Written by: Sam Santiago
For an entire generation of horror fans, the real terror of elementary school wasn’t detention or homework. It was opening one of "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" books and accidentally locking eyes with one of Stephen Gammell’s nightmare illustrations before trying to sleep that night. These books were like GOLD in school libraries, we always looked for them and most often than not, they were already checked out! How these little tomes of terror made it into the public school system is anyone's guess, but from an elder millennial, we thank you, School Board of America, for scaring the crap outta us.
Seven years after Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark brought those childhood nightmares to the big screen, fans are still waiting for the sequel that was teased back in 2019. And according to director André Øvredal, the delay has little to do with creative problems and everything to do with corporate chaos.
Speaking recently with Slash Film, Øvredal revealed that Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 2 has been trapped in what sounds like a legal labyrinth involving multiple companies and tangled ownership rights.
“What I can say is that it’s been stuck in a bit of a copyright ownership hell with two studios that don’t exist anymore, that produced a movie together, CBS Films and EOne, and they don’t really exist anymore,” Øvredal explained.
“The rights spread out to two other companies, and then they have to agree to figure it out between them, and that has taken some time,” he continued. “We do have conversations about it once every couple of months, and there is currently some movement, I’m gathering.”
That means the sequel isn’t creatively dead. Yet we still don't see much sign of life either.
“But it becomes about legal departments and not about creatives, because we have a story that I love that is just ready to go whenever somebody decides, ‘I own the movie, let’s go make it.'”
The original film pulled material from Alvin Schwartz’s legendary trilogy, adapting several stories while weaving them together through a larger narrative involving Stella Nicholls, played by Zoe Colletti.
We still have our original copies of those books sitting on the shelf.
The worn covers. The pages that practically smelled like childhood anxiety. The illustrations that somehow felt more dangerous than anything else marketed toward kids at the time. Those books embedded themselves into the brains of horror fans for a reason, and there are still a ridiculous number of stories left untouched that could become incredible adaptations.
That’s part of why the sequel remains so frustratingly intriguing.
Now look, we weren’t huge fans of the first film overall. It often felt too restrained compared to the deeply unsettling atmosphere of the books, and some of the edges felt sanded down in favor of broader studio-friendly horror. But it also wasn’t a complete loss. There were flashes throughout the film where the nightmare fuel finally broke through. Whenever the movie fully embraced Gammell’s grotesque imagery, it reminded us exactly why these books terrified so many kids growing up.
Last reports indicated that Øvredal would return to direct the sequel alongside returning writers Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman. Whether the sequel continues Stella’s story or branches into a completely new collection of horrifying tales remains unknown.
Somewhere buried in those battered old paperbacks are still dozens of stories waiting to crawl out into the dark.