It was late 2016 and making my way through their exceptional exhibit of Guillermo del Toro’s Bleak House, I suddenly found myself face to face with some of the most important work that museum has ever exhibited—the original art for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Stephen Gammell. The influence this series, and its devious illustrations had on generations of children cannot be overstated. Layers of abstract horror formed spontaneously from the page in Gammell’s chaotic pools of ink and charcoal creating monsters that seem unable to exist outside of the ephemera of nightmares. Such an influential work demanded a film adaptation but who could be trusted to make these terrors tangible where once they seemed bound by the logic of the two-dimensional page?

The answer we got seemed too good to be true. In an age where tactless vampires draw whatever vitality is left from our collective nostalgia, the mission to bring the series to the screen would be spearheaded by that same enthusiast, whose peerless sense of style and period is matched only by a deep appreciation of the horror genre. While del Toro would ultimately hand over the wheel to director André Øvredal, he would stay on as co-writer and producer and the resulting work bears many of the hallmarks of his previous efforts.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark follows Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti) and her friends Augie (Gabriel Rush) and Chuck (Austin Zajur), who are preparing to get revenge on a school bully, Tommy (Austin Abrams), on Halloween night when they end up getting chased into hiding in the car of an unsuspecting Ramón (Michael Garza). Despite the unwanted impedance, Ramón and the group become quick friends and head off to an allegedly haunted house with a dark past. Given the fact that the books are a collection of unrelated short stories, an anthology would have been the most obvious approach to tackling the subject matter but instead we get something in the vein of the Goosebumps films, drawing all of these familiar characters into a single universe with each of our main characters having a corresponding creature uniquely suited to what they fear most.

I love a good horror anthology, but the benefits of maintaining a contiguous linear narrative are obvious and allow for deep character development that would have been impossible had it needed to contend with a revolving roster of characters. With its PG-13 rating and themes of a group of high school kids banding together to defeat evil, it feels very much like a young adult fiction film, while at the same time pushing the envelope with frightening creature design and body horror that finds that same “is this really appropriate for kids?” balance of the original book series. This is a film that you can take the whole family to in that it’s devoid of nudity and adult language but young kids (and likely many adults) are liable to end up with nightmares as the film pulls no punches in the scare department and very little in terms of gore.

As the failure of recent adaptations of beloved childhood classics has shown, audiences can be brutal when creators fail to capture the essence of what made a design effective but as anyone who has seen the numerous preview trailers can attest, the designs here are as faithful to the source material as possible, making no concessions that might blunt the legendary revulsion they create. While I will always prefer practical effects where possible, the CG that is there captures the necessary weight to make these creatures seem tangible and there are still many practical effects, including prolific monster actor Javier Botet as The Toe Monster. Visually, it isn’t dripping with the same hyperreal style as something like a Shape of Water but it does capture the color palette of the late 60s where it’s set and the Victorian manor where many of its key moments are set seems too quintessentially spooky to exist in reality.

The Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series has some fantastic stories but its enduring appeal is based largely on the terrible beauty of its art. Film, however, can rarely survive on visuals alone and it’s the narrative and characters here that keep things interesting between those big monster showcase scenes. The main characters have strong personalities that set them apart from one another and personal struggles that make the viewer concerned for their well-being with a playful chemistry between them helping sell the concern they have for one another. The pacing is also handled masterfully, allowing each of the stories to breathe without lingering on one idea to the point where things might start to become stale.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark doesn’t have quite the dramatic bravado of del Toro’s more recent work and perhaps we would have gotten more of that had this been under his direction but this doesn’t need to be that sort of film. It’s a briskly-paced romp that manages to have a lot of fun while not letting up on the scares. Achieving broad cross-generational appeal is more often than not a fool’s errand but as the series has shown, it is not impossible, and Øvredal manages to find that same careful balance.