By Anyone who has even glanced at the book cover of any of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series has been instantly haunted for the rest of their lives by them. Stephen Gammell’s artwork from those books had no business being in children’s literature and yet had all the business being in them. The stories themselves are legit scary as well, some still scarring my brain to this day with their haunting tales.
Anyone who has seen these four teasers for Guillermo Del Toro’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark movie is probably going to be instantly haunted as well. Not only did the marketing team make a brilliant choice by breaking out the teasers across the Super Bowl, but they clearly showed that these movies are not going for the kid-friendly scares, but the actual horror that the original books had as well.
While you’ll recognize plenty of the stories and creatures from the books, the movie adaptation does have an actual plot about a group of kids who find a book of scary stories that become all too real. Think the Goosebumps movies, but actually scary. I mean, seriously, look at these teasers. I’m not going to get that the Pale Lady out of my head for a good long time. Even though I’m slightly upset that they’ve created a meta-narrative for this instead of simply making it a collection of shorts I have faith that Del Toro knows exactly what he’s doing.
Enjoy giving yourself nightmares in under a minute as you watch these. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark releases August 9, 2019.
P.S. The new artwork they made for the book series sucks.
Big Toe
Jangly Man
Red Spot
Pale Lady
