I can't explain how excited I was when the trailer for this movie came out. This book was a staple in my childhood. I don't know why we were allowed to have it. It's funny because I read online that it was targeted towards grades 3-5. My sister must have picked it up at the Scholastic Book Fair that they used to have at elementary schools all the time. It's still funny because we went to Catholic school so I have no idea how that book slipped in through the cracks. No idea why our parents let us have it either. But we loved it. I know we had the first Volume for sure, maybe the second. The stories themselves weren't the scary part about the book. We would bring them out camping or road trips or what not and read them. My sister and I really liked to scare the shit out of ourselves when we were little too whenever we had sleepovers on vacations or something. Like I'm probably 6 and she's probably 8 at the time. We'd stay up late and read them underneath the covers with a flashlight. The illustrations were absolutely TERRIFYING. I feel obligated to include some just in case anyone didn't know the children's book was a thing.
So anyways. When the movie was announced I was super excited. They revealed Guillermo del Toro (famously known for Pan's Labyrinth and The Shape of Water) was producing it, I knew they were going to NAIL the imagery. In my opinion, they did. They stayed true to the original imagery and that's what I was most nervous for. In fact, it was even scarier. I thought the monsters were absolutely terrifying. Was it effects? Makeup? Actors? The scenes where the monster (The Jangly Man) from "Me Tie Doughty Walker" (from the first book of the series) appears and it's just incredibly terrifying. The voice and everything. The pieces of his body align and create a completely unsettling figure that's put together all wrong and it just crawls around screaming. So scary! Anyways. Story starts out in 1968 on Halloween in a town called Mill Valley. I really liked this film so I'm going to do my best avoiding just explaining the whole thing so ya'll can have a chance. So the story centers around a group of kids (Stella, Ramon, August, Charlie and his sister Ruth). On Halloween the kids decide to skip trick or treating and go to this condemned and apparently haunted house. The story behind the house is that there was a lady there that used to lure children in with stories and then poison them. Her name was Sarah Bellows. She is a character from the original story from the book called "The Haunted House" She allegedly hung herself in the house by her own hair. They used this story basically to round out the movie. The kids are in the house running around until they get scared. Then Stella decides it's a great idea to steal a book that belonged to her on their way out of the house. Stella takes the book home, like an idiot, and starts reading it. As she is reading it however, the empty pages in the book begin to write themselves in blood before Stella's eyes. I've done it again. This is the third movie in a row where the story is being written while the movie is going. It's not exactly "META" like New Nightmare, but the book is definitely determining what happens to the kids one by one. So the first story is written. First victim is claimed. Stella starts freaking out because his name was used in the new story that was written in the book before her. She explains it to her friends who don't question anything at all. Incredible use of one of my favorite stories from the first book, "Harold". (This is my sad attempt at trying to be spoiler free. Trying. Learning. New blog okay.)
So the next night Stella and Ramon are reading the book and a story starts getting written about one of their friends. It's amazing. The monster is absolutely terrifying. My biggest problem is that one of these scenes was almost completely revealed in the extended trailer - so we already knew what she looked like and everything. I absolutely hate that about trailers. I saw an online review claiming that this movie is "training-wheels for children for horror". It's not completely inaccurate. But there are some really terrifying scenes in this movie. And the spoilers... As it continues, more stories are being written in the book and things keep happening. Eventually they find out that Sarah didn't kill herself in her house. Her family condemned her to a mental ward where she was tortured. By her own brother non-the-less. It's revealed that Sarah didn't torture any children, but instead that her family had put mercury into the water supply that went to their house. They blamed Sarah and threw her into the mental ward because she was trying to reveal to the town what was happening. So they're left to figure out how to stop the stories from being written. But the questions that are left unanswered for me are: 1. The police had suspected Ramon of someone's disappearance initially. But they just let go of that 2. A tonne of kids are missing and no one is really looking for them. 3. A cop dies while they are in custody and no one asks them how they escaped or what happened to the cop. 4. Do the kids come back after Sarah learns to let go of her anger? The movie is obviously set up for a sequel. Stella is clenching the book and saying, "We will find our friends, we will use the book to find out." Movie ends. It's cute. It reminds me a lot of "It", not in writing, but in how the story is centered around kids. It makes a horror movie a lot less terrifying because it always has a little bit of a PG kind of feel. It's not to say that the movie wasn't good. The special effects and imagery were amazing and I jumped a few times for sure. The story is interesting enough, although it does seem a little overdone. The movie is unique in a way that they used multiple old folklore style stories that really don't have anything to do with each other, and force them into the same story. It is gentle though. There's an odd happy ending and hope for the future and bla bla bla which I don't necessarily love in a horror movie. I could have done for more monsters or a touch of gore. But this is maybe a children's movie, is it not? Just as the books were for children? I'd love to see The Jangly Man again. He was the star for sure. A good watch. Your kids can watch it, they'll be fine.
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