My History With the Film:
I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, so the Scary Story books were a huge part of my childhood alongside Goosebumps and the Crestwood Books. I’d read and re-read the stories and admire the illustrations for hours. They were so profane that I felt like I was handling something taboo, because who would want their children to see such horrific imagery?
It’s been nice to see the Scary Stories books come back into the public conscious the last ten years and it accumulated with the release of the feature film in 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I decided to watch it and found myself feeling very neutral about the whole thing.
What The Film Is About (Non-Spoiler):
A group of teens unleash a spirit who writes scary stories that lead to their deaths.
What I Liked About It:
-I liked the way the film used Final Destination as an outline for their script. I thought it was a neat way to put actual stakes on the lives of our characters.
-The graphics/make up were damn good when used most of the time. They film had some actual haunting imagery and did so without the use of blood and gore.
-I though they did a great job of wrapping all the stories into one film, although I think a traditional anthology with a wrap around might have done a little better of a job.
-Setting the film in the late 60’s was brilliant. It’s a time period we don’t see much in horror and as much as I love the 80’s/90’s, it was refreshing to see teens set in a different time period.
What I Didn’t Like About It:
-I’m not sure why an anthology format wasn’t used, and I feel like the film suffered because of it. The writers were forced to try and link the different stories and setting up each big story took a little too much time and effort, which led to some downtime between stories.
-The film felt like it ran a little long and was a bit short on action and scares. There was too much talking and not enough scares.
-The ending was very weak.
-The Jangly Man is portrayed an actual contortionist Troy James and he performed walking backwards and crawling upside down himself.
Rating:
I am the wrong demographic for this film and I believe that if I was ten years old, I would have loved it. It’s a great gateway horror film that would definitely open up some new eyes to fun scary flicks.
With that being said, it’s not a bad movie, it’s just not a very memorable movie. It’s probably the most neutral I’ve ever been on a film. I was on the edge of being entertained/bored and yet still sat through the entire film. If you have youngsters, I’d highly recommend this film, but for adults I’d say it’s a two out of five and to skip it.