Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark: All References And What They Looked Like In The Books
2. The Dream
One of the most iconic images from Gammell's collection, and one of the most perfectly crafted and replicated figures from book to film, was the pale woman from the short story The Dream.
There's a lot to unpack with Gammell's art of this woman, who looks both innocent and sinister at the same time, perfectly capturing the deepest parts of the uncanny valley while still being a fantastic piece of art.
Her role in the story is also the same as in the film; she appears to someone who has had dreams of an "evil place", in the film referred to as a "red room". Her role in the film is much more outright sinister, however, her slow walk down an inescapable red hall providing one of the most terrifying horror sequences in recent history.
Her role in the book is more implied to be harmful than outright observed, with her mostly just appearing to warn its protagonist away from an evil place - one that, because this is a horror story, the woman ends up in anyway, in her efforts to get away from the Dream.