I knew very little about this film going in and, judging from the title, expected a horror anthology along the lines of Creepshow (1982). What I actually got was a very tired ghost story, one that treads familiar ground and regularly resorts to loud noises to try and make the viewer jump (or in the case of my friend, who fell asleep in the cinema, to wake them up).
Based on the books of the same name by Alvin Schwartz, and directed by André Øvredal (Troll Hunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe), the film follows a small close-knit group of high-school kids (as in Stranger Things and IT) who invoke the wrath of a vengeful ghost when they steal her book of scary stories. Each of the youngsters meets a fate in accordance with one of the stories in the book. The only way to stop the ghost is to unravel the mystery surrounding her death.
Øvredal delivers one or two nicely realised creepy creatures along the way (the monsters apparently faithful to the illustrations in Schwartz's books), but the pace is slow, the when the kids investigate the history of the ghost, the film grinds to a halt (which is around the point that my friend dozed off). The whole 'unravelling of the past to put a spirit to rest' idea is as old as the hills, and the film even includes that oft-told urban legend about the girl who has baby spiders burst out of her face (as already seen in 1987 horror The Believers and Urban Legends: Bloody Mary from 2005).
4/10. The anthology format I expected might have worked better.
Based on the books of the same name by Alvin Schwartz, and directed by André Øvredal (Troll Hunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe), the film follows a small close-knit group of high-school kids (as in Stranger Things and IT) who invoke the wrath of a vengeful ghost when they steal her book of scary stories. Each of the youngsters meets a fate in accordance with one of the stories in the book. The only way to stop the ghost is to unravel the mystery surrounding her death.
Øvredal delivers one or two nicely realised creepy creatures along the way (the monsters apparently faithful to the illustrations in Schwartz's books), but the pace is slow, the when the kids investigate the history of the ghost, the film grinds to a halt (which is around the point that my friend dozed off). The whole 'unravelling of the past to put a spirit to rest' idea is as old as the hills, and the film even includes that oft-told urban legend about the girl who has baby spiders burst out of her face (as already seen in 1987 horror The Believers and Urban Legends: Bloody Mary from 2005).
4/10. The anthology format I expected might have worked better.