Carry on screaming . . . with laughter!

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (15) Verdict: Half-baked horror ★★✩✩✩

THE popular horror story collection Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, written by Alvin Schwartz with creepy illustrations by Stephen Gammell, has provided nightmares for children for years.

But in this translation to the big screen, the gruesome becomes laughable and childish despite the fim’s 15 certificate.

The plot centres on bookish schoolgirl Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti, pictured) and her two geeky, outcast male friends, who find themselves at war, on Halloween night, with the cool school bullies, led by Tommy (Austin Abrams).

After a chase, the kids jump into a car in a drive-in movie, and the driver, Ramón (Michael Garza), ends up taking them to a supposedly haunted house. Here, Stella tells the tale of Pennsylvania mill-owner’s daughter Sarah Bellows (Kathleen Pollard), who hanged herself in Victorian times and is said to tell stories to children through the ancient walls.

Naturally, Stella makes the cardinal error of picking up Sarah’s dusty old storybook, which soon starts writing fresh stories... in fresh blood.

Each tale features a new victim — one of Stella’s schoolmates — and the horrors visited upon them are nicely varied: a severed toe that pops up in a stew; an enormous red spot that erupts with spiders; a living scarecrow and body parts that reassemble into a walking corpse and pursue Tommy.

Unfortunately, many of these ‘terrifying’ apparitions met with laughter rather than gasps of horror in the screening room, despite the fact this film is produced and part-written by master of suspense Guillermo del Toro.

As the death rate increases and the methods of demise grow ever weirder, Stella has to work out why Sarah wants revenge on the town and so delves into the murky past of the Bellows family. She must confront the ghost herself — but again, the director André Øvredal reveals too much, and the ghoulish atmosphere just drains away.