Scary Stories (from a Dark Allie)

I don’t have too much to say about this one, but I did like it. I mean, it is about family and love and loss, after all.

This one is weird. And I know, I know, I like weird – and I do like this movie – but it’s still weird. And it takes on a subject that’s really easy to do poorly and offensively.

I was disappointed with this one. I blame myself on that front, because I went into this with my expectations way too high.

I never saw this until tonight. I remember really really wanting to see it when it came out just over twenty years ago but for one reason or another it never happened. So I was excited about getting to watch it for this blog, and even more excited when I realized it would fit into a Throwback Thursday review quite nicely (after July 18, of course).

I’m surprised I only just learned this existed. It’s got a pretty high-profile cast (Radha Mitchell and Kevin Bacon are the stars, but Paul Reiser and Ming Na-Wen make cameos as well!) and apparently a decent production crew.

I finally feel mostly caught up on sleep, but I don’t have much to say about tonight’s movie. I definitely liked it, though.

It had Sharni Vinson and Charles Dance! Both of whom were awesome (Charles Dance a bit more chilling in this role than the last role I saw him in, Sharni Vinson not quite as awesome in this role than the last role I saw her in).

The story is an interesting one, the setting a wonderfully creepy one (have I mentioned I like old abandoned buildings?), and the accents adorably Australian ones (well, except for Charles Dance and Rachel Griffiths, but that’s probably for the best).

So, I have a lot of thoughts about this movie but very few of them are cohesive enough to write out. I’ll start with this: I liked it. I liked it quite a bit. It was reasonably well acted and there were moments when it was downright terrifying.

So I liked it. But it definitely wasn’t perfect. I say it was well acted, which is true, but I didn’t buy the roles for the two sisters – having only seen Sofia Black-D’Elia (Emma) as Sage in Gossip Girl and Analeigh Tipton (Stacey) as the girl next door in Crazy, Stupid, Love I just couldn’t get behind that casting decision. I would have switched the girls’ roles if this were my movie.

I was mostly excited to finally watch a Sunday night movie that wasn’t part of the Saw franchise, with just a little bit of anxiety about having to find another film to watch. Then I found this one.

And let me tell you, it almost makes me wish there were another Saw movie to have watched instead.

Okay, so maybe choosing what movie to watch based on the fact that James Marsters is in it wasn’t the best route to a good horror movie, but one with James Marsters and Tony Todd? I expected better than this. This was bad. Not completely unwatchable, but close to it.

Amazon recommended this to me and I figured it was seasonally appropriate so I figured I’d give it a shot. I liked it way more than I thought I would.

I say that mostly because this movie didn’t seem sure of what it wanted to be and I usually hate that in a film. Somehow it worked for this film?

It wasn’t quite a horror comedy, but it was funny (and not in that terrible, so bad it’s funny kind of way). It wasn’t quite a parody either.

I’m still really tired so this is still really short.

I like this one. The acting is great (even the kids!), the story is interesting, and it’s definitely creepy.

It’s a bit slow at times but not overly so. It’s not too graphic or disturbing but it might give you nightmares for a while.

I don’t really have much to say about this one. I liked it for the most part. It’s an anthology of three stories (plus a wrapper story) and they’re all pretty entertaining.