NOT AFRAID OF THE ‘DARK’
Del Toro’s tales are frightfully good
Guillermo del Toro gave the world the terrifying images of “Pan’s Labyrinth,” the interspecies romance of “The Shape of Water,” and the dark humor and violence of the original “Hellboy” films.
So he’s not afraid of a little controversy.
The Oscar-winning director has now produced and conceived the idea for “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” based on the trilogy of horror books beloved by kids — and condemned by plenty of parents ever since the first one was published in the early 1980s.
“Many, many great books have, at one point or another … been tried to be banned from libraries only to be rescued by people that loved them,” del Toro told the Daily News.
Alvin Schwartz’s “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” anthology was published in three parts in 1981, 1984, and 1991, and featured a total of 82 tales. The macabre subject matter and famously ghoulish illustrations, intended for young readers, landed the series at the top of the American Library Association’s list of “100 Most Frequently Challenged Books: 1990-1999.”
“I was floored by the creepiness of the illustrations,” recalled the Mexicanborn Toro, 54, who read the books when his family would visit the U.S. He compared Schwartz’s writing style to that “of a joke or a campfire tale, which is very structured. It seems easy, but like a joke it needs a setup, a really interesting development, and a great punchline.”
But del Toro and fellow supernatural master Andre Ovredal, who directed, have managed to scare with care. Their curated monster mash-up, which hits theaters Friday, markets itself as a funhouse of horrors.
“These are books that parents feared and kids loved,” del Toro said. “And many of those kids are parents now. So they know that at the heart of this story there is sort of [a] joyful, fun, thrill ride.”
Del Toro, who originated the storyline, and Ovredal, the Norwegian director best known for “Trollhunters” and “The Autopsy of Jane Doe,” weaved together six tales from the books for the movie.
“Scary Stories” follows a ragtag group of teens whose small town in 1968 America lives in the haunted shadow of the Bellows family, whose spooky mansion houses the Bellows’ creepy, tortured daughter Sarah — who has written a book of horrors that come to life.
Del Toro, who won the Oscar for best director for 2017’s “The Shape of Water” — which also won Best Picture — likens the plot to 2006’s “Pan’s Labyrinth,” as both deal with “a book that writes itself depending on who is holding it.”
Ironically, the film’s supernatural aspects — one of the elements that made the books so controversial to some parents — are, in some way or another, explained and reasoned with by the finale.
Yet questions surrounding its more human issues and concerns — abandonment, betrayal, isolation, and selfpreservation — are left hanging in the air.