L ATIMES.COM/CALENDAR FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 2019E7
Thrills to give children the chills
sonal demons along the way.
Yes, that also sounds like
Stephen King’s “It,” only the
PG-13 version that sacrifices
blood, sex and traumatic vi-
olence for exhilarating icki-
ness and loud jump scares.
(So more like “Stranger
Things,” because again,
nothing’s new anymore.)
It’s also mildly political in
setting, in that the year is
1968 in sleepy Mill Valley, and
young men are being sent to
Vietnam, Nixon is soon to be
president, and a new teen-
ager in town named Ramon
(Michael Garza) is quickly
tagged as a suspicious
“other.” Anchoring the nar-
rative, though, is horror
nerd and child of divorce
Stella (Zoe Colletti), an in-
troverted high schooler who
reluctantly agrees to a Hal-
loween excursion with out-
cast pals Auggie (Gabriel
Rush) and Chuck (Austin
Zajur). Once Ramon joins
their group after a con-Oscar-winning horror-
meister Guillermo del Toro
has put kids at the center of
his movies before — “Pan’s
Labyrinth,” “The Devil’s
Backbone” — but they’ve
been decidedly adult in their
themes and terrors. What
would Del Toro-lite be like
when adapting a hair-rais-
ing favorite from the glut of
preteen horror series out
there?
It makes sense, then, that
scare cinema’s King of the
Monsters chose the late
Alvin Schwartz’s popular
but controversial “Scary
Stories to Tell in the Dark”
book series, first published
in the early ’80s, as a vehicle
to recruit new pint-sized
horror movie fans. Spare
bites of the macabre culled
from folklore, Schwartz’s
campfire-ready classics
evoke a recognizable world
visited by the spectral,
strangeand sometimes just
plainly evil, while Stephen
Gammell’s famously eerie
ink drawings — like the dis-
turbed scrawls of a lunatic —
were graphic enough to trig-
ger book bans across the
country.
But the anthologies ar-
en’t linked by any grander
story line, so sibling screen-
writers Dan and Kevin
Hageman and director An-
dré Ovredal (“Trollhunter”),
working from a story by pro-
ducer Del Toro along with
Patrick Melton and Marcus
Dunstan, take a very trendy
approach. They wrap some
of Schwartz’s more viscer-
ally creepy tales (scarecrow
revenge, a toe-hunting
corpse, the ghastliest zit
ever) inside the skin of a rol-
licking horror adventure in
which a plucky group of
teens unravel a haunted
house mystery with ties to a
town’s past sins, facing per-frontation with school bully
Tommy (Austin Abrams),
the quartet break into the
town’s own haunted man-
sion, which once housed the
troubled, mill-owning Bel-
lows clan, long since van-
ished under odd circum-
stances. A few laughs and
cobwebbed freak-outs later,
Stella discovers a dusty
book: creepy yarns hand-written by Sarah Bellows,
the locked-away family pa-
riah whose storytelling was
blamed for a series of town
deaths. Stella takes the book
home, only to find new tales
appearing in blood-red ink,
starring her friends as vic-
tims. Suddenly a dead wom-
an’s imagination becomes
these teenagers’ realities.
Unsurprisingly, the in-
vestigation into the scares
isn’t nearly as fun as the liv-
ing-nightmare set pieces —
explained frights always
take a back seat to unteth-
ered nastiness running
roughshod. So once a draggy
period ends, Ovredal and
the effects team get plenty of
mileage — both digitally ren-
dered and model-sculpted
—out of their woolly, Gam-
mell-inspired monsters, es-
pecially their grisly take on
the disembodied invader
from the story “Me Tie
Dough-ty Walker!” and a
shuffling, misshapen figureresembling a doll-woman.
The kids are a mixed bag
of mannered personalities,
but lead Colletti is a keeper,
effective at simultaneously
conveying the sadness of an
emotionally struggling kid
and the spark of a heroine
sharp enough to see through
a dangerous game against a
deadly spirit. Her Stella,
along with Garza’s engag-
ingly serious Ramon, make
an appealing Scooby team
when it comes to the story’s
not-so-hidden message of
outsider solidarity, looking
past surface fears and find-
ing one’s inner strength.
If you’re not in the mood
for messages or social com-
mentary, however, “Scary
Stories” is still fertile enough
with its accessible gross-
outs and giggle shocks to
serviceably add to a legacy of
kid-centric mainstream
mayhem Del Toro clearly
loves, and won’t be stopping
anytime soon.CBS Films / LionsgateAMENACINGscarecrow is part of the gruesome action in the Guillermo del Toro-produced film adaptation of the book series “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.”
‘SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK’
AT THE MOVIES: REVIEWS
After decades of Mafia
movies, the genre often
struggles to shock and sur-
prise audiences who think
they’ve witnessed every it-
eration of organized crime
onscreen. But the opening
moments of Italy’s “Pira-
nhas,” which feature a band
of wild teens and tweens
wreaking havoc in Naples,
are arresting, engaging even
seen-it-all viewers with a
story of young criminals who
quickly graduate from mis-
chievous misdemeanors to
violent felonies.
Teenage Nico (Francesco
Di Napoli) looks barely old
enough to shave the angular
planes of his face, but the al-
lure of fancy clothes and a
better life draws him to work
for local crime families. He
begins by selling drugs and
collecting money from local
merchants, though his am-
bitions soon launch him and
his family into more danger.
“Piranhas” drags in mo-
ments, but it jumps from
scene to scene as quickly as
the boys weave through
Naples on their scooters.
The film races at speeds so
fast that viewers won’t find
themselves bored, even if
they’re jarred a bit by the
transitions.
Based on a novel by “Go-
morrah” scribe Robert Sa-
viano (who also co-wrote the
screenplay with Maurizio
Braucci and director Clau-
dio Giovannesi), “Piranhas”
is another gripping story of
crime in Naples, as filled
with grit as the city’s wind-
ing streets. This drama isn’t
as masterful as “Gomorrah”
but the handheld camera-
work and spare use of score
suck us into the crimes, all
the more chilling because of
the age of their perpetrators.
—Kimber Myers“Piranhas.”In Neapolitan
with English subtitles. Not
rated. Running time: 1 hour,
52 minutes. Playing: Land-
mark’s Nuart Theatre, L. A.Simone FlorenaMusic Box FilmsTEEN CROOKon the rise Nico (Francesco Di Na-
poli) chats with Letizia (Viviana Aprea) in Naples.
‘PIRANHAS’
Young criminals
on prowl in Italy
The eponymous 15-year-
old Afro-Latino teen in
Brazilian American film-
maker Alexandre Moratto’s
empathy-inducing “Socra-
tes” roams São Paulo’s im-
poverished neighborhoods
in the aftermath of his moth-
er’s passing. He knocks on
familiar doors, hoping that
someone can provide under-
standing and shelter.
Underage Socrates
(Christian Malheiros) oscil-
lates between stoicism and
crushing wails, unable to get
hired to support himself and
prevent being sent to his es-
tranged father. Revealed via
portioned exposition, the
complications of his plight
slowly come into focus.
The writing by director
and co-scribe Thayná Man-
tessois deft and pithy, and
there’s a rawness of spirit in
both the stellar central per-
formance and the film’s so-
cial realist aesthetic.
As Socrates endures grief
and battles homelessness,his friendship with Maicon
(Tales Ordakji) corrobo-
rates that concealing their
nature is required to survive
their environment, where
faith-based prejudices and
ignorance reign.
Inspired by Moratto’s
volunteering work with the
Querô Institute, a UNICEF-
backed organization advo-
cating filmmaking as a tool
to empower at-risk youths,
and produced in direct col-
laboration with its partici-
pants, the blistering sincer-
ity in “Socrates” is not fabri-
cated but channeled from its
authentic source.
Cinematographer João
Gabriel de Queiroz’s camera
walks alongside the bruised
warrior, watching for the
tide of life to shift in his favor.
—Carlos Aguilar“Socrates.”In Portuguese
with English subtitles.
Not rated. Running time: 1
hour, 11 minutes. Playing:
Laemmle Music Hall.Breaking Glass Pictures
LEFTmotherless and homeless, a Brazilian teen
(Christian Malheiros) tries to support himself.‘SOCRATES’Brazilian gay teen
awaits open doors
A few moments in writer-
director Christina Cooper’s
Los Angeles-set love story
feel transcendent: its engag-
ing opening minutes, a col-
or-saturated party scene
and a poetic montage about
a budding romance.
These well-lit, well-shot
bits might anchor the indie
“South Central Love” for a
brief time, but they ulti-
mately feel pulled from a
more well-realized film.
What surrounds them is
largely trite and artificial, a
morality play with little
depth in the creation of its
characters.
Davonte (Jamal Hender-
son) and Bria (Cooper) fall
fast and hard for each other
— so fast, in fact, that their
first declaration of love
might feel abrupt even for an
audience familiar with
young romances on screen.
But the dangers of his
South Central neighbor-
hood threaten to come be-
tween them, with her familythinking she can do better
while violence begins to en-
gulf Davonte’s entire world
despite his efforts to escape.
We’ve seen the story at
the heart of “South Central
Love” before; but as the
young man from the wrong
side of the tracks, Hender-
son makes a charming lead.
Cooper’s script is at its
best in its quieter moments;
the dialogue between char-
acters feels more like lec-
tures at the audience about
the evils of gangs and prosti-
tution than real conversa-
tion.
“South Central Love”
tries to deal with heavy is-
sues with grace, but its
clumsiness undercuts its
message.
—Kimber Myers“South Central Love.”Not
rated. Running time: 1 hour,
20 minutes. Playing: Ahrya
Fine Arts; Cinemark
Baldwin Hills; Downtown
IndependentChristina Cooper Productions
CHRISTINACooper as Bria, left, and Jamal Hender-
son as Davonte play a young couple from L.A. in love.‘SOUTH CENTRAL LOVE’Finding love in a
hopeless narrative
‘Scary Stories
to Tell in the
Dark’
Rated:PG-13 for
terror/violence, disturbing
images, thematic
elements, language
including racial epithets,
and brief sexual references
Running time: 1 hour,
48 minutes
Playing:In general releaseA preteen horror book series jumps to the big screen in a frightfully gleeful way
By Robert Abele