Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark  ★★★

FOR those who prefer their horror a little softer, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark provides the goods.

Based on a Young Adult book series, it has the partner-holding jump scares, ghosts and fantastical creatures, but without the blood and gore or dark, grim atmosphere.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s more frightening and realistic than Goosebumps and the laughs are minimal

It is also set in 1968 which allows it to draw interesting parallels to actual events that provide some added interest for older viewers and might intrigue younger ones.

The location is a small town in Pennsylvania and tells the story of a group of teenagers who find an old book in a reputedly haunted house.

Stella, an amateur writer herself, is the most intrigued and takes the book home, only to find that it starts to write stories by itself.

Each story relates to one of the teenagers and the events are played out in real life with dangerous consequences.

There’s a scarecrow that comes to life, a corpse looking for its toe and even that old favorite, the spiders emerging from a pimple on a girl’s face.

Stella herself gets drawn into a haunted house while Ramon is chased by a creature that can reassemble its missing limbs.

There’s fun in the overarching story of the book’s origin which is better not knowing before you see it.

The writing team, which includes horror master Guillermo del Toro, also cleverly wraps the plot within both the mythology of reading and story-telling and the message that in real life sometimes others try to write our stories for us.

The backdrop of the increasing Vietnam War conscription effort and rise of the eventually disgraced President Nixon are none-too-subtle examples of being told questionable stories with major impacts.

Dutch/Swedish director André Øvredal also made the 2010 cult hit Troll Hunter and the effective The Autopsy of Jane Doe from 2016.

Here he tends to rely too much on jump scares and loud noises for impact, but sometimes that’s all teenagers want.

The young cast enjoy themselves with the standouts being Zoe Margaret Colletti as Stella and Gabriel Rush as Auggie who is involved in the most gruesome scene involving that missing toe.

This one is a little too horror-lite for my taste, but judging by the US box office it’s going to be a hit that might spawn a sequel or two.