12 Brilliant Recent Horror Movies That Shocked Everyone
7. Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (2019)
The anthology of horror shorts Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark unabashadly went for taboo topics: ghosts and ghoulies were small fry compared to Harold the Scarecrow, or the Hookman. Combined with Scary Stories'... ghastly illustrations, and nightmares are pretty much guaranteed or any reader.
Guillermo Del Toro's 2019 adaptation was therefore bound to raise eyebrows. The images on the page are scary enough in black and white watercolour - surely putting them in live action just be straight up terrifying? And how would these short stories work in a long form narrative? The whole process seemed too risky to be pulled off.
And yet, the impossible was achieved: Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark turned out to be largely successful. Del Toro's approach to bringing the book's monstrosities to life is the standout feature: anyone familiar with his use of physical effects over SFX as much as possible will recognise the feat of engineering that these costumes managed.
They also did a splendid job of working all the tales into one cohesive telling quite well. This group of kids experiencing the horrific nightmares one by one does well to honour the original format.