Guillermo del Toro is one of the gurus of gore contributing to this sometimes icky YA-leaning horror compendium
Directed by Trollhunter’s André Øvredal, with script contributions from Guillermo del Toro and Saw graduates Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, this young adult-leaning horror compendium proves a mixed bag over the long haul, but its best segments offer an upgrade on those Goosebumps movies: more rigorously self-referential in their storytelling, with an appreciable edge that lands the whole with a 15 certificate.It feels like a film made to be snuck into.
Del Toro’s influence can be most keenly felt in the careful setting-up of its world: an
American Everytown – dateline: 1968 – that is anything but a nostalgic haven, beset as it is with oddly zomboid bullies, lopsided families and unaddressed traumas, not to mention Richard Nixon on TV each night, rallying his base. What goes on there digests several decades of small-town horror activity, setting local kids to laying old ghosts to rest; the fun lies in the film’s close correlation of words and images.