PLOT SUMMARY: Stella and her friends enter a haunted house where they find a book of horror stories
As a growing teenager, my interest in horror was mounting, and I picked any book that even remotely had a horror scene in it.
Luckily, at that time, wonderful series like Goosebumps and Fear Street was on the rise.
On any occasion, and especially my birthday, I would ask for a young adult novella. I must have read each Goosebumps and Fear Street story at least thrice.
I did hear of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark but never read it.
Fortunately, now everything and I mean everything, is being made into a movie.
Scary Stories... is kind of like the books I grew up with. The stories are good but only when watched by budding teenagers.
SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK Movie Plot
The movie takes us back in time in 1968. It’s Halloween and a trio of friends: Stella, Chuck and Auggie, want to play a prank on the town’s bully Tommy.
They manage to pull it off but then Chuck sees his elder sister Ruth with Tommy and muddled up.
The trio hides in the drive-in theatre and gets into a car that belongs to a drifter, Ramon.
After they are saved from Tommy, Stella invites Ramón to go visit a real haunted house.
Stella has a fascination for horror stories and is fascinated by the town’s scandalous history wherein the daughter of the founding family of the town, was accused of poisoning the water supply and killing the children.
They enter the house and Ramón finds a secret entrance to a room where Sarah Bellows was apparently kept by her family who thought she was insane.
Sarah had a penchant for telling scary stories since she was lonely, and also kept a journal.
Tommy arrives, pushes Chuck’s sister Ruth in with the others and locks them up.
While the others are terrified, Stella calls out to Sarah to tell her a story.
The door opens and they all race out to find Ramon’s car tyres slashed.
Stella offers him a place to sleep in her home and while there, she finds a new story being written in Sarah’s book.
The story is about a boy called Tommy who is attacked and killed by a scarecrow and then turned into a scarecrow himself.
As the story goes, Tommy, the bully has the exact same experience. The next day, no one can find him but Stella believes the scarecrow, now wearing Tommy’s jacket is Tommy himself.
Her friends don’t agree and think she’s nuts.
Later that night, another story is being written in which Auggie is the main character who accidentally eats a toe. The zombie to whom the toe belongs to arrives at his home.
At first, he believes Stella is playing a prank when she contacts him through the walkie-talkie, but when he finds a toe in his stew and a voice calling out for his toe, he panics and hides under the bed, only to be pulled into a void.
Stella and Ramón arrive only to find scratches under the bed.
The next morning, Chuck and Ruth don’t believe her story.
Ruth is still covered in spider bites from when she was at the Bellows house.
Ruth walks away to rehearse for her concert while Stella, Ramon and Chuck decide to dig in deeper into Sarah’s story.
They find that Sarah’s brother has committed her to the mental institution and tortured her with experiments.
Since the trio was unable to destroy Sarah’s storybook that keeps returning to them, they open it to find another story being written. No matter how hard they try to rip the pages, the story goes on and on.
It’s about Ruth.
In the dressing room, Ruth is unsuccessfully trying to conceal her spider bite that has taken over her entire cheek. She goes to the bathroom and when she tries to pop it like a pimple, hundreds of spiders crawl out.
The trio arrives just in time and turn on the lights. Ruth is badly bitten but alive. Since no one believes she was attacked by spiders who disappeared, she is sent to the mental institution.
The trio then meets a blind woman who was there when Sarah was tortured by her family. She states that Sarah is angry because Stella took the book.
The trio goes to the mental hospital to check Sarah’s records and Chuck is attacked by a pale, grotesque figure who swallows him just like he had dreamt.
Stella and Ramón are taken to the police station for breaking into the hospital. There it is revealed that Ramón had run away after he was contacted by the Army to go to Vietnam.
In their cells, the two plead with the sheriff to believe their story but he doesn’t. He starts reading the book and finds another story being written, this time about Ramón.
He knows it must be the Jangly man who has come for him since it was his tale that frightened him when he was a kid.
The monster arrives in parts and joins in front of the sheriff who is then killed.
Stella and Ramón escape the police station. He tells her to go back to the house and tell Sarah the truth while he distracts the monster.
She reaches the house and is thrown into the past where she is Sarah and is being abused by her family and thrown into the cellar.
Ramón too arrives at the house and somehow can call out to Stella even though she’s in another timeline.
SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK Ending Explained with Spoilers!
Stella sees Sarah and accuses her of being a monster for hurting her friends. She claims that Sarah was tortured to the point that she wanted revenge and turned evil because of that.
Stella then promises Sarah that she will tell the truth to everyone who had tarnished her name.
Using her blood, Stella begins to write in the book.
Sarah feels absolved and vanishes, taking away the monster who was attacking Ramón.
The pair reunite.
Stella writes the truth in the school newspaper but confessed that not everyone believed the story.
Ramón joins the army and Stella writes him a letter.
Ruth is out of rehab, now cured of what she thought were her delusions.
In the end, Stella hopes to bring her friends back using Sarah’s book.
Has she tried writing a story in it where her friends are brought back?
That should have been her first thought.
Perhaps there will be a sequel and we will find out then?
An interesting movie with some of the tales of the original anthology nicely integrated.
However, the horror elements were quite tame and perhaps will manage to give a few frights and nightmares to kids.
Scare scale: 3/5
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