Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is based on a book series that was written in 1981 by Alvin Schwartz and Illustrated by Stephen Gammell. The 1 hour and 51 minute movie is directed by Andre Overdal and was released in theaters August of 2019, receiving $68.9 Million in the box office. The rotten tomatoes rating received 77% and 72% from the audience. This is a horror, comedy and mystery film that is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. 

The movie is based on the first book of the series, and is set in 1968 on Halloween night when a group of three kids, Auggie (Gabriel Rush), Chuck (Austin Zajur), and Stella( Zoe Colletti),retaliate against their high school bully, Tommy Milner.  On the way from running after pranking him, they meet Ramon (Micheal Garza), a new guy in town who then takes them to the Bellows house to hide out for a while. Stella tells the guys about the legend of the house and the story of the secret daughter that used to live there. They find the room that Sarah Bellows used to live in and quickly find out that it was not just a legend. The story goes that Sarah Bellows was different from the rest of her family and as a result they locked her up in the basement, and kept her in a dark room for the majority of her life. No one had ever seen her, not even in any family portraits. Children from all around town would come to the Bellow house to get even a glimpse of her but no one ever did, but Sarah would tell them stories through a wall of the basement. All those children had died shortly after hearing Sarah’s stories. 

When the friends trespass the property and enter the Bellows house, they discover the basement where Sarah was kept. As they search the room, Stella finds an old book, the book where she wrote all her stories that was never told again because the children never lived to retell them. Stella took the book home and that’s when the book started to write the stories again, this time with people that they knew. 

All of the childrens names that were in the stories that the book would write, went missing after the story completed, and the events would take place too. The crew tries to stop the stories from writing and tries to figure out why Sarah was so angry and still killing people. Stella goes back to the house in hopes to find answers when she realizes that Sarah is so angry because all of the rumors of her killing the children were not true. The stories she told never killed them, it was the water her malicious family was giving them when they listened to the stories. She was so angry that everyone thought she was a monster that she ended up becoming one. Stella promised to share Sarah’s true story and that it would be written forever, if she gave back the lives that were taken by the book. Stella continued to tell Sarah’s story after it was over and would always make sure that people knew the truth.

After watching the movie, I liked it a lot. I saw the connections between the stories and the book that it was based off of. They were the classic stories that were twisted in a way to fit the movie storyline and were strategically placed throughout the movie to cater to the characters that were original to the book. The movie did a good job capturing the scariest moments and the right monsters.