Some
of the best horror stories come from folklore. After all, that is basically what
urban legends are. In the 1980s, Alvin Schwartz taught that lesson to legions
of budding horror fans. As a result, his beloved Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and its two sequels became some
of the most frequently challenged books in American school library history. This
year, Schwartz’s work will be the subject of two films: a live-action
adaptation produced by Guillermo del Toro coming later and Cody Meirick’s
documentary, Scary Stories, which
releases today on VOD.
Until
he wrote the macabre anthology
trilogy, Schwartz was basically a hack writer with scores of forgettable titles
to his credit. Sadly, he only lived to see the beginnings of the Scary Stories phenomenon. There is no
question his books paved the way for R.L. Stine (who appears in the film,
happily giving Schwartz his due) and Christopher Pike (who does not).
A
lot is made of efforts to ban the Scary
Stories from school libraries, clearly with the hopes of making
Bible-thumpers look like crude boobsies (to use Mencken’s term). However, you
have to give credit to Sandy Vrabel (Vandenburg), a former PTA president and a
one-time leading Scary Stories foe,
who appears in extended interview segments, sounding calm and rational throughout.
Meirick also earns credit for treating her fairly.
Stephen
Gammell’s eerie and admittedly sometimes gory illustrations are another major
focus of the film. Frankly, for many fans, his images are probably even more
important than Schwartz’s words, which made the publisher’s decision to release
an anniversary edition with new art so perverse. Yeah, sometimes we can really
shoot ourselves in the foot.
There
are probably a few too many reader testimonials in Meirick’s film, but it still
features a good deal of worthy popular cultural history. Frankly, this is a tricky
film to assess, because it should hold most horror fans’ short attention spans.
However, if we had to pay a few dollars for the privilege of watching it, our
expectations might have been higher and our response might have been duly
tempered.
If
nothing else, Meirick’s Scary Stories will
provide a great deal of useful context to us film critics before the release of
the del Toro-produced film. Honestly, it is just rather nice to see a publishing
story get feature documentary treatment. Interesting but not essential, Scary Stories releases today (5/7) on
VOD.
