Guillermo Del Toro’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark cast & plot revealed

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Last week, it was revealed that Zoe Colletti would be starring in Guillermo del Toro and Andre Øvredal's big screen adaptation of Alvin Schwartz’s YA novel series SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK for CBS Films and eOne. Now, several fresh faces have been added to the cast, including Michael Garza (WAYWARD PINES, TIMELESS), Austin Abrams (PAPER TOWNS, GANGSTER SQUAD), Gabriel Rush (THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, LITTLE BOXES), Austin Zajur (KIDDING, FIST FIGHT), and Natalie Ganzhorn (WET BUM, MAKE IT POP).

In addition to unveiling the ensemble cast of the upcoming horror feature, a brief synopsis has also crept from out of the shadows. In SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK a group of horrific deaths have impacted a small town and it’s up to a group of teens to solve them. It's a bare bones description, I'll give you that, though it is better than the nothing we've had, up until this point.

Recently, while speaking with Deadline about their quest to find the perfect group of young stars to bring the time-honored book series to life on the big screen, Øvredal, who is set to direct the adaptation, said "We spent months searching for and assembling the perfect group of actors to help us realize the most terrifying adaptation that we could conceive.” Del Toro, who is producing and screenwriting for the project then added, “I am honored to support Andre’s vision and, with our partners, to bring the incredible world of Scary Stories to the screen.”

As a longtime fan of the series, I'm hoping that SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK presents audiences with a truly frightening film version of the tales that terrified me as a child. While the tone of the film has yet to be discussed, there's a very large part of me that wants this feature to go in the polar-opposite direction of the Rob Letterman-directed GOOSEBUMPS, which, while fun, was a family affair through and through. It'd be cool to see Scary Stories arrive as a bonafide horror film, with a hard PG-13 to R rating, if possible. Here's hoping that Kevin and Dan Hageman, who co-wrote the screenplay for THE SHAPE OF WATER with del Toro, can deliver a bone-chilling adventure inspired by the many stories shared within Schwartz’s collection of formidable folklore.