Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

This is a solid horror movie, thanks to its source material, its freakish monsters, its definite jump scares and good performances by Colletti and Garza.

The plot takes many twists with an ingeniously designed set of monsters creating havoc at regular intervals.

The film... is a loving and faithful adaptation, even if it gets lost in its attempt to wrap the whole thing up in a neat metaphor.

It's slightly baggy, and could deal with some reigning in, but the characters are well-done, and you like the stories...it writes itself into the fiction, and it's good filmmaking...

Proof, once again, that a creaky floorboard, judiciously used, is worth more than any expensive digital trickery.

This uneven film can't decide who it's trying to scare.

Creepily spectacular Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark is a throwback to films like Jeepers Creepers and Gremlins, films that were aimed for teenagers but had more of a horror side than most films aimed at that age-group.

Alvin Schwartz’s book series, of which the film adapts, also celebrated the power of monster stories, however graphic they got. The film channels that very spirit to entertaining, if somewhat conventional, degrees.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark has Guillermo Del Toro’s fingerprints all over the film but benefits heavily from André Øvredal’s assured direction.

Attempts to replicate Gammell's iconic visuals mostly work, but the Vietnam backstory is undercooked, villain Tommy is dispatched too early and most of the set pieces are too brief. What worked in Schwartz's campfire tales doesn't translate to screen