If your forte is horror/mystery movies this is the movie for you. The movie is a retelling of four stories from Alvin Schwartz eleven books and it’s the perfect way to get into horror without tons of gore.  That being said, if you aren’t familiar with Schwartz originals you might be left a little cold. The movie was given an 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, they passed with a B-.

Scary Stories takes place in 1968 in the small town of Mill valley where the memory of the Bellows family has haunted each generation.  On Halloween a group of teenagers decide to go to the old home where they find a book of scary stories written by the mysterious Bellows daughter, Sarah. Shortly after finding the book a new story appears, the next day a boy from the town is missing.  You don’t read the book, the book reads you and conjures your worst fearing into reality.

Though the movie doesn’t include all of Schwartz stories and even adds a new monster the picks were amazing. Each scene was well crafted to fit the horror with scaring the audience senseless.  The story kept a good pace, each story had an equal amount of screen to build up time.  My only concern with the movie was the build up, leading to the deaths of characters seemed slightly stretch.  The first death, Tommy, the whole time I knew that he was going to die and I was sitting there waiting. I watched the scarecrow run around chasing Tommy for five minutes, just get it over with stop with the teasing. After that however each death was more timely.

The character development of the movie was a little week.  Normally a movie wants you to get attached to the characters that die or try to get some emotion out of it.  An example, when Tommy died majority of people couldn’t care less because he was introduced as the jerk, he deserved.  When it got to the next characters I felt more disconnected up until the last person in which the last scene was beautiful.  The idea of experiencing what turned Sarah Bellows into the monster that terrorized Mill Valley was captivating. Even with this being a horror film there was a lesson to be learned at the end of this, keeping it’s children’s book feel.  Stories have powers that can ruin people’s lives (supernatural or not).  The “storybook” ending gave room to continue the stories but also wouldn’t be a horrible way to end entirely.

This movie is a great watch if your just getting into horror or if you read the book series