‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’ Gets Summer 2019 Release Date

There’s a good chance you probably remember reading Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as a kid. These terrifying anthologies were collected from popular folklore and paired with chilling illustrations. How could you ever forget the one with the spiders crawling out of that lady’s bloody cheek? All of those withered faces and skeletal eye sockets and surreal figures in such a nightmarish illustration style—horrifying, for its intended audience of children. If the illustrations didn’t freak you out, then the urban legends and folk tales inside surely did the job. And now, Alvin Schwartz’s bestselling children’s book series is hitting the big screen.

Master storyteller and horror aficionado Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) is bringing Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark to a new generation of audiences next summer. The film adaptation from Lionsgate and CBS Films is slated for release on August 9, 2019, with del Toro as writer and producer. The film will center on a group of teens as they solve the mystery surrounding “sudden and macabre deaths” in their small town. We’re wondering which of our favorite tales might make it into this scary summer release…

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark stars Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Abrams, Dean Norris, Gil Bellows, Lorraine Toussaint, Austin Zajur, and Natalie Ganzhorn. The film is directed by André Øvredal, with Daniel Hageman and Kevin Hageman writing the script alongside del Toro.

Which of these frightening tales would you like to see on screen?