R.L. Stine’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark creeped out an entire generation of young readers, but it’s taken almost four decades for a film adaptation to hit the big screen. So who is this new film for? The now considerably older adults who have a fond, if fearful nostalgia of the books? Or a new crop of budding horror fans that may not be allowed out past curfew? Producer Guillermo del Toro (Pacific Rim, Pan’s Labyrinth) and director André Øvredal (Troll Hunters) joined IGN during Comic Con 2019 to give us the answer.
“It’s PG-13, number one,” del Toro said. “The other thing that is important is we’re trying to capture the same audience as the books. These books have now entertained three generations. A lot of fathers know that the stories are campfire stories basically. They have a factor of fun. None of them are gory. They’re all creepy. They all have a humorous slant or very human. So we’re trying to cultivate the same PG-13, but spooky and fun.”
Del Toro added that his career has covered a multitude of genres and maturity levels, so nailing the tone of the books may prove doable.
“It depends on how you film it,” del Toro said. “What is the spirit behind it? I’ve done hard R, I’ve done big sci-fi movies, big action. I’ve done Trollhunters. I think André did a tremendous job at landing this movie exactly tonally, in the fun, but scary and creepy.”
Of course, it’s not Scary Stories if you don’t reference the infamously horrifying black and white ink artwork from the books, drawn by Alvin Schwartz. For director André Øvredal, the solution to bringing those monsters to life lay in what audiences hadn’t experienced yet.
“It was very fun making them come to life, because you have to make them three-dimensional living, breathing characters,” Øvredal said. “The audience has only seen the drawing of what it’s supposed to look like. They have never heard them, they have never seen them move, all these things. So we had to play with all this stuff.”
If you want more of Scary Stories to Tell in the dark, you can check out the exclusive footage IGN was shown, or check out the official trailer.
Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer for IGN, and he prefers his sunlight, thank you very much.
