Listen kids... If you're going to break into a spooky house that is seemingly long abandoned and comes wreathed in scary tales of a dark history, perhaps you shouldn't be messing with either A) the place itself or B) a creepy book of stories you find lurking within. But of course, if the characters in Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark did that, there would mostly be a film about them going to drive-in cinemas and attending school, and that's only slightly terrifying. See the latest trailer below.
Adapting Alvin Schwarz's work (which had a big effect on producer Guillermo del Toro when he was a teen) is Troll Hunter's André Øvredal, who directs here. The likes of Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan, Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman and John August joined del Toro to hash out which of Schwarz's stories would make for good adaptations. Among the tales picked were The Big Toe, Harold and The Dream, which features the creepy Pale Lady. Yet it's not an anthology film, the plot instead weaving the characters into one singular narrative.
Per the synopsis, "It’s 1968 in America. Change is blowing in the wind... But seemingly far removed from the unrest in the cities is the small town of Mill Valley where for generations, the shadow of the Bellows family has loomed large. It is in their mansion on the edge of town that Sarah, a young girl with horrible secrets, turned her tortured life into a series of scary stories, written in a book that has transcended time – stories that have a way of becoming all too real for a group of teenagers who discover Sarah’s terrifying home."
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark will haunt UK cinemas from 23 August.
Keep up to date with all the latest movie news, click here to subscribe to Empire on Great Magazines and have the latest issue delivered to your door every month.