Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark gets trailer during Super Bowl LIII
By Mads Lennon
Guillermo Del Toro’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark finally gets three teaser trailers ahead of its summer release date.
When I was a kid I was way too scared to watch anything even mildly scary. I burst into tears during Halloween-themed Disney movies. But somehow, reading scary stories was tolerable, even enjoyable.
In between all the R.L. Stine novels, I came across Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, written by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell. My school’s library had the collection and I would terrify myself reading each one, sometimes with friends.
As I got older, I still appreciated the wickedness of Scary Stories and thought they would make for a great horror anthology television show or film series.
This summer there finally will be, with none other than legendary horror director, Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), at the helm. The horror community has been salivating for any information about the upcoming film and last night’s Super Bowl delivered with several teaser spots dropped throughout the night.
It appears the infamous Harold, star of the short story with the same name, will be a big part of the films as he features on the film’s poster and shows up in one of the teaser spots. Harold is the name of a grotesque scarecrow who comes to life and terrifies the farmers who create him.
Courtesy of CBS Films and Lionsgate
Also featured in the trailer is a scene from Red Spot, a young girl notices a large lump on her face with a spider leg peeking out. If you’ve read the story, you know this eventually results in her skin tearing and a horrifying amount of spiders bursting out of her face.
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If you remember Big Toe, in which a child finds a severed big toe and winds up bringing it home where his parents cook it into a stew, you’ll recognize a version of it one of the trailers too. In it, a child is hiding under the bed while a monster roams the room, a close-up on its foot reveals it is indeed missing its big toe.
Other visuals include a Black Lagoon-like creature climbing out of a bathtub, it looms in a doorway with skeletal arms in abnormal positions and teen looking down a long hallway glowing red with a repulsive being of some kind looming ever closer.
Similar to R.L. Stine’s live-action Goosebumps films with Jack Black, Scary Stories will feature an assortment of stories and inspirations from Schwartz’s books. It also appears the film has some horror-comedy elements, going by the tone of the trailers (particularly the Red Spot one) and the inclusion of Trollhunters director André Øvredal (The Autopsy of Jane Doe).
Supposedly the film will feature original stories too, and if they’re coming from Del Toro’s mind, I have no doubt they’ll be equally terrifying, if not more so, than those adapted from the books.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark will be released in theaters this summer on Aug. 9, from Lionsgate Films.
Next. Shudder's Don't Leave Home review. dark
Are you looking forward to Scary Stories? Are there any specific stories you hope get featured in the film? Did the teasers scare you at all? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!