#STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK MOVIE#
#STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK SERIES#

Auggie slowly, awkwardly crawls out from under his bed because it seems like maybe the corpse is gone. Unwitting cannibalism is scary on its own, as is the corpse's design, but what makes this story so scary is how long it stretches out the suspense. 'The Big Toe,' though, is an incredibly well-done one.Īfter Auggie realizes that he's accidentally been eating stew that has a human toe in it, he flees in terror to his bedroom as a rotting, nine-toed corpse lurches after him.

They're cheap, and while it's not too hard to surprise people, that's not quite the same as scaring them. Jump scares get a bad rap, and often for good reason. **Spoiler Warning: There are some spooky spoilers for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark in this article.** Here are all the stories from the movie, ranked by how scary they are. These moments, when Scary Stories is actually about the scary stories, are the best part of the film, but some of the stories are better than others.

#STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK MOVIE#

Even so, parts of the Scary Stories movie do feel like an anthology, because the supernatural force haunts its victims with deadly - and familiar - stories that have come to life. Instead, the movie follows a young girl and her friends in 1968 as they unwittingly unleash a horrible supernatural force. The new Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark movie, which was produced by Guillermo del Toro and directed by André Øvredal, is not an anthology film. Author Alvin Schwartz found inspiration in classic bits of spooky folklore or urban legends and wrote up several kid-friendly scary stories, accompanied by Stephen Gammell's decidedly not-kid-friendly illustrations. The controversy led the publisher to revert to the original Stephen Gammell illustrations in subsequent reprint editions of the book series.As the name implies, the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books are an anthology series. More recently in 2011, another minor controversy occurred when the book’s publisher printed new editions which replaced Stephen Gammell’s scary illustrations with more toned-down illustrations by artist Brett Helquist. The Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting article on this subject. The books have attracted some controversy in the 80s and 90s, with many parents trying to ban the books due to their imagery. This is an excellent application of Caslon Antique, in my opinion, as it provides a suitably creepy (but not too creepy!) feel to these children’s ghost story books.

It should be noted that some softcover printings of the first book (not shown in this post) also use a combination of Helvetica and Caslon Antique for the author and illustrator names. The second and third book, share a similar cover arrangement as the first book, though the use of Berling has been replaced by a combination of Helvetica and Caslon Antique. A first edition hardcover version of the book can be seen lower in this post, and uses Caslon Antique together with Palatino Italic in a slightly different cover arrangement. The cover of the 1989 reprint of the first book shown at the top of this post is set in Caslon Antique, with Berling Italic used for the author name and illustrator.

The picture above features the 1989 reprint softcover edition of the first book.

#STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK SERIES#

The book series has sold over seven million copies as of 2017. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is a set of three horror-themed books aimed at younger readers, which became wildly popular in the 1980s and 90s due to outlandish and creepy illustrations by artist Stephen Gammell.

These are the most common typefaces in the database, but there are many more.

Haas Inserat-Grotesk / Neue Aurora VIII (43).

Stories to tell in the dark