Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Today I saw Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, starring Zoe Margaret Colletti and Michael Garza.

As a child in the '80s, many lunchtimes were spent huddled underneath a table in the school library with my friends, reading aloud from the book Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I remember some of the characters and stories so vividly I can still see them in my mind's eye.

So when I heard that an adaptation was coming to the big screen and Guillermo del Toro was involved, I got very excited. Unfortunately I later learned that this film would carry a PG-13 rating, which usually means it won't be allowed to be as scary as it could be, but I was still willing to give it a chance, so I did. Here's what I thought:

The pros:

The screenwriters do a nice job of weaving together the stories with one cohesive narrative. The kids visit a haunted house on Halloween and disturb the wrong entity. She starts writing stories in a book they have possession of to destroy each of them one by one.

The visuals are very close to what I remember of the book and come alive in horrifically magical ways.

The child actors are all quite good and not the least bit annoying. Together they have a "Goonies" vibe, which is a lot of fun.

The cons:

It takes them a while to get to the first story. Too long. And the Halloween sequence going after the bully feels too much like so many other movie scenes of the same nature.

It's almost gratuitous with gore. Sure, many of the stories (the toe, etc.) have gross elements to them, but I had to look away more than I'd have preferred.

They dialed down some of the most terrifying elements probably because of the rating, which is a shame because the book used to keep me up at night; this did not.

All-in-all it was entertaining, but in a sanitized-for-the-YA-crowd sort of way, which was disappointing. If they make a second, I hope they'll go for the R rating.

~~~

The Shape of Water

On Christmas Eve I saw The Shape of Water, starring Sally Hawkins and Michael Shannon.

Elisa (Hawkins) is a mute cleaning lady at a scientific facility in the early 1960s. She leads a simple life: sleeps alone in a modest apartment; watches TV with her neighbor and prepares the same lunch every day. Her best friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer) can easily communicate with her despite the fact she doesn't speak. She seems content with her situation.

One day, the horrible boss (Shannon) brings in a male sea creature that captures Elisa's attention. Though he's chained to his survival tank and has displayed violent behavior to the team, she is unafraid and begins sharing her lunch with him.

The two different species develop a friendship and soon enough Elisa is obsessed with saving the creature from a miserable fate. She enlists the help of Zelda and her neighbor (Richard Jenkins, at his comedic best), risking her job and perhaps her life.

This is a movie with everything. It has humor, sadness, fright, romance, fear—seriously, everything.

As a huge fan of director Guillermo del Toro's Pan Labyrinth, I was expecting to be entertained in an intelligent, unique way, but this soared well above and beyond even that level of greatness. Though there was more blood than I typically tolerate, none of it was gratuitous, nor was the sex or the language (and there's that too).

It's just a brilliantly acted, beautifully shot masterpiece with a beating heart.

~~~

Crimson Peak

This morning I saw Crimson Peak, starring Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain.

Edith (Wasikowska) is a girl of privilege, close to her wealthy father, hoping to be a published author someday. She's a feminist before her time (this being the year 1900), who ironically chooses to follow her heart instead of her head when a handsome suitor comes calling, despite the fact she resents having to include a love story in her manuscript because she's female.

That suitor is Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), a baronet from England who's struggling to find investors for his steam drill. He hopes Edith's father will come on board, but instead gets met with more rejection. In fact, Edith's father dislikes him so much, he pays him off—on the condition that he leave Edith alone.

Thomas complies, breaks Edith's heart, and sets back to England with his wicked sister Lucille (Chastain). But tragedy soon strikes and Edith no longer answers to the good judgment of her father. She's free to follow Thomas to England, and that she does, soon marrying him and moving into the creepy castle he and his sister have all to themselves.

Things are not as they seem, though, as Edith soon finds out. Her sister-in-law won't part with the keys to the home, and weird visions occur when she's alone. She also doesn't feel so well in her new surroundings, her body growing weaker each day.

This is where the movie starts revealing its secrets and feels like classic Guillermo del Toro.

The horrific images come wrapped in sadness; their visual components so stunning you can't look away. The characters aren't merely one-note horror devices, they're complex, tragic figures who demand you at least care about how they came to be the way they are. And care we do.

We want to believe in the love Thomas has for Edith. We want to believe all of the bad in the home stems from Lucille. We want to believe the doctor back home hasn't forgotten her.

The thrilling ending has a twist this reviewer didn't see coming, and though parts of it were very gory (especially the sound effects), it has a satisfying close.

Perfect subject matter for the Halloween season, delivered with beautiful art direction and a clever screenplay.

Grab a cup of British tea and have fun with it.

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