All 6 Shorts From Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark Ranked

Oh Harold; the only creature with some semblance of a back story (except for Sarah, I guess). Harold is a spot-on rendition of the books illustration and is much creepier in motion. Tommy is our generic bully of the film and not an ounce of sympathy is shed once he gets his comeuppance. After being a jerk to the innocence that is Harold (the man’s just trying to do his job, give him a break), Harold exacts his revenge thanks to Sarah.

The scarecrow’s face is by far the most horrifying part of him; honouring the book as it’s said the scarecrow’s “face and head was so grotesque and ugly that even he [the creator] was sometimes scared to look at it.” Øvredal made a point to give us an extreme close-up of the scarecrow whenever possible, having a bug or two crawl in and out of it.

Harold chasing down and eventually stabbing Tommy with a fork hoe is quite scary, but not the most frightening part. Tommy begins to bleed hay and begins pulling it out of his wounds, his mouth, his ears, and basically every orifice possible. Stella and Ramón investigate and figure out that Harold is now wearing Tommy’s clothes, and the audience notices that Harold’s face has changed and looks strikingly more like Tommy. As discussed prior, it’s not always what happens on screen but also the implications afterwards that are the most terrifying.