Halloween Picks: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

I am going to take a different approach today in my Halloween picks.

Earlier I wrote an essay about the legend of Sleepy Hollow and the various incarnations of the story on the screen.

Last year around Halloween I had seen a documentary on the Chiller Channel titled the future of fear and I noticed some things.

I noticed that my generation is the future of horror and that we have been inspired by the films of the past.

Last year after Halloween a friend of mine came into my home and I was told that no filmmaker watches the movies of the past that other people have done and they go nowhere. He also told me that Fanboys go nowhere.

Well I have done some research of my own and I have found out that it is the reverse is also true.

The Future of the horror genre are the people that were influenced by the past.

We are the children that have grown up with the movies of the past like the generation that came before us.

Many of my own heroes in the genre were influenced by the classic movies of their childhood. They have all spoke about going to their local movie houses and watching the films of Roger Corman, Vincent Price, Ray Harryhausen. Lucas, Spielberg, Carpenter, Craven, and many others have cited the films of the past as the inspirations of the movies that they have made.

Their movies have inspired a generation of young filmmakers to make the films that they make. I have seen many cite Jaws, Halloween and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre as the inspiration for the films and the directions that their careers have taken.  

The other place that a filmmaker can find inspiration is in books. Many have been inspired by Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Dean Koontz, among others.

I have taken a look at many of the films and Television shows that are on now and I can see where some of the inspirations come from.

To some of us those inspirations came when we were in Elementry School with ghost stories and urban legends and folklore.

One such series of books that was an inspiration for me was a series written in the 1980s by Alvin Schwartz titled Scary Stories to tell in the Dark.

Scary Stories was a series of books consisting of short stories with a strong emphasis on Folklore and Urban Legends.

Stories like the Hook which is by far one of the most famous urban legends which I know that many of you have heard as well as frightening stories like the Thing and funny stories such as The Ghost with Bloody Fingers.

Scary Stories also features songs and games that can be played or sung at parties around Halloween or late at night at a campout or a sleep over.

The best part of Scary Stories to tell in the dark is the fact that the stories are accompanied with two important elements. The first element is the inclusion of instructions by the author on how the reader should tell these stories to their friends around the campfires or by candlelight.

 

Some of the stories have a strong emphasis on lines in the stories where the teller needs to shout out certain words after reading the stories in a soft tone.

There are other stories where the reader is told to pause and ask why a character screams and then you are instructed to say “Well you would scream too if you stepped on a nail in your bare feet.

 

The other element that makes the appeal of these books also led to a controversy, which I will allude to later on and that is the illustrations from artist Stephen Gammell.

In my opinion the artworks is far more frightening than the stories and are the perfect companions to the Schwartz’s writing.

 

In the series the books are separated into many different chapters such as the jump stories, the funny stories, and the ghost stories. With the exception of the third book the chapters are marked by the Gammell’s artwork.

The first book the chapter marks all feature a strange ghoul wearing a hat doing various activities that are relevant to the chapter. The second book the chapters are all marked by a bat like creature.

 

As I said Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was highly popular among young readers across the country and the sequel More Scary Stories to tell in the Dark was made and the third Scary Stories 3 followed in 1991, both books were written by Schwartz and featured Gammell’s illustrations.

Sadly Schwartz passed away in 1992 I year after the publication of Scary Stories 3 bringing the series to an end.

However the popularity of the series was an issue with PTAs and school administrators and the book was often banned from school libraries and was one of the books most challenged by the American Library Association for the violence and the macabre artwork.

All three of the books were given the books on tape treatment and were read by stage actor George S. Irving.

 

Recently I was surfing around on the internet and I found some short films on YouTube that are based on the Scary Stories to tell in the Dark series.

 

Many of them feature the audio stories with Irving’s narration and Gammel’s artwork while others feature 3d modeling.

Some of the videos are clearly ameturish but they are still entertaining.

 

There are even some that are actual films featuring no narration but is a decently made film of the film school variety as well as some animations.

 

Recently the publishing company decided to release a 30^th anniversary edition but many of us that were fans of the original works are boycotting the release because the decision was made not to include the original artwork.

The artwork that is being included is drawn by Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events artist Brett Helquist.

Personally the original artwork should be included for the anniversary edition as the fans of the original should have that option to have that edition as well as the choice to show our children those works.