Del Toro calls Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark a family horror film

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Guillermo del Toro and André Øvredal's adaptation of Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell's SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK will be upon us later this year. Yesterday we shared the film's FULL trailer to share with you guys and the movie looks scary as ten types of hell. Check it out below if you missed it. Now as freaky as this new trailer is, we've already let you guys know in the past that it Del Toro and company plan to make the film fit within the confines of a PG-13 film with Del Toro saying:

The anticipated rating is PG-13. I wanted to have standees that said, ‘You have to be this tall to see this movie,’ but somebody beat us to it, so what can we do [laughs]? But the idea is the books are a favorite among young readers, and I think that there are two or three generations of parents that know the books, too. So, it's really going to be a ride, but there is a safety bar in it.

And today we have an update on their plans as Del Toro and Øvredal recent spoke about their intentions for the film, with Del Toro going so far as to say he wants it to be a nice family horror film. Specifically, Del Toro says:

We wanted to make a family adventure. I want this to be a nice family horror film. Family is horror in itself, but sometimes, with milk and cookies, you can find something nice to watch.

Øvredal adds:

We didn’t wanna go too young, but we wanted to honor the fact that the books are for a younger audience. We wanted to honor the material and the stories.

From the looks of this trailer, I'm thinking they're going to have trouble securing that PG-13 rating. But I guess we'll see sooner rather than later. What do you think? Let us know below! Meanwhile, here's the movie's updated synopsis:

It’s 1968 in America. Change is blowing in the wind…but seemingly far removed from the unrest in the cities is the small town of Mill Valley where for generations, the shadow of the Bellows family has loomed large. It is in their mansion on the edge of town that Sarah, a young girl with horrible secrets, turned her tortured life into a series of scary stories, written in a book that has transcended time—stories that have a way of becoming all too real for a group of teenagers who discover Sarah’s terrifying home.

SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK is directed by André Øvredal from a screenplay written by Dan Hageman & Kevin Hageman based on a screen story by Del Toro and Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan based on the series by Alvin Schwartz. Del Toro, Sean Daniel, Jason F. Brown, J. Miles Dal, and Elizabeth Grave produce. The film stars Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Abrams, Dean Norris, Gil Bellows, Lorraine Toussaint, Austin Zajur, and Natalie Ganzhorn. CBS Films, Lionsgate and eOne will release the movie in theaters everywhere August 9, 2019.