Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) * *

Directed by:  Andre Ovredal

Starring:  Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Dean Norris, Austin Zajur, Natalie Ganzhorn

The turbulent period in which Scary Stories... takes place is scarier than the ghost story.   Ghosts are annoying.    They can kill people, scare people, haunt their dreams, but heaven forbid they actually say what's on their mind.    A lot of misunderstandings could be cleared up and innocent people wouldn't have to perish.    The ghost in Scary Stories... is that of a woman who hung herself in a sanitarium seventy years earlier, but she is taking her wrath out on the poor teens who visited the ruins of her family's old house and took one of the books.    Why don't these towns raze these houses?   I asked the same question when I reviewed IT.   I suppose they don't because they want to give the ghosts who reside there a chance to haunt it.

Scary Stories... takes place around Halloween 1968 in tiny Mill Valley, PA.   The presidential election is days away, and the political climate focuses on the Vietnam War which is hitting closer to home as teens are drafted.    Old friends Stella (Colletti), Augie (Rush), and Chuck (Zajur) go out trick or treating, run afoul of local bullies, and hide out in the car of Ramon Rodriguez (Garza) while at a drive-in movie.    Ramon is seemingly passing through, and isn't much welcomed by the local sheriff, who flagrantly espouses his racist view of Mexican-Americans.    Ramon tags along with the others when they go to visit the haunted house where Sarah Bellows, the aforementioned girl who hung herself, lived with her wealthy and powerful family. 

A book is taken from the house, and this enrages the ghost of Sarah enough to start knocking off the kids one by one in increasingly gruesome ways.    There is business of Sarah writing how each person will meet his end in the book moments before it happens and once she starts writing the stories, the subject is pretty much a goner.    Do we care all that much about Sarah and what happened to her?  Not really.  

Scary Stories... succeeds in recreating a time and place.    The clouds and gloom portend the uncertain future of the upcoming Nixon administration.    We learn Ramon's story and in the end he is boarding the bus to join the Army and fight in Vietnam.    The poor guy went from the frying pan right into the fire.