAug 20, 2019

"Stories heal. Stories hurt."
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( 25/100 ) . Inútil, cliché y desvergonzada. "Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark" es justo el cine que pensé que ya se había superado y nos enseñó a que merecemos algo mucho mejor. Andre Ovredal dirige esta"Stories heal. Stories hurt."
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( 25/100 )
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Inútil, cliché y desvergonzada. "Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark" es justo el cine que pensé que ya se había superado y nos enseñó a que merecemos algo mucho mejor.
Andre Ovredal dirige esta adaptación de los cuentos y dibujos ubicados en la novela de Alvin Schwartz que, con Guillermo Del Toro a bordo, se convirtió en un film que promete ser escrupulosa con sus criaturas. Nada más fuera de la realidad, la película es simplemente un desperdicio.
Después de vengarse en Halloween, Stella, Ramón, Auggie y Chuck (Zoe Margaret Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush y AustinZajur) son perseguidos hasta una "casa embrujada" en donde, según una leyenda, una chica llamada Sarah Bellows fue encerrada porque estaba loca. En un cuarto secreto los chicos encuentran el libro de historias de terror de Sarah y, después de retar a la leyenda, se convierten en victimas de ella misma.
La grosería de la película está en el reciclaje tanto narrativo como visual. La historia va exactamente hacia donde cualquier aventura de terror melodramática de los 70s y 80s termina. También pretende ganar valor a través de un método audiovisual muy anticuado: el "jump-scare". El 90% de los "sustos" se dan por el golpe de sonido, lo cual es muy bajo hoy en día, incluso para Del Toro. Las criaturas están bien hechas, pero su propósito solo es persecutorio: No hay un trasfondo o utilidad mayor en esta colección de diseños que el de perseguir y matar. La historia, por su parte, pretende manipular emocionalmente al público con un grito de empoderamiento que, fuera de ser lógico, es meramente conveniente. Los personajes dados a los actores simplemente reducen su talento a gritos, patadas y caras asustadas. Y no importa que el discurso final se de entre lagrimas y fuerza emocional, la historia lo reduce a algo, repito, meramente conveniente. La película demuestra que hay un presente abuso del reciclaje de narrativas que encierra al público en un consumo inútil. Yo ya estoy harto de eso.
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Pointless, cliché and shameless. "Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark" is just the cinema that I thought it was already overcome and taught us that we deserve something a lot better.
Andre Ovredal directs this adaptation of the stories and draws located in Alvin Schwartz's novel that, with Guillermo Del Toro on board, it became a film that promises to be scrupulous with its creatures. Nothing more outside of reality, the movie es simply a waste.
After taking revenge on Halloween, Stella, Ramón, Auggie and Chuck (Zoe Margaret Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush y Austin Zajur) are chased to a "hunted house" where, according to the legend, a woman called Sarah Bellows was locked in one secret room because she was crazy. The kids find the room and the book of scary stories of Bellows in there and, after challenging the legend, they become victims of the same one.
The vulgarity of the movie is in its narrative and visual recycling. The story goes exactly to whichever horror adventure melodramatic of the 70s and 80s ends. It also pretends to acquire value through a very antiquated method: the jump-scare. 90% of the "scares" are produced by the hit of the sound, which is very low, even for Del Toro. The creatures are well made, but their porpoise is just persecutory: There's no background or utility beyond in this collection of designs that the one of chasing and killing. The story, by itself, wants to manipulate the public emotionally with an empowerment scream that, far from being logic, es merely convenient. The given characters to the actors reduce their talent just to screams, kicks and scared faces. And it doesn't matter that the final speech was given between tears and emotional strength, the story reduces it to something, I repeat, merely convenient. The movie shows that there’s a present abuse of recycled narratives that enclosure the public in pointless consumerism. I'm already tired of that.… Expand

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3

rappM95Oct 31, 2020

A better version of Goosebumps since it doesn’t have Jack Black. Still, the overarching theme is convoluted, and the plot line makes no sense. Would’ve been better as an anthology to really mete out all the stories. I think the high scoresA better version of Goosebumps since it doesn’t have Jack Black. Still, the overarching theme is convoluted, and the plot line makes no sense. Would’ve been better as an anthology to really mete out all the stories. I think the high scores are based in nostalgia instead of quality.… Expand

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2

TriforceGemMar 10, 2022

The surrounding narrative that was written only detracts from the stories. The end is so cheesy and shallow. The only thing this movie has going for it is the creature design. Otherwise, this movie is not worth watching. And is some strangeThe surrounding narrative that was written only detracts from the stories. The end is so cheesy and shallow. The only thing this movie has going for it is the creature design. Otherwise, this movie is not worth watching. And is some strange pro-war and pro-Nixon propaganda??? Like why?? Awful

It should have been an anthology of short stories.… Expand

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