SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK
Legend Has ItWWW.SCIFINOW.CO.UK |^045
SCARIEST STORIES
All three volumes of Alvin
Schwartz’s Scary Stories To Tell
In The Dark drew from folklore
and urban legends and wove
them into an anthology series that
is guaranteed to give even the
pluckiest of children nightmares.
Here are some of the best...THE BABYSITTER
A young woman receives a phone
call while babysitting one night.
“Check the children,” says a voice.
She shakes off the call and watches
TV instead. The phone rings several
more times, each time with the
same message, and each time the
babysitter hangs up. Annoyed,
she finally informs the police, who
decide to trace the next call. After
the stranger phones again, the
police tell the babysitter to leave
the house immediately and arrive
on the scene. The calls were coming
from inside the house, and the
caller phoned after murdering the
children upstairs.HIGH BEAMS
While driving one night, a woman
is alarmed to find a car has been
following her for some time. Not
backing down, the driver flashes
his high beams at her, tailgates her,
and even starts ramming her car
with his own. Heart pounding, she
finally makes it home after giving
the driver the slip, only to find that
he was trying to warn her that
there was a murderer hiding in the
backseat. Each time the killer sat up
to attack her, the other driver flashed
his lights or rammed her with his car
and the killer ducked back down.THE RED SPOT
While holidaying in an exotic
location, a young northern woman
spends her time on the beaches,
relaxing and soaking in the sun’s
rays. But her time in paradise
quickly goes to hell when she is
bitten on the cheek by spider. It’s not
long before the spider bite swells
into a large boil, so the woman
decides to get it looked at by a
doctor. After poking and prodding,
the doctor lances the boil, only to
find that the spider had laid eggs
inside her face and hundreds of
tiny spiders come running out. The
woman goes insane from the shock.Though Øvredal was commanding the
ship, he admits that del Toro’s influence is
clear throughout the film. “From the script
to the designs of the creatures, there’s so
many elements of him in this for sure, and
I think people will be able to recognise
them. I do believe an interesting thing is
that I have a realist approach and he has a
fantastical approach, and I think there is a
very interesting balance between those two
elements, and that we’ve created something
hopefully unique.”
Del Toro has been deeply involved
throughout, says Øvredal, especially during
the editing process. The pair worked closely
with a whole team of studio producers,
figuring out the tempo of the film and
realising the horror film that Øvredal wanted
to create. “Nobody knows as much about
filmmaking as Guillermo,” says Øvredal.
“I’ve been working with him for the best part
of a year, and I definitely think I’ve come out
the other side a better director.”
Though del Toro is a huge draw in
anybody’s eyes, the script also caught
Øvredal’s attention. Upon reading it for thefirst time he fell in love with it instantly. “I
would never direct a movie without loving
the screenplay,” he tells us. As soon as he
finished it, he was struck with a feeling that
he could really make the film his own.
“That’s such a great feeling because it’s so
hard to find scripts that you just instantly,
emotionally and professionally connect
with,” he continues. “I understood the
kids, I understood the tone, I understood
everything. I have my own version of it,
obviously, but I was desperate to make it as
soon as I read it. I was so happy knowing
that Guillermo [and the producers] also liked
me and Jane Doe. I felt really protected.
There’s been a team of people around me,
and I’ve been supported for the entire
process. It’s my first kind of Hollywood
movie and we’ve all heard the horror stories
of how badly they can go, but I really felt to
welcome by all these people. They believed
in my vision of it. That’s been a big part of
the reason I dared to do it.”Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark is in
cinemas from 23 August.Never, ever read from
a creepy book...
...especially when it’s
in a creepy house.